From Pitch Deck to Content Strategy: How Scale-Ups Should Evolve Their Story
- Caroline Warnes
- Sep 9
- 4 min read
You’ve just raised capital. The pitch deck that got you there feels like the heart of your business story. You’ve sweated over every line with advisors, investors and your core team. It's clear and persuasive. So why not use it as the foundation of your content marketing strategy?
In the heady scale-up days, when time and resources are your greatest foe, it's tempting to take every shortcut you can. If your pitch deck was good enough to convince some very wealthy and successful individuals to put their money behind your idea, then surely it's good enough to convince everyone else to buy in?
Unfortunately, what convinces investors rarely convinces your customers, employees or partners.
It comes down to language and purpose. An investor deck demonstrates to people who want financial returns that you have the idea and strategy to deliver them. A content marketing strategy connects with humans who have problems they need solved, preferably by what you're selling.
Both audiences are drawn to your idea, but from very different angles. The idea doesn’t change. What changes is how you translate it into the language of each audience.
Resist the temptation to upload your pitch deck into ChatGPT and ask it to turn it into a website. What you’ll get back is not a content strategy. It’s just your investor story dressed up as marketing copy.
From investor deck to customer story
The simplest way to show the difference the right audience lens makes is to put the language side by side. Here’s how your pitch deck language might translate when you’re speaking not only to customers, but also to potential employees or partners.
Investor deck language (before):
“We’re capturing a $10bn market opportunity with a category-leading AI platform.”
Customer-first translation (after):
“Our AI platform helps mid-market retailers cut inventory waste and free up working capital.”
Investor deck language (before):
“Our ARR has grown 3x year-on-year, proving strong product-market fit.”
Employee translation (after):
“In the past year, we’ve tripled our customer base. That momentum means more opportunities to grow your career in a company that’s shaping the future of retail tech.”
Investor deck language (before):
“We’re building the category leader in decentralised energy.”
Partner translation (after):
“We’re working with councils and utilities to put renewable power where it is needed most.”
So how do you get from investor pitch deck content to what comes next? It's not rocket science, but it does take a little structure and a clear view of who you are talking to. The core idea stays the same; what changes is how you frame it for the human in front of you.
This is where one of the foundations of B2B content marketing comes in: persona work. They help you step into your audience’s shoes long enough to see what really matters to them, and shape your story accordingly.
Personas in practice
If you’re reading this, you might be one of Only Good Content's personas: Scale-Up Simon(e).
You’re in the leadership team of a growth-stage company. Maybe you’re the founder. Maybe you’ve just stepped out of a senior corporate role because you saw an opportunity worth chasing. Either way, you’re juggling investors, customers and a team that’s growing faster than your processes can keep up. You are smart, pragmatic and pressed for time.
If I spoke to you in investor-deck language, e.g. “capturing a $10bn TAM with category-leading growth”, you’d switch off. What you actually need to hear from me is:
“Your buyers don’t care about market size. They care about whether you can solve their problem better than anyone else.”
Now imagine I was writing to another one of my personas, CMO Charlie. The idea doesn’t change, but the expression does. Charlie doesn’t want to be told their pitch deck isn’t a strategy. They already know that. They don't need a refresher on content marketing personas. What they need to hear from me is that their content can scale efficiently without sounding generic. So the message becomes:
“In B2B marketing, you don’t scale messages. You scale ideas. The narrative spine holds steady, but the language adapts for each audience. That’s how you scale content without it sounding generic.”
In fact, if you’d like to see how this idea translates to seasoned B2B marketing experts, I wrote about it here: Scaling B2B Messaging Across Personas: Why You Should Scale Ideas, Not Key Messages. The principle is the same: don’t stretch messages too thin. Scale your ideas instead.
From investor pitch deck to content marketing strategy
Your pitch deck is full of good material. It captures the heart of your idea and proves it has weight. But when it's time to scale up, the deck is only the starting point for a content strategy that works for customers, not just investors.
A deck convinces investors. A content strategy takes that same idea and translates it for customers, employees and partners. It's how you scale your story beyond capital raising into market building.
The idea stays steady. The language adapts for the human in front of you. That’s how you move from investor slides to a narrative that drives growth.
If this is the stage you're in, my Founder Marketing Kickstart is built for you. This quick-start engagement reviews the marketing you already have in play, then sets out a clear 90-day plan to tighten your story for key audiences and focus your efforts where they will have the greatest impact.
