My personal favorite alternative: if you have a simple concept to convey, maybe you don't need a document at all. You can simply include the details of your offer directly in the body of a sales email and give your prospects all the information they need with fewer clicks. In ThIs FaSt PaCeD wOrLd, people appreciate brevity.
With tools like Microsoft Stream or Google Meet, it's easier than ever to record a video where you can share your screen to feature content or a demo. Instead of attaching the same generic PDF for every lead, imagine how much more effective and personal it is to send a video that you've curated to address their specific pain points or goals based on your initial discovery.
Tools like Notion Sites or any template-based website builder make it possible for anyone to build on-brand webpages without any website development experience. Sales teams can now create digital sales rooms or personalized web pages that summarize a deal, share notes from meetings, highlight key features/benefits, and tie it all in to the individual needs of your prospect. I couldn't find any great Notion templates for this which is crazy because you can do this on a free plan instead of paying another SaaS fee for a specialized service. I created one you can duplicate and repurpose, check it out here.
Instead of a PDF that says, "Our solution saves you time," imagine a web page that says “Based on what we've discussed, we can save your team X number of hours every week." Bonus points if you integrate with HubSpot and/or Docusign and use this as your contract tool. I love a frictionless sales experience and PDFs = friction.
If you absolutely must create a PDF, I’m sorry, but I'm still here to help. Think about whether this resource will need to be printed, in which case you're stuck with 8.5x11” dimensions. In these cases, I like to orient the page horizontally so that the page fills the screen a bit better if being viewed on a computer. If print isn't a priority, I really like side deck dimensions (1920x1080 px) to fill the full screen. This works best in my opinion for multi-page documents or booklets. Here are some other tips for working with PDFs:
It's easy to default to PDFs because many organizations have an information dump sales style. “We have 10 products and each one has these 7 features. Let’s make a catalog that dissects every single one and send it to every prospect regardless of what they want.” The reality is, they may only care about one or two features, and being able to adjust your content to focus on those will put you way ahead of the competition. I've worked with numerous businesses on their revenue operations and content strategy and would love to chat if you're currently looking to put something like this together (even if it’s a PDF). You can reach me here.