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The Power of Presentations: Best Practices For Getting Your Messages to the Masses

Guest articles > The Power of Presentations: Best Practices For Getting Your Messages to the Masses

by: Payman Taei

One of the great things about visual communication, particularly in terms of online marketing, is that it is malleable. There are certain benefits that remain true regardless of whether you're talking about that Infographic you just shared on Twitter or that lengthy presentation you just created for your website.

Articles generated that contain some form of visual element tend to get as much as 94% higher views than those without, according to Jeff Bullas. Even a press release sent out with a relevant, timely and quality image will see an average of 14% more page views than ones without according to MDG.

Again, visual communication in the context of online marketing isn't a term that refers to any one particular thing. While it's predicted by ReelSEO that mobile video will make up 75% of all mobile traffic by 2020, this doesn't mean that you need to drop everything else you're doing and focus solely on creating video content.

Likewise, CMI revealed that 63% of online content marketers said that Infographics were the most effective tactic for their B2C organization - but this doesn't mean you need to devote every waking hour to creating Infographics for the foreseeable future.

Success in terms of visual communication-based online marketing will come down to knowing which element to embrace for the message you're trying to send and the audience you're trying to reach.

What's in a Presentation? Breaking It Down

Presentations, like so many other forms of visual marketing content, have their own unique strengths that almost no other format shares. Whereas an Infographic may be a perfect way to take data points, visualize them in a compelling way and make them tailor made for sharing on a site like Twitter, a presentation gives you the opportunity to go deeper. It lets you provide a slightly richer experience, while still taking advantage of what visual communication has to offer.

Think of the difference between a presentation and an Infographic like the difference between a blog post and a white paper. A blog post and a white paper are both text-based forms of collateral, but a white paper has higher expectations. A blog post may cover one topic as efficiently as possible, but a white paper is usually more professional. It's commonly a richer experience and people walk away with a wider depth of knowledge from a white paper than they will a blog post.

Presentations are similar in many ways. They still let you use data visualization to your advantage, but they do so in a way that lets you go deeper than other forms of visual communication and using a technique that lets you control elements like pace. In order to craft a perfect presentation, you need to use what the format uniquely offers to your advantage.

Crafting the Perfect Presentation

When crafting your ideal presentation, you'll want to keep a few key things in mind. For starters, remember that presenting isn't just about getting the right information in front of the right person at the right time, but also in the right way. A presentation needs to justify its own existence.

If the data you're trying to present or the story you're trying to tell doesn't feel like it requires a presentation in the first place, you can save both yourself and your reader a lot of time by using another technique.

When you create a presentation using a tool like Visme, you'll be in the best position to create the type of content that truly takes advantage of what makes it so unique. Visme lets you choose from hundreds of custom themes or start from scratch, helping to make sure that you get off on the right foot. It also allows your team to collaborate on presentations, allows you to create engaging presentations by adding action to objects, applying animations and embedding videos and audio.

One of the factors that separates a quality presentation from a quality Infographic is interactivity, so this is absolutely something you should embrace.

• A tool can help you bring your content to life in a way that you can't with something like an Infographic by allowing you to animate certain objects, add hyperlinks for additional context, experiment with pop-ups and transitions and more.
• You can also add video content, record voice over right inside the tool to literally become the presenter and more.

When creating your presentation, you'll also want to think about pace - or the rate at which the information you're trying to convey is experienced.

• You can isolate certain data points for maximum impact, forcing people to really stop and think about what you have to say.
• If there's a particularly impressive stat that you're trying to get across, put it on a slide by itself. Not only does it help to single it out, but by controlling the rate at which you're providing information to your reader you're actually taking a deeper level of control over the journey they're actually on.

Just because you can create incredibly long and thorough presentations, however, doesn't necessarily mean you should. Remember that in terms of the digital marketing experience, brevity is still mission critical. There's no better way to intimidate someone than to force them to sit through a presentation with 200 slides. Shorter is always better, but don't neglect the detail the medium allows you, either.

Presenting: Your New Marketing Collateral

In terms of visual communication and online marketing, it's important to remember that every technique you use does something a little differently from the next. A video, an Infographic and a presentation may all present the same data, but they shouldn't present it in the same way or even attempt to offer the same experience. They're all great ways to increase engagement, but they do so on their own terms.

If you really want to get your message to the masses and craft the perfect presentation, "ground zero" in your efforts will become learning how to use what makes presentations such an interesting format in the first place to your benefit.

Payman Taei is the founder of Visme, a simple tool to translate your ideas into engaging content in the form of presentations, infographics, reports, web content, product presentations or wireframes. Tell better stories and translate boring data into beautiful visual content right in your browser. Share or download using our all in one easy-to-use editor.

Contributor: Payman Taei

Published here on: 19-Feb-17

Classification: Presentation

Website: www.visme.co