How many times, when faced with the prospect of putting together a big presentation, do you plough straight in and work your way from start to finish? Okay, maybe you spend some time working on the sequence of the content using an outliner or some index cards. But once that's through, it's often a matter of choosing a nice looking theme and plugging all of that data in.
Photo credit: Andres Rodriguez
In today's tutorial from the ProPoint Graphics team you can get an interesting point of view from the design perspective. The secret of a well-integrated presentation is all in the pre-design phase. Here are the details:
Writing and Producing Business Presentations
When producing a business presentation, you need to first spec it before getting into presentation design or content. Determining, upfront, the goals of the presentation, how it will be presented and the target audience for the presentation will help you create the most effective and appropriate presentation for your specific needs.
Know your objective - focus your business presentation
Determine the goal of your presentation. Do you want to demo a product, convince investors of your company's viability, or attract leads at a trade show? What do you hope to accomplish? Until you know your objective, your content will have no structure or purpose, so having clear goals is the first key step in creating your presentation.
Know your audience - target your marketing or sales presentation
Who is the audience for your corporate presentation? Is your audience consumers or is your audience other businesses? What are the job titles? For example, are they C-level executives or your sales team? Knowing who your audience is will help you in determining the appropriate language, level of detail, primary focus. Who will be viewing your presentation should even influence how the information is presented - whether you choose flow charts and graphs or visual imagery and metaphors to get your message across.
Know your time budget - timing is everything
How long is your presentation? Are you a speaker at an event with a firm time limit? Or is this an internal company presentation that can be more open ended when it comes to time? Even if you have no external time constraint you should set a time budget based on how long you can keep your audience engaged. When timing your presentation a good rule of thumb is to budget 1 to 3 minutes per slide. And always remember to leave time for Q&A, introductions, and breaks (if necessary)!
Know your medium - tailor your presentation design
How will your presentation be viewed? Will it be viewed on a large projection screen or on a small computer monitor? Will it be printed and handed out or distributed on a CD? These factors affect resolution, multimedia components being included or not, types of animation that may be appropriate, even the color palette. Considering these factors upfront, will streamline your presentation design and make it more effective.
Know your presenter - presentation delivery is key
How will your presentation actually be presented? Live with a speaker, or automated at a kiosk or on disc? Choosing a live, narrated presentation or an automated presentation will affect items like navigation, level of slide detail, and whether or not you use a voice over or music in the background.
Conclusion: Always Plan Ahead!
If you consider these factors in advance and properly plan your presentation, you will save yourself time, money, and headaches. More importantly though, invest the time up front, and you'll have a more effective and successful presentation in the end.
Originally published as Writing and Producing Business Presentations by ProPoint Graphics
About ProPoint Graphics
ProPoint Graphics specializes exclusively in presentation services. They have expertise in corporate presentation design, rapid production, multimedia, and animation, with software expertise in PowerPoint, Flash, and graphic design application such as Photoshop and Illustrator.
