Introduction
Presentations are notoriously known for being dull, boring things that nobody in their right mind would ever knowingly want to watch. Traditional presentations are full of meaningless fluff, tons of data that no one really cares about, and most people skip through them or miss key components because they’re just too bored to pay full attention.
If you want your presentations to really POP, to really speak to your audience and be as effective as possible, then you need to engage your viewers. Of course, most presentation creation software makes it impossible to make a truly engaging presentation. This is because most presentations are simple video.
But there’s a new way to make presentations that really stand out, delivering your message to a captivated audience that just can’t click away. They’ll be so engaged that they will read every word and actually absorb your message fully!
Read on, and you’ll learn the secrets to creating stunning presentations that will really grab attention and deliver your message!
Meet Prezi
Think about your standard presentation. Generally speaking, a presentation is just a video or live event where you learn a few facts and figures and you’re usually given some kind of action to take at the end.
There is one major problem with most presentations. You don’t generally pay much attention to them, because they are so dull and they aren’t interactive.
Well, a new presentation creation system aims to change all of that by allowing you to create custom, one-of-a-kind, interactive presentations that get people involved, thus making your presentations more effective than you could ever imagine!
Let’s take a look at a Prezi presentation:
>>http://prezi.com/5ye8po_hmikp/10-most-common-rookie-presentation-mistakes/
At first sight, this looks a bit like a standard infographic or video, however once you begin interacting with it, you’ll see some real “magic” happen. Each of the red circles you see in this presentation can be zoomed in to view it at full size.
Not only that, but you can zoom around the entire presentation by clicking and dragging inside the presentation window.
Even better than that? Each of these red circles can have its own additional content. For example, this one has a video that you can view:
Let’s take a look at another Prezi presentation (warning, this one plays music automatically!):
>>http://prezi.com/t9jovhggm3md/26-steps-to-follow-to-develop-your-website/
This presentation includes music, bold colors, and interesting icons to make it more vibrant and interesting. As you use the arrows at the bottom, you will navigate through the various elements of the presentation, and you can also drag it around to look at previous elements.
As you can see, this level of interaction makes it more likely that visitors will pay attention to your presentation, because they must actually interact with it in order to view it fully. Also, many presentations made with Prezi are entertaining in addition to being informative and useful, so they’re much more engaging than standard presentations.
Structuring a Great Presentation
When creating a presentation, it’s important to keep structure in mind as you create it. Structure is key, because you need to keep critical elements organized in order to deliver your message in a way that will really get your audience to absorb and understand it.
The best way to do this is to create an outline of all the key points you would like to deliver in your presentation. Ideally, this should be anywhere from 5-15 key points, but it could be more or less depending on the message you need to deliver.
If you try to add more than this, a few things will happen. First, people will get bored and leave before they finish your presentation. Second, people will forget the points you’ve made, rendering your presentation practically useless. Thus, it is better to stick to a small number of important points.
If you need to make more than a few points, create a second presentation. You can always link to another presentation from the first one if you need to. Just keep each one tightly themed.
Planning is so crucial that it cannot be stressed enough. Pick a few key points that you feel you must make, and outline those points to form the structure of your presentation.
Getting your Message Across
A presentation is only as good as the message you’re trying to get across. So what exactly is your message? If you don’t know, the audience sure won’t. Try to figure out what you want to say before you get started.
Remember one important thing:
You must have at least two main points for a presentation.
Why? Because you need to focus both on value for yourself and value for the viewer.
Yes, you’re creating the presentation as some kind of marketing tool. Whether your main goal is to get email subscribers, sell something, increase traffic or just increase brand awareness of your product or your name, you are marketing something.
But remember that your viewers don’t care about your message. They are there for something interesting or educational. As long as you provide that and focus on that, the rest of your message will come across much better than if you focused solely on your own message.
Not only that, but if your presentation is useful, people will share it and you’ll exponentially increase your reach!
Using Repetition
Repetition is a useful element in any presentation where you’re trying to drive home one point or a handful of points, because it reinforces your point until it sticks in the viewer’s mind and won’t let go.
Have you ever seen a television commercial that repeats the same thing over and over? Did it make you remember the point? Probably so. This tactic is used a lot in commercials, because it really works. It also works in speeches, online marketing, and many other areas.
Remember Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech? By repeating this phrase over and over, Dr. King helped usher in a new era in the civil rights movement, and it left a lasting impression on people for many years to come.
Pick one key point, find a suitable phrase to drive that point home, and repeat it several times in your presentation. Don’t overdo it, but using this phrase several times will let people connect with your point and truly remember it in a way that probably wouldn’t be achievable otherwise.
This could be anything from your URL, to your key marketing message, to your phone number, the name of your product, or anything else you really want to emphasize.
Using Pattern Interrupts
A pattern interrupt is an extremely powerful marketing tool that gets your audience to stop thinking they’re viewing a marketing presentation or sales pitch, even if only for a brief moment, allowing you to grab their attention in a way you otherwise wouldn’t be able to.
In sales, pattern interrupts are used to get prospects to listen to what you have to say. For example, instead of saying, “Hello, this is Jim Smith from ABC Agency calling about a new investment opportunity.” You might say, “Hello, did I catch you at a bad time?”
The reason this works is because the conversation tends to go like this:
Salesman: Hello, did I catch you at a bad time?
Prospect: Sort of. Who is this?
Salesman: This is Jim Smith with ABC Agency. If it’s a bad time I can call back. When would be more convenient for you?
Prospect: Now is fine.
You see, most people will just want to get your call out of the way, so they will openly invite you to complete your call at that time. This is basically an open invitation to sell them something!
The same tactics can be used online to increase people’s attention to your presentations. Basically, you want to get people to view your presentation by doing something unusual with it in the first few seconds they view it.
This could be anything, as long as it grabs attention in a way that differs from your average presentation and fits with the theme of your presentation.
Examples:
- Have a circus fanfare play at the beginning and show a video of clowns marching, leading into a presentation about how NOT to let your online marketing turn into a circus sideshow.
- Show a video of zombies groaning, “Braaaaaaaains!” before your presentation about how to keep something from being boring.
- Call the viewer out “personally” by looking directly at the screen and saying, “Hey, you. Yes, you!”
Make sure your pattern interrupt fits with the theme of your presentation, and don’t do anything that would potentially offend anyone. Otherwise, have fun with it!
Do’s & Don’ts for Interesting Presentations
Here are a few additional tips you can use to create better presentations:
- Don’t Include Too Much – Remember that if you try to include too much information in one presentation, you’ll overwhelm viewers. Include only enough information to support your main point.
- Plan Thoroughly – Be sure to plan your presentation carefully. Outline it before you get started and create your presentation around those few key points.
- Use Various Media – Don’t forget to include a wide variety of media to engage the audience and grab interest. Words alone cannot fully express and engage like sound, music, photographs, and videos can. Don’t add media just to add it but be sure it’s useful and helps better present your key points.
- Remember a Call-to-Action – Don’t forget to tell people what you want them to do after they view your presentation, whether it’s joining your email list, visiting your blog, buying your product, or simply taking action to use the information you presented.
- Create Value – One thing you should not do is focus solely on your message. Sure, you may be creating a presentation to get traffic to your blog, sales to a product, or subscribers to your mailing list, but people don’t care about that! What they want is something useful! Make sure your presentation provides truly valuable information. This will not only engage your audience, but it will help make it more likely that people will share your presentation, thus increasing your reach.
- Entertain – Just because a presentation is useful does not mean it has to be boring. If it suits your presentation, add some humor or fun to it! This could really spice things up and captivate your audience!
- Use Repetition – As mentioned earlier, use repetition to drive home your main point. This is an extremely valuable tip that can make everything you do online more effective! (And it was just done by repeating this point!)
This also bears repeating over-and-over:
Focus on benefitting the viewer! Make sure your presentations are valuable to the viewer, because then, and only then, will they be truly effective.
Conclusion
Now that you know a little more about Prezi, hopefully you’ll see that your presentations don’t have to be stuffy old videos that people don’t pay attention to.
They can be fun, interactive experiences that really grab attention and get your message across in a way that presentations never could before. This could really boost your business in ways you cannot even fathom unless you try it.
Presentations are easy to create, but great presentations take thought, planning and care to create. Be sure you remember the elements of repetition, pattern interrupts and careful structuring and outlining in order to make a great presentation.
Don’t forget that you must provide value not only to yourself, but your viewers, in order to make the most of every presentation you create. Focusing only on your own marketing message will not be effective!
Good luck with your presentations!
