November 13, 2006

Improve Audience Engagement With On-Demand Presentations

When you can't deliver your Microsoft® Office PowerPoint® in person, a growing number of solutions can turn your presentations into stand alone on-demand multimedia experiences. These Flash-based presentations can then be delivered via e-mail, the web, CD-ROM or even iPod for training, employee orientation, manager communication, product demonstrations, you name it. Follow these five tips to successfully create and deliver on-demand presentations.

Turbocharge the PowerPoint experience
As a communicator, why should you be interested in on-demand presentations? According to leading online solution provider Brainshark, message retention is only 10% when a message is delivered via audio, 20% when it's read or viewed, but goes up to 65% when delivered orally and visually together. On-demand presentations allows you to reach audiences you may not be able to face to face, but also do it 24 hours a day with interactivity, tracking, and enabling viewers to control the experience. Here are tips for you to be successful:

1. Make your slides more visual
   Before, a static, e-mailed PowerPoint had to tell the complete message on a slide. A presentation with audio should have 75% fewer words on screen. In the voiceover, you can explain the concepts, while the slides will tell the story with just a few words, graphics, photos, charts and animated builds.
   
   
2. Keep them short
   Nobody wants to be stuck in front of a computer for an hour or two watching a presentation, no matter how exciting it is. Use the 10/15 rule. For information presentations, keep it to 10 minutes max (five is better). For training or orientation, keep your presentations to 15 minutes max. If you have an extensive amount of material to cover, break your presentation into smaller segments.
   
   
3. Keep the “must views” to a minimum
   Brainshark and software company Articulate have a feature that you can force viewers to listen to the complete audio and view the full presentation in its entirety. When you check this option, your viewers can't proceed to the next slide until they've viewed the whole thing. It's tempting to use this feature for every presentation. Don't. Keep it for the vitals only, such as a safety or policy presentation. For informational or sales presentations, allow the viewers to skip along. You can always . . .
   
   
4. Measure the results and adjust
   Use the metrics available in your software to see what viewers are doing. Are they viewing the entire presentation? Are they often exiting at a certain slide each time? Use that feedback to adjust the presentation. You may need to shorten a slide, break the presentation into chunks, or alter your messaging to reach your target audience.
   
   
5. Put the timely facts on the slides
   It's much easier to change and update a few slides than to re-record the audio for a large piece of a presentation. When possible, put the facts and figures on the slide, and explain the concepts in the audio. Isolate those slides in your presentation, so if you need to record new audio for one slide, it's easy to do.

For assistance with creating interactive presentations for your employees or other key audiences, contact Matthew Davis at:
1.800.399.5100 (Toll-free in the U.S.)
1.201.445.5100