The Ultimate Cheat Sheet on Digital Presentations
Digital presentations have many different formats and utilizations. Thee can be used for classroom presentations, new product launches, marketing vehicles such as websites, and many more. Each have their own specific requirements, but there are some common practices across all formats. This is especially true when attempting to instruct students, managers and employees, and targeted potential buyers. This blog loos at those best practices that relate to such digital presentations.
Getting Started
The best place is to start at the beginning. No matters the presentation format, you should start with answering the following questionsWhat are the objectives?
- What content do you want to deliver?
- How are you going to deliver the content so that your objectives are met?
- Remembering that content is king – how are you going to make your content meaningful and relevant? For some cases such as training digital presentations how are you going to make the presentation interactive?
Colors
For digital presentations color schemas are extremely important. Remember:
Bright colors can be distracting and hard on the eyes. Use off-shite and pastel colors to bring in brighter colors to highlight content. For presentation environments where a glare may occur, use off-whte colors.
Color Selection
- Color is never viewed in isolation but should be selected based on the environment that the color will be used in.
- Use bright colors for titles
- Keep your color schema simple. More colors is not better.
Fonts
Some guidelines for selecting fonts are:
- The selection of your font will depend on your audience.
- A 36 font size is suggested but no smaller than 24.
- Be consistent throughout your presentation
Graphics
- Even if it is the only graphic you have, if it is too small or blurry do not use it.
- Keep in mind any copyright considerations.
Check list for Digital Presentations
- Minimal text
- Attractive font choices
- Big and bold typography
- Smart use of icons
- Pictures and background textures
- A zero tolerance to typos
- 10 slides or less
- A focus on presenting key messages with clarity
- Lots of takeaways
- A little humour
Content Delivery
Use hyperlinks for documents videos, and websites.
- Speeds up transitions
- Retains resources with unit
When planning for a presentation, do not get get distracted by providing too much information, creating overly dense views, talking for an “impressive” amount of time, or overuse of audio.
Design
Use a company slide template. If you do not have one apply a clean and simple design based on the color palette and font of your brand for visual consistency. Use a minimal header and footer to give yourself plenty of space to maneuver the content as needed.
Content and Script
Use your website, if designed and includes targeted content, as a source for the presentation content. Make sure you have an effective cohesive story about your company, what your offering is and the benefits you can provide. Use large images and short bullets as visual. Use multiple slide for complex material.
A script is key to making sure the same message is consistently and coherently delivered. Make sure the presentation is customizable for each audience. A simple tweak you can always do is add your customer’s logo to the title.
Presenting
The pace of your Webinar, teleseminar or virtual presentation must be faster than your traditional face-to-face presentation. Do not talk faster, just make sure the tempo of your presentation is upbeat. You can’t afford to bore your remote audience or they will click away from your presentation.
Review your digital presentation several times, looking for opportunities to streamline it. If the information is not pivotal to your point, eliminate it. If it does not strengthen your message remove it.
Practice is key to a good digital presentation. Practice delivering your presentation out loud.