How to Create a Template on PowerPoint

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By having a customised template for your PowerPoint slides, you can professionally promote your business whenever you are giving a presentation to a group of people. This will help to build a relationship between your audience and your brand and they are more likely to remember you after the event.

So if you use PowerPoint to showcase your services or products and want to customise your slides with your company branding then watch the video below on how to create a template on PowerPoint. By the end of this video you will know how to create your own personalised template using your colour scheme and logo.

So click the image below to watch the video – How to Create a Template on PowerPoint.

 
If you want more tips on how to use PowerPoint to create presentations that will wow your audience, then check out our free guide “How to Create Impressive PowerPoint Presentations“. This guide is packed full of useful information including how to create a template formatted with your branding to how to format slides with dynamic content such as videos and animations. Click on the link here to download the guide >>> How to Create Impressive PowerPoint Presentations
 

PowerPoint for Business: How to Turn Your Slides into a Marketing Tool

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When putting together your PowerPoint slides, you can often spend a lot of time and effort on getting the design and content of your slides right so that the presentation will look eye-catching and promote your business professionally to your audience.

But why should all that hard work just be seen on the day of the presentation?  You may be able to use some of the slides again in another presentation, but it seems a shame to just have them sitting on your PC when you could be using them to market your business.

So if you are using PowerPoint for business purposes to teach people about your services or products, then here are 3 ways that you can reuse your slides to market your business to a wider audience.

Put on Slideshare.  A great way to share your content is to put it on Slideshare.  Once the presentation has been uploaded on to Slideshare, you can then embed the file on to your blog or website, and promote it to your social media contacts on Facebook and Twitter.  There’s also an application on LinkedIn which enables you to add the Slideshare file to your profile.

Turn into a video.  You can turn your presentation into a video using free screen recording software such as Jing and Snagit, or paid software such as Camtasia.  If you are using PowerPoint 2010, then you can create a video directly from PowerPoint itself.  You can also add audio on to the video if you want to do a voice narration.  You can then upload the video on to YouTube and again, embed this on to your website or blog and share it out via social media.

Create a PDF giveaway.  If the presentation is giving tips and advice about a particular topic, then you can turn the PowerPoint file into a PDF and offer it as a free giveaway to your contacts.  For example, you can use it as an incentive to encourage people to sign up to your mailing list on your website.

So if you are using PowerPoint for business purposes, then these are just a few examples of how you can turn your existing slides into a powerful marketing tool for your business.
 
To find out how you can create eye-catching PowerPoint slides, download a copy of our guide “How to Create Impressive PowerPoint Presentations“.  This guide is packed full of information to help you create dynamic slides that will wow your audience. Click the link here to download the guide >> How to Create Impressive PowerPoint Presentations
 

5 Ways to Make Your PowerPoint Presentation Stand Out

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When making a presentation, it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of relying on your PowerPoint slides to help get your message across.  Although PowerPoint may be a great tool to help you present your information in a creative and interesting way, it’s dangerous to rely on it fully as this will just turn your audience off from what you’re saying.

Here are 5 ways to make your PowerPoint presentation stand out from the crowd.

1. Be Compelling

PowerPoint is a great tool to put together eye-catching presentations, but remember that your audience has come to hear you, not look at a slide.  So by all means make your PowerPoint presentation look professional and engaging but don’t forget that your speech needs to be compelling too.  Remember, your slides are there to support your spoken presentation, not the other way round!

2. Keep it simple

Don’t overwhelm your audience with a mass of data, graphics and animations.  The most effective PowerPoint presentations are simple — charts that are easy to understand, and graphics that reflect what the speaker is saying. It’s been suggested that there should be no more than five words per line and no more than five lines per individual slide. Any images, graphs and animations need to back up the information, not confuse the audience.

3. Be Engaging

Many of us have sat through a presentation where we have spent the whole time looking at the back of the speaker’s head!  They have spent so much time reading off the slides, they don’t engage with the audience.  PowerPoint works best with a speech that augments what’s on the screen rather than just reading off the slide. Remember, you need to interact with the audience in order for them to engage and listen to you.

4. Don’t use PowerPoint!

There’s a time and place for PowerPoint.  It should only be used as an accompaniment to the presenter’s script so let the screen go blank if you need  to.  This gives your audience a break, but also helps to focus their attention on what the presenter is saying, especially during the question and answer session.

5. Rehearse and edit

Once you’ve drafted your speech and slides then rehearse your presentation.  Do this preferably in front of someone else to ensure that what you are saying and presenting can be easily understood.  If something comes across as distracting or confusing then get rid of it.  Remember to keep the needs of the audience in your mind at all times as they are the ones who will be the ultimate judge of how successful your presentation has been.

I hope you have found these tips useful and if you have any other suggestions on ways to make your PowerPoint presentation stand out, then drop them in the comment box below.
 
If you want more tips on how to use PowerPoint to create effective presentations, then check out our free guide “How to Create Impressive PowerPoint Presentations“. This guide is packed full of useful information on how to create PowerPoint presentations that stand out. Click on the link here to download the guide >>> How to Create Impressive PowerPoint Presentations
 

Top Tips for Successful Presentations

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At a workshop recently I heard someone giving a talk which was really interesting and I took away some valuable points from it.  So it got me thinking about what makes a good presentation.

Now, I’ve designed a lot of PowerPoint presentations in my time but I’ve delivered very few of them.  Like a lot of people, the thought of standing up in front of a group makes me nervous.  However, others can stand up for an hour and speak off the cuff about their subject, and make it interesting and memorable.  How do they do it?  OK, there are a few people who are natural public speakers, but for most of us, it takes a lot of preparation to stand up and speak clearly and concisely about our subject.

So from my experience of both creating and listening to presentations, I’ve put together some top tips for successful presentations.

Do

• Rehearse your speech and ideally get someone to listen to you or record yourself.
• Know the message you are trying to get across and stick to the key points.
• Keep the colour scheme simple and ensure the text is readable against the background.
• Have the same slide design throughout the whole presentation.
• Put your company branding and logo on the presentation if appropriate
• Keep animations and transitions to a minimum so they don’t confuse and distract the audience.
• Make the information more interesting by using pictures, charts, and animations.

Don’t

• Speak without any preparation or notes unless you’ve done it successfully before.
• Start the presentation without checking that everyone can hear you.
• Wander off the subject.  If you do, let the audience know why and quickly come back to the topic.
• Use technical language, acronyms or jargon unless it is relevant for your audience.
• Read from a script as it can sound stilted and prevents you from making eye contact with the audience.
• Put everything you want to say on the PowerPoint slide and then just read it out.
• Overload the slide with too much graphics or animation.  They should be used to make the message clearer not confuse the audience.

Perhaps you have other tips to add to the list?  However, it’s important to remember that a clearly delivered and well-designed presentation will promote you and your business professionally and effectively to existing and potential clients.

 
If you want more tips for successful presentations, then check out our free guide “How to Create Impressive PowerPoint Presentations“. This guide is packed full of useful information on how to create and deliver effective presentations. Click on the link here to download the guide >>> How to Create Impressive PowerPoint Presentations