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Now is the time to kick start your marketing strategy. It’s time to decide on the smartest, most cost effective means of improving your presence and drawing in more customers. If you engage in online and in-person marketing, or intend to do so this year, a great way to accomplish this is by creating a powerful, amazing presentation for your company. Where to Begin: Determining the Purpose of a Company Presentation Company presentations are designed for multiple audiences: the general audience, senior management, even venture capitalists. They are effective tools for reducing internal conflict and increasing external sales. While many of us see such presentations as powerful internal tools, not many recognize them as potent external marketing tools. A company presentation is more than a compilation of PowerPoint slides; according to eHow, a commanding business presentation can be a useful tool designed to inform, persuade, motivate and even celebrate a brand or company. Sounds a lot like the key points of your best marketing campaigns, doesn’t it? When a Presentation Goes Viral… …magic happens! Well, let’s be more specific: magic in the form of comprehensive, hard hitting marketing to a potentially enormous audience occurs. We experienced the fruits of a presentation uploaded to Slideshare going viral. Thousands of views equaled thousands of new and potential customers reading about a topic concerning them, all while taking in a memorable image of our company and services. If our experience has taught us anything, it’s that creating and showcasing an influential company presentation is a huge marketing tool too many companies fail to tap into. Don’t make that mistake in 2014. Instead, tap into our guide to creating a powerful company presentation: Step 1: Establish Credibility Wikipedia defines credibility as believability. In fact, Wikipedia states, “Credibility has two key components: trustworthiness and expertise, which both have objective and subjective components.” The faster you establish credibility, the more likely your audience is to listen or continue reading. It’s important to understand that credibility doesn’t need to be displayed in lengthy and overly detailed career or industry highlights. Instead, opt for a short story or experience highlighting a selection of your background related to the presentation’s topic. Credibility is incredibly vital online. It has become an increasingly covered topic since the mid-1990s when the web began growing in leaps and bounds as an information resource. This is why Forbes encourages you to “make a point of establishing credibility—don’t just hope it happens,” as one of several essential tips to creating more powerful business presentations. Step 2: Include a Goal What’s the purpose of your presentation? What can the audience expect? How is it relevant and useful to them? Your presentation should spotlight this goal right from the start. Think of it as establishing common ground with your audience. Once you’re both on the same page, motivating them to specific action will become much easier. Step 3: Sprinkle in Supporting Material Supportive material helps hold credibility throughout the presentation. It lets the audience know you’re presenting facts, not biased opinions. References needn’t be included in the slides themselves if they threaten to clutter the visual esthetic of your presentation. However, they should at least be found in your speaking notes. You can sprinkle supporting material throughout your presentation by: Telling a story or real life experience. Giving statistics or referencing a supporting case study. Referencing research material. Providing a quote from a well-respected figure. Step 4: Wield Quotations and Images Quotations and images have the ability to make a memorable impact. Wield them to separate each topic or idea within your presentation. These tools are ideal for evoking a topic without defaulting to boring title slides most viewers will rarely, if ever, remember. Visualization is one of the key qualities that set a presentation apart from word-based, content marketing strategies (such as Whitepages). A picture can be worth a thousand words, and it often leaves an emotional impression on the audience, linking them more intimately with the content. Never skimp on images when creating your company presentation. If you find yourself struggling with the visual aspect of your presentation, then take a close look at our “How To” on adding visualization to content. Step 5: Leverage Questions Questions are powerful. They can be thought-provoking tools that encourage your audience to draw guided conclusions. A rhetorical question is the perfect tool to leverage when launching your presentation. It gets the audience thinking, putting them in the middle of the action from the get go. Leveraging questions at intervals throughout your presentation will keep the audience involved, and this tactic will help motive action. As you create your presentation, think of your audience. What questions are they likely to ask? What questions will hold or pique their interest? Always be sure to answer the questions posed. If you dangle a question and fail to provide a satisfactory answer, you will quickly lose your audience. Step 6: Startle Your Audience Failing to create a powerful presentation can damage your business’ content marketing strategies, leaving you with an untapped pool of potential business. This statement just grabbed your attention, didn’t it? Suddenly, you’re rethinking the last PowerPoint presentation you created. You’re analyzing its effectiveness and trying to determine if this startling statement is true. Did you lose a prime marketing opportunity because of a poorly put together presentation? One of the most effective ways to grab attention is to present your information with a startling statement. Such statements carry a twofold benefit of demanding attention while driving your point home with the supportive information we discussed in Step 3. Together, a startling statement and supportive information create the perfect catalyst for keeping audience attention, delivering your message and motivating action. Step 7: Prepare for a Q&A If you’ve inserted a clear goal into your presentation, wielded quotations and images, leveraged questions and startled your audience with shocking statements, you’ve successfully kept them engaged. You’ve guided them to action and motivated them to actually take that action. But your job … Read more