When Powerpoints Attack: One Marketer’s Battle
Most people who spend any time with Powerpoint have a love-hate relationship with it. For me, lately, it has been more hate. The issue staring me down today, like so many days before, is that Powerpoint presentations toy with the right and left sides of my brain. Do I let my creativity roam free or do I just get down to the bare bones of bulleted text and maybe a few graphs. It’s a tug-of-war that I’d rather not even play, because there’s really no correct path to choose. Ultimately, Powerpoint makes me wish that my colleagues would forget they ever asked me to put a slide presentation together for them. Sorry, guys!
The request is seemingly harmless, at its surface: “I need a presentation about [topic] for a sales meeting… tomorrow.”
That’s not so difficult, I say to myself. I live and breathe that topic every day, so the copy will be no trouble to write.
Oh, but wait. What about the design? What visual elements should I use, and in what dosage?
Right there, your confidence in being able to whip up a no-hassle, professional Powerpoint presentation just took a nose dive. It’s not that you aren’t capable of doing the work, but if you don’t have a corporate template you use for all of your presentations, then how do you decide on the design theme, colors, graphics, and animations that are meant to support and emphasize the copy? Because, very often, the graphics and animations can overpower the copy to the point that your audience’s attention is distracted from the critical message of the presentation. It’s the pitfall of many Powerpoint presentations created by well-intended individuals that happen to be too Powerpoint-savvy for their own good. And let me say here that graphics and animation does NOT directly equate to a professional presentation.
There are several factors to consider how to build your Powerpoint presentation:
1. Your presenter. Are they comfortable in expounding upon brief copy, or do they need more copy in the presentation to help deliver their messages?
2. The audience. If your audience is comprised of high-level executives who don’t have a lot of time, you may want to lean toward less graphics and animation. If your audience is marketers, salespeople, or creative staff, you may be inclined to use more creativity when you build the presentation.
3. Your brand identity. No matter how you build your Powerpoint, it’s a smart idea to keep brand integrity in mind at all times. After all, your Powerpoint presentation is just like your website, your sales literature, and anything else that represents your company’s brand identity. So, don’t use any colors, graphics, or write anything that doesn’t reflect well on your brand. And, ideally, companies should have a Powerpoint template design that can be used for every presentation across your organization.
I think Powerpoint is a necessary evil for nearly every company. That first blank slide can be intimidating, but once you have made some decisions about your presenter, your audience, and your brand identity, you will feel more comfortable about building a Powerpoint presentation that meets the expectations of you and your colleagues.
