Effective Presentations

Presentation Best Practices: Easy Tips for Effective Presentations

Presentation Best Practices

At MPG, we’ve built our business around great presentations. We make them fun. We make them interactive. We make them educational, or thought-provoking, or heartwarming… whatever best tells our clients’ stories. And we make them every day. It’s what we do.

It may not be what you do. But that doesn’t mean you can’t create a presentation that wows. By following a few presentation best practices, you can make your message engaging and memorable, whether you’re giving a talk to co-workers or delivering a keynote address to hundreds.

First, know your audience. What do they want to learn from you? What do they already know (or think they know)? What kind of tone is likely to resonate with them? Are they super serious, or would they enjoy something lighter?

Keep it short. We’ve found that the most effective presentations run about five to eight minutes. Choose no more than three key points, and direct your audience to supplemental materials like a website if they want to learn more.

Keep it simple. Look for a “hook” that captures your main message, then repeat it several times, both visually and in your script. Feel like you’re diving too deep into a topic? Trust that instinct! Better to leave them wanting more, than let them walk away numb from information overload.

Let your visuals do the work (but not all of it). Your audience should be paying attention to you, not trying to read your PowerPoint slides. Choose visuals that complement what you’re saying, rather than repeat it. Think bold single images vs. tons of bullet-points.

Break it up. Hold your audience’s attention by incorporating other voices and infusing freshness wherever possible. If you can weave in video, GIFs or animations, do it! Dual presenters, or an interview format, can help as well.

Involve the audience. Invite them to play a game. Poll them, either with technology or a show of hands. Get them shouting a catch phrase, or out of their seats doing some simple dance moves. People are more likely to remember an experience that engaged vs. a dry lecture.

Practice, practice, practice! Finish your script and polish your visuals with plenty of time to rehearse. We offer presentation coaching to help you be your very best. When you’re at ease, your audience will be more likely to trust you and remember what you’ve shared with them.

Instead of crafting your own presentation, why not let MPG do it? We’re experts at professional interactive, multimedia presentations for events of all sizes. Contact us to chat about how we can help put your message in the spotlight.

in Live Presentations  by 20 Aug 2018 0 comments

Interactive Games for Presentations: Make It Memorable By Making It Fun

Interactive games for presentations

Want to make your next presentation memorable? Then get the audience involved. Tactics as simple as questions that require a show of hands can pull people out of passive-listening mode. But if you really want them engaged with your message, then interactive games could be a winning strategy.

High-tech, low-tech, sophisticated or silly, games give your audience a stake in the experience. To find the right one for your presentation, start with a few questions.

What’s my tone? If your topic is light and your audience is up for a good time, you can be humorous—even zany. Ask yourself how far you can push before it feels like “too much.” Even with a serious subject, games are still a viable option. Go for something like audience polling, and keep the approach more buttoned-up.

What’s my objective? Want to drive home a key message? Try a game that includes trivia or call and response. If you want to collect information from your audience or gauge their knowledge, then surveys or polls are a good bet. And if you just want to infuse a little fun, then go for something that gets them out of their seats, competing, and smiling.

What’s my budget? Audience response systems, touchscreens and other high-tech game interfaces are impressive if you can afford them. If not, there are plenty of options that cost little to nothing.

Once you know your goals and parameters, you’re ready to get gaming. Here are some of MPG’s top interactive games for presentations.

Classic Games – For Crest and Oral-B each year, we’re tasked with engaging people as they wait to get into our convention booth. Our objective is to help pass the time, prep them for what’s coming, and reinforce some key product messages. Dental professionals like to have fun, so we’ve done versions of Family Feud, Pictionary and even “hangman” with a Crest + Oral-B twist.

Classic games are great because nearly everyone is familiar with them. So you spend less time explaining and more time having fun.

A few tips:

– Most classic games can be adapted to fit your presentation theme. Choose one based on how it engages the audience, then tweak the name, visuals and other elements.

– Most classic games require audience members to answer questions in order to score or advance. So they’re great for driving home key messages and providing jump-off points for deeper dives.

– Some classic game templates are available in Powerpoint, or they’re easy to create. For a game as simple as tic tac toe, all you need is a dry erase board.

Audience Response:  These work well in more structured presentations. And with a range of technologies and costs, it’s not hard to find one that fits your budget. You can take polls or ask the audience survey questions. You can even get segments of the audience competing against each-other. Challenge yourself to be creative and make it fun.

Interactive games for presentations

Low-Tech, High-Impact: No money for bells and whistles? These games require little more than a good presenter and a willing audience.

– Elimination: Have everyone in the audience stand, then ask segments to sit based on criteria such as years in their profession. The last people standing should represent an achievement or point of view that your presenter can elaborate on or celebrate.

– Word of the Day: Audience members vote, by show of hands or applause, on a word or phrase that the presenter must weave into his or her remarks.

– Call and Response: Whenever the presenter says a certain word or phrase, the audience must respond with their own phrase and/or action.

– Singalong: Re-write the lyrics to a popular song, put it onscreen, then invite the audience to help sing it. For extra fun, add some choreography.

Not sure whether a game is the right approach for your next presentation? Chat with MPG. We’ll craft a strategy guaranteed to connect with your audience, then execute with excellence.

 

 

in Live Presentations / Trade Show Tips  by 06 Aug 2018 0 comments

Must Haves for Successful Trade Show Presentations

Our team just returned from the 2012 American Academy of Dermatology meeting where, once again, we helped P&G engage with doctors and key influencers whose recommendations are crucial to the company’s beauty and grooming brands.

We’re always proud of our work at AAD, and this year’s success reminded us again how a live presentation—correctly and expertly executed—can make a company the star of the trade show floor. P&G for Dermatologists was packed from start to finish, while attendance lagged at competitors’ booths.  And derms walked away with a full message about how P&G is a leader in science and a partner in solutions, thanks to an experience that included a main presentation detailing key products, a pre-show exploring P&G’s scientific heritage, and a demo experience that gave dermatologists a deeper dive.

What is an effective presentation? Here are some must-haves:

A Compelling Script – There’s an art to weaving science, research and (often multiple) product messages into a presentation that’s credible and interactive.  You’ve got to hold the audience’s attention and set a fresh, conversational tone.  A professional writer knows how to hit the sweet spot combining optimal timing with a balance of hard science, entertainment and audience engagement.

Eye-catching Visuals – High-quality images, video and graphics are a must for effective presentations.  We can work with clients to make the most of existing assets, or we’ll shoot our own to ensure that they look great on the show floor. Many of our presentations use multi-source video, but we are equally adept at weaving great assets into platforms such as Keynote and Prezi.

Professional Presenters – For a truly effective presentation, you need world-class talent to deliver your message. Professional presenters know how to take a great script and make it sound natural, conversational and engaging. At MPG, we put prospective presenters through a rigorous audition process, then hire only those we know will connect with our clients’ unique audiences.

Variety – Nobody wants to sit through a dry lecture, so shake things up by incorporating testimonials, interviews and interesting themes and transitions. Look for as many ways as possible to get the audience in on the action. You want the experience to be memorable, so work in simple messages with taglines and calls to action that stick with peoplelong after they’ve walked away.

An Element of Surprise – We’ve got a ton of tricks up our sleeve—technical “wows” that leave audiences asking “how’d they do that?” It’s all in the name of keeping peoples’ interest, but we never indulge in whiz-bang tactics for whiz-bang’s sake.  Everything we do helps tell our client’s story; if it doesn’t, then it ends up on the cutting room floor.

Optimal Timing – Tradeshow attendees have limited time and attention spans. Keeping the presentation to 8 minutes or less ensures they will retain more of your message. It also helps ensure they’ll spend more time  engaging in other booth activities and talking to your sales representatives.

A Great Support Team—If your presentation is top-notch you won’t need much help keeping your theater full, but a team of professional hosts can help gather crowds, pulse them into the seats and make sure everybody has a great experience.

Giveaways/Samples – Let attendees know you value and appreciate their time by offering product samples or another giveaway tied directly to your message or theme.

Whatever your objectives, an engaging trade show presentation can significantly increase traffic flow, message retention and sales. And who doesn’t want that?

in Live Presentations  by 30 Mar 2012 0 comments