5 tips for successful presentations from home office

The corona virus has turned all our lives upside down. Everyday working life is experiencing a radical change and digitalization is experiencing a considerable upswing. Since many companies currently operate from home office, not only meetings but also presentations must be handled via video call. While some are already running an online marathon, others are just starting their first steps. To make sure your next video presentation is a success, we have the most important tips and tricks!

#1 Check and test technology

Even though devices like laptops & co. all have good microphones, you should definitely use an external microphone for optimal sound quality. Make sure that the microphone is equipped with an echo cancelling function, if possible, which eliminates interfering and background noise. A quiet working atmosphere is nevertheless absolutely essential for a video presentation. Coffee cups, ringing telephones and annoying side conversations are taboo. To avoid technical interference noise, we recommend that cell phones be switched to flight mode whenever possible. If discussions, meetings or question-and-answer sessions occur during or after your presentation, you should mute your microphone during your breaks for the same reason.

In order to create a professional atmosphere in the home office, we use a neutral background (especially calm tones such as beige and grey) and a pleasant daylight situation. If this is not possible naturally, daylight lamps are recommended. Important: If it is too dark in the room, image noise will quickly occur. In contrast, an overexposed image can significantly inhibit concentration.

#2 Create personal connection

As you don't meet your audience in person at a video presentation, it is especially important to establish a human connection before sharing your screen. Do not start the presentation with a profile picture or with the first slide. Start with a personal greeting and prepare your audience for the content and duration of your presentation.

Especially the indication of a time frame creates security for the audience and prevents possible multitasking during your presentation. Remember that the time of your audience is limited even in the home office and so your presentation as short as possible. Ask your audience to switch off the microphones during the presentation and only activate them again for any questions in between.

#3 Communicate at eye level

To communicate with the counterpart at eye level takes on a whole new meaning with video presentations. Because here it is particularly important that you are in the same line of sight as your audience. So you should neither look up nor down - because that would involuntarily suggest a hierarchy. Position the camera approximately in the middle at eye level. If necessary you can slide a stack of books under the monitor. In this way you create the right angle of vision, which will strengthen your persuasive power in the long run.

#4 Make presentations dynamic and flexible

To ensure that your presentation is guaranteed not to be boring and to maintain attention span of your audience as long as possible, pay special attention to dynamics and flexibility. Especially the integration of videos, 3D-animations and interactive overlays, which is easily possible in our presentation tool, ensures that your audience will be kept visually engaged.

However, since there can be delays in the transmission of video screens, it is recommended not to overload the presentation with too many special effects. For this reason you should plan a little more time during the presentation when advancing. Take the opportunity to actively involve your audience in the presentation by asking direct questions. In this way you ensure that all participants can follow you and that your content is well received.

#5 Sending and evaluating presentations

Once you have finished your video presentation, its post-production follows. In addition to quickly sending the presentation to your audience, questions such as "What exactly was discussed," "What was the audience interested in," and "Where is more explanation needed?"

As a presono user, you benefit from two major advantages: With our tool you can share your presentation with just one mouse click via an interactive link and then evaluate it comprehensively. The evaluation not only works for your presentation, but also for the click behaviour of your link recipients. In this way, you can generate important information about customer preferences, which is particularly important for sales employees in home office.

You can read more exciting information about this and how you can now reliably reach customers, partners and interested parties with a digital exhibition stand HERE.

For information on how we support domestic SMEs in the current Corona crisis in their home office activities, please click HERE.