For PR pros who live in fear of having their C-level executives bore their audiences to tears during a presentation or speech, there may be words to live by: friends don’t let friends PowerPoint.
And while many company have finally put PowerPoint to pasture, a lot of brands and organizations still rely on the program when presenting information and trying to get their messages out.
Big mistake.
More often than not, PowerPoint presentations make your audiences’ eyes glaze over. It’s hard enough to keep people's attention, what with everyone checking their iPhones or iPads every five seconds. Getting bogged down with PowerPoint only makes a challenging situation worse.
In the current climate—with our collective attention span rapidly depleting—better to get your message out through declarative statements and bullet points. (Having a flair for entertainment and/or humor won’t hurt either.)
With that in mind, here are some examples of how to package your message using numbers, compliments of Kathy Ridgely Beal, director of communications and public relations at the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics:
> “The three main things I want you to take away from this presentation are...”
> “Our marketing plan is going to have four phases. The first phase will focus on...”
> “We’ve got two main target audiences. Our plan for the first target audience will consist of...”
> “There are six steps to learning the new software.”
> “If you remember anything about our new product, it should be these three key benefits...”
> “What you need to know about how to make a great event include five planning steps.”
> “Our new packaging is different in three main ways.”
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