It’s no secret that most people are visually oriented. That is why a video presentation is a perfect way to spread your ideas and to create an emotional connection with your audience. In this article you will find out how to make a business video presentation or an engaging video lecture right in PowerPoint.
Tips for a Powerful Presentation
How do you engage your audience and impress them? First of all, you should have a good presentation. Here are a few handy tips that will help you do your best when preparing your slides and speech.
1. Treat your audience like a king
Choose the topic of your presentation and stay focused on it. Both your text and visuals should relate to the subject matter, so your audience will not be distracted by unnecessary things.
Always keep your viewers in mind when planning the content of your slides and video. What do you want them to do after your speech is over?
2. Tell an exciting story
The key to making a winning presentation is to capture viewers’ attention and to keep them engaged. Tell a great story, which will captivate your audience and resonate with their needs. A good presentation is always based on a clear storyline, which helps to understand complex concepts and leaves a lasting impression. And try to use a small dose of humor – that’s another attention-grabbing technique.
3. Make an outline and prepare your content
After you have decided what you are going to say and which data to display, it’s time to make a detailed plan of your speech or lecture. You can use sticky notes to capture and sort your inspiring ideas. It’s better to use one sticky note for each idea and then turn them all into PowerPoint slides so it will be easier for your audience to perceive the information.
To make your speech credible, support your ideas with factual evidence. Prepare all necessary data in advance: collect the statistics, documents and sources of information which you are going to use for your slides.
4. Divide your content into video and static slides
When you have prepared the content, decide which data to present on slides or in video. When it comes to the results of research or some figures and statistics, it is more convenient to display such information on a chart or diagram and show it on a slide. If you want your audience to listen to some part of your speech very attentively without being distracted by any visuals, just tell this part of the story in your video and then show it in fullscreen mode.
Tip: You can accompany some of your PowerPoint slides with an audio narration instead of a video. For example, if your slide contains an infographic or a large diagram, you may emphasize not the presenter but the image on the slide, and describe your data using a voice-over.
5. Make a script and practice
It’s very important to have an inspiring idea and good data to show, but that’s only half the battle. The success of a speech largely depends on a way it is delivered. Make a script of your presentation and focus on the main points, but don’t try to script your entire speech, so you won’t be tied to your text and will be able to speak in a natural way.
An essential part of pre-presentation planning is practice. While doing a run-through, you will identify the parts of your speech that should be changed or shortened. Keep your presentation as brief as possible to hold the attention of your audience.
6. Prepare images, video, and sketches
How can you make a presentation with audio and video even more engaging? Supplement your speech and content with effective visuals. Gather up photos, illustrations or short videos which will help to convey your message. Try to avoid bad quality pictures and stock images, which most people are sick and tired of. Using real photos makes an audience feel involved and provides emotional contact. A great idea is to draw your own sketches for your slides, as no one will deliver your key ideas better than you.
Tip: ReadSlide:Ology by Nancy Duarte to master the art of creating outstanding presentations.
Now let’s dig deeper and learn how to make a presentation with pictures and video in the familiar PowerPoint interface.
How to Build a Video Presentation
First of all you need to download and install video presentation software. We will use a free trial version of iSpring Presenter, which lets you make an effective video presentation right in PowerPoint. When you install the software, a special tab will appear on your PowerPoint ribbon.
To start making a video presentation, just open your PowerPoint.
1. Add video narration
You can either record video narration for your slides or add an existing video. To record a video, all you need is iSpring Presenter and a web camera. Click the Record Video button on the toolbar. The Record Video Narration window will open.
You can add a video narration for each slide, or record one or more narrations for several slides or the whole presentation. To record video only for the current slide, check Process this slide only.
Use the built-in slide notes in the Record Video Narration window to paste the script of your speech, so it will be easier for you to tell your story.
Tip: When recording your video narration, it’s very important to look at the camera to create the illusion of eye-contact with your audience. It means that wherever your camera is, that’s where your notes (and thus your eyes) should be. Another great way to grab the attention of your viewers is to interact with your content directly: you can use gestures to show the most important diagram or other items on your slide.
If you already have a clip for your presentation, you can simply insert it using the Narration Editor. You can use a file in one of these formats: AVI, WMV, MPG, MP4, and MKV. To insert your video, click the Manage Narration button on the toolbar, go to Import -> Video, add a file and click Save & Close:
2. Fine-tune video narration
Once you’ve added your clips or narration, you can edit it and sync it with your slides and even animations. For this purpose, just click the Manage Narration button on the toolbar.
You will see a timeline which displays the sequence of your slides and all the inserted video clips.
You can adjust the duration of each slide, delete or replace inserted video clips, add silent parts, trim videos, remove noise or apply fade effects.
You can easily synchronize audio and video narration with your presentation slides and animations. To do this, click the Sync button on the Narration Editor toolbar.
3. Enrich your presentation with useful content
To make your video presentation more captivating, you can supplement it with useful content. Apart from images, you can impress your audience with interactive quizzes, YouTube and Vimeo videos, Web objects and Flash movies just using the toolbar in your PowerPoint. You can also make your slides more interactive using links, e-books and other resources. Viewers will be able to access all useful content in the interactive video player while watching your presentation.
4. Customize presentation player
When presenting your ideas, sometimes it is necessary to shift the attention of the audience from the slide to the video narration and back. For this purpose, you can simply use different types of player layouts. Click the Publish button on the toolbar, choose one of the player types in the publication window and click Customize.
You can choose the Video Lecture Player, which combines slides with a talking head video, or opt for the Universal Player. Both of them have a lot of customization options: 
In the Customize Player window, you can configure player panels and features. For example, you can provide your viewers with presenter info, company logo and outline. It’s very easy to choose which bars to show, set the colors of buttons and panels, and change text labels for captions, tooltips and messages.
It is also possible to set a layout for each slide individually in the Presentation Explorer. There are three types of layouts: Full, No Sidebar and Maximized Video. Using this feature you can focus the attention of your viewers on the presenter video or on the slide info, depending on your content.
5. Publish your video presentation
The final step is to publish a ready video presentation. Click the Publish button on the toolbar. The Publish Presentation window will open. The software offers a number of publishing destinations. You can publish your video presentation for the Web, burn it to a CD, or upload it to the iSpring Cloud service or a learning management system. The software also allows you to convert the presentation to a .mp4 video, so you can save it on your local computer and then share with your audience. Another way to publish your video presentation is to upload it directly to YouTube using your Google Account details.
When publishing your video presentation, take a look at the output options. If you choose Combined or Mobile format, your audience will be able to view the presentation on desktops, tablets and smartphones. Check the option Use iSpring Play to let your audience watch it whenever and wherever they want.
A picture is worth a thousand words, but nothing can attract and motivate an audience better than a captivating video. Now you know how to make an effective video presentation, so your viewers will watch it with bated breath!
Hope you find this article useful and follow our tips the next time you share your knowledge and inspiring ideas.
Written by: iSpring
iSpring is an international software vendor of professional tools for e-Learning authoring and content delivery. iSpring is known for its excellently engineered software for creating mobile-friendly content in a familiar PowerPoint environment. iSpring is perfect for education, staff training, health care and training agencies.