Today, we’re back with one last post as part of our series providing presentation tips. Our focus this time is on software solutions to help you craft informative, engaging presentations to grow your small business. We've used these tools when it came to building and continuing to improve our small business inventory system. Presentation basics have changed a lot over the years. From the days of carefully printed packets to complement your professionally produced posters to Microsoft PowerPoint and beyond, the simple presentation doesn’t have to be so simple anymore. If you really want to grow your small business, you need to be looking new ways to engage customers. Adding a video or other presentation to your website is a great way to increase traffic and translate more of your page views into sales. Have something new in your store that you’d like to promote? Create a presentation and set up a display that plays it on a loop. Customers will be intrigued and you won’t have to repeat yourself twenty a times a day explaining how it works. Today, it is easy to create impressive online presentations with less time and effort than ever before.Keep reading to learn more about the software solutions that are making this possible.
- Projeqt: If you’re familiar and comfortable with Microsoft PowerPoint, Projeqt might be the best next step for you. You can add flare to an old PowerPoint or create something entirely new with Projeqt. Projeqt presentations are embeddable on your website and viewable on mobile devices. Best yet, you can create an account and begin creating presentations for free. We use this software, depending on project needs, to track development for our small business inventory system.
- Google Slides: Another good way to ease into online presentations is with Google Slides. This cloud based app is free to use with any Google account and integrates easily with your other Google accounts. With Google Slides you can also share your presentation with others and they can make updates and edits as well. We use Google docs for darn near everything that isn't already stored within our small business inventory system. It's really that easy!
- Prezi: Prezi is so easy to use that a kid can do it. Seriously, my then 9 year old created a presentation in just a few hours that would knock your socks off. Prezi allows you bring your slides to life with elements that fade in and out and move around the screen. Choose images from anywhere and add them in. Prezi also makes collaboration easy. The free version requires that all your presentations remain public, but for a low monthly fee you can create private presentations.
- PowToon: Looking to add an element of fun to your next presentation? Consider using PowToon to create animated presentations and videos. PowToon is so powerful that big guys like Starbucks, Cisco and ebay are all using, but it’s free so you can too! (Free presentations include the PowToon watermark and are limited in length and quality, upgrade to a subscription based plan to create HD presentations.) PowToon is quick and easy to use and new features are being added all the time, so you shouldn’t outgrow this solution any time soon.
- VideoScribe: Love that commercial where the marker draws everything on a whiteboard? Want to create one like that for your company? VideoScribe makes it easy. Just choose your images and VideoScribe turns it into the marker on a whiteboard style. VideoScribe offers a free 7-day trial, but is strictly subscription based after that.
- Keynote: Mac users rejoice, Keynote is the presentation software for you. Easily add images, charts, whatever you need to each slide. Because Keynote is an Apple product it integrates well with all other Apple applications. Also, presentations are available in iCloud for anytime, anywhere editing. Keynote is free with most recently purchased Apple devices.
- Haiku Deck: Haiku Deck aims to help presenters use images and backdrops to create impact. The focus here is on keeping the message simple and employing clean, consistent formatting. No design skills needed, with Haiku Deck anyone can create professional results quickly and easily.
Of course, there are a number of other options out there as well. We hope that this sampling has inspired you to research solutions and give at least one of them a try. With all this great presentation software to choose from, there’s no reason not to include presentations in your marketing plan. Professional quality presentations make your small business seem like one of the big guys. Polished, prepared and ready to provide what your customers need. We can’t think of a better way to present your company.
Are you ready to see what gorgeous looks like? Try our small business inventory system!
Worried that you don’t have the time to research and create a presentation? Then you must not be using Stockpile. If all your inventory issues were handled by our intuitive small business inventory system, you’d have the time you need to focus on growing your small business. With Stockpile, you’ll always know what you have and where you have it. Need to move stock from one location to another? No problem! Our small business inventory system makes it easy to transfer items. Want to know where items are within a single location? You can set Stockpile up to handle that as well. Reports? We’ve got the reporting capabilities that you need, right at your fingertips. Use our small business inventory system anytime from anywhere. No more stopping by the office to get the information that you need. So get Stockpile today and get back to focusing on other aspects of your business.
