Guest blog by Roy Rasmussen
Co-author of Cloud Computing Simplified for Small Businesses for DMS & Associates
If a picture is worth a thousand words, CX’s new expanded slideshow features can be worth thousands of dollars to your business. Not just for sharing personal photo albums, slideshows can lend audiovisual aid to a number of important business applications. From product demonstrations, tutorials and training, to promotion and sales and even financing, various business functions can benefit from strategic use of slideshows. Here are some examples.
Demonstrations
One of the advantages of slideshows is the ability to show things that are difficult to describe in words. This has great value for a number of business applications. One is product demonstrations.
For example, let’s imagine you were trying to demonstrate how the latest tablet device differs from its predecessors — for instance, how a Lenovo Yoga differs from an iPad. Trying to describe this in mere words might take a lengthy explanation, and even with detailed descriptions, readers might find it difficult to visualize what you were referring to, creating confusion and wasting time.
A picture or diagram would solve this problem instantly, making it easier for you to convey descriptions and easier for your customers to follow you. Slideshows give you this capability to instantly convey visual information for demonstration purposes. Adding narration further enhances your visuals, enabling you to combine the power of words and images.
Tutorials
Because slideshows enable you to present a series of images instead of just a single image, the slideshow format serves as a perfect medium for conveying step-by-step instructions and tutorials. With ease and efficiency, you can show customers how to assemble a product, how to operate a machine, how to use a software program, or how to perform an exercise technique.
Training
The tutorial capability of slideshows lends itself well to training purposes. Virtually any step-by-step process employees need to perform can be depicted in slideshow format, from mechanical and sales procedures, to administrative and software operations. An additional advantage of creating slideshow tutorials is that a single training session can be saved and replayed to train multiple staff members, saving time repeating the same training session over and over again. Similarly, frequently asked questions can be anticipated and answered via a prerecorded slideshow, saving hours of training time.
Promotion
Because slideshows can show a series of images, they are also useful for telling stories, which gives them a number of other business applications. One example is promotion. A slideshow can serve as a vehicle for delivering a live or recorded promotional presentation that tells a story about a product or service. A series of slides can depict how a product solves a common problem, how a service benefits customers, or how a brand differs from its competition.
Sales
Slideshows can likewise serve as vehicles for delivering sales presentations. Each element in the presentation can be captured in slide format, from portrayals of problems and benefits to closing offers and objections. In this way, a successful sales presentation can be deployed multiple times to individuals or groups, making maximum leverage of a sales representative’s time.
Proposals
A specific type of sales presentation where slideshows can come in handy is proposals. For example, a small business applying for a loan can use a slideshow to depict its corporate history, breathing life into an on-paper proposal. A similar strategy can be used for other types of proposals, such as bids.
These applications illustrate how slideshows can enhance any area of business where audiovisual aids are called for. Getting into the habit of creating multimedia presentations will open up many opportunities to grow your business in new directions.
Freelance writer Roy Rasmussen coauthored Cloud Computing Simplified for Small Businesses for DMS & Associates, a company that provides cloud-based office automation and accounting solutions to small businesses.