Drew Banks shares his top tips for giving great presentations.

It’s getting close to that time of the year again, where marketing teams are expected to give their big end-of-year presentation to senior management. This is the time to calculate successes and failures from the previous year, evaluate recent campaigns to determine what worked and what didn’t, and highlight any upcoming changes for the new year.

Of course, you will be expected to pull this together while wrapping up holiday campaigns and getting through your daily workload. It goes without saying that you will be busy at this time of year. But it’s important not to rush, or leave your preparation to the last minute. After all, this is the perfect opportunity to communicate to your superiors, the value that you and your team have brought to the company in the last year.

If you want to impress top level management and pave the way for another year of success, you need to rethink the way in which you present your end-of-year business report. Here are five tips that will help you build a better deck and drive home your messages of success.

Approach the presentation as if you and your team is under review

Sometimes our ideas get stale. We think we know every last detail about what the company wants or needs and we don’t deliver new or innovative ideas for the business.

To the contrary, when an individual or team is under review, people tend to strive to ‘relearn’ the business and bring the best ideas to the table. Using the review mindset while preparing for the end of year presentation will allow for fresh thinking that can really wow the audience.

Talk about the important things

Don’t get bogged down by every last detail of every last campaign for the year, it won’t be all remembered anyway. Instead, focus on the highlights, the important lessons learned and the key takeaways that can be implemented in the next year.

Present your successes visually

According to developmental molecular biologist Dr John Medina’s book, Brain Rules, people are incredible at remembering images. Hear a piece of information, and three days later you’ll only remember 10% of it. Add a picture and you’ll remember 65%. So when presenting your results, use graphs, images or even infographics. Your bosses will really thank you for it.

Set clear goals and KPIs

This seems like a no brainer, but clear KPIs are often really hard to define. Make sure everyone knows exactly what is being measured – and how. When both you and your superiors are clear on what success looks like, it will help to avoid any confusion if goals aren’t being met.

Wrap it with a bow

One of the best parts about the holiday season is the aesthetics. Let your superiors know you are forward thinking and ready to present new and interesting ideas. Framing the presentation around what they want to talk about helps to open up discussion and allow for more flexibility in the overall process. Allow your presentation to follow a collaborative, conversation style format. Stop regularly during the presentation to ask if the audience has any questions, as it will keep them engaged and interested.

Think visually and creatively to give your presentation a little something extra. Map out your ideas, instead of a conforming to a slide-based presentation. This way, your audience can direct the conversation instead of hearing the dreaded, “but we will get to that a little later.”    

Drew Banks has moved from CMO at Prezi to the head of international. Prezi is a cloud-based presentation tool that helps you connect powerfully with your audience.