People really love videos. According to a report by Forrester Research, videos are 75% better at keeping audience engaged than documents, articles, and other forms of plain media. This is the reason more and more companies are using them for video marketing and other business tasks. One of the more popular forms of video is a video presentation.
In this article, we’ll explain what a video presentation is, show you how to create one, and share some helpful video presentation tips. Let’s dive in.
A video presentation is a popular format of video content with a duration of several seconds or minutes that shows the benefits of a product, service, or a new idea with the help of relevant images, concise text, and appropriate audio narration.
People use video presentations in various aspects of business to keep their audience engaged. As such, presentation videos can be used in marketing campaigns and sales presentations for new clients, employee training and onboarding, B2B communication, all the way to presenting an enterprise at expos or conventions.
Video presentations can take on a variety of formats. They can include fully animated explainer videos, cartoons, invitation videos, screencasts, tutorials, video ads, promo videos, marketing videos, product demos, or a PowerPoint presentation narrated by a talking head. Ultimately, the choice of format is yours.
Besides being more appealing than a basic cut-and-dry content piece, video presentations are also:
Now, we’ll show you step by step, how to make a good video presentation with the iSpring Suite authoring toolkit and presentation video maker. Later, we’ll also provide you with the other presentation makers that can help you author create a professional video fast.
iSpring Suite is an easy-to-use tool with robust video and screen recording functionality and lots of presentation templates. All that’s required to create powerful video presentations with iSpring Suite is knowing how to use PowerPoint.
You can convert your slides that you’ve made in PowerPoint, record a separate video, or you can combine the two to make a video lecture. You can use the built-in video editor to add a professional touch and apply captions, transitions, effects, and more.
If you still don’t have iSpring Suite, download the program for free and install it on your computer right now.
Here are five steps you need to take in order to make a video presentation in minutes.
Step 1. Add a video narration
Step 2. Synchronize video with slides
Step 3. Switch layouts in slide properties
Step 4. Customize your player template
Step 5. Publish your video presentation
Open your slides in PowerPoint. Then go to the iSpring Suite tab and click on Manage Narration.
Once the iSpring Narration Editor window appears, you can either record a new video narration or import an existing video file.
Importing a video file
To import an existing video file, click on the Video button in the Import tab.
Find the video file and click on the Open button.
Pro tip: You can insert multiple videos at once. To do that, press and hold the Ctrl key while choosing several files.
In the Import Video window, you have the choice of importing your video at the current cursor position or at the beginning of a slide of your choice.
Note: If you choose to import your video at the beginning of a certain slide, you will have the option of selecting the Adjust slide duration option. This will adjust the slide you have selected to the length of your video.
Recording a narration
To film yourself on a webcam, click on the Record Video button on the editor’s toolbar.
The Record Video Narration panel will appear.
You can add a video narration for one or several slides at a time. To record video for the current slide, mark Process current slide only.
Now it’s time to synchronize your video with your slides and animation effects. The latter are displayed as yellow bars on the Slides timeline. The great thing is that you’ll be able to choose the exact moment when an animation will appear while watching the video. This way, the effects will perfectly correspond to the narration in your video presentation.
Note: This is only applicable if you have animation effects attached to your slides.
The sync process is quite simple to use. Just place the cursor where the sync should begin and click the Sync button on the toolbar.
A Sync panel will appear above the timeline. Click on the Start Sync button to start the process.
The Start Sync button will be replaced with the Next Slide or Next Animation button, depending on the next element in sequence. Click on those buttons at the appropriate moments. Hit the Next Animation button at the point in the narration where you would like to start the next animation. For example, if you are listing information, you can have each new item appear when the narrator mentions it in the video narration.
Once you have finished, click on Done to quit the Sync mode. Then hit the Save & Close button in the upper-left corner.
iSpring allows you to publish materials using one of two players: the highly customizable Universal player or the Video Lecture player. The latter displays the video presentation in a 50/50 layout and allows viewers to change the proportion between video and slides at any time.
The Universal player features three layouts for a video presentation:
The No Sidebar layout displays the slide and the navigation panel only.
The Maximized Video layout displays the video in the center, the slide on the sidebar, and the navigation panel.
Your presentation doesn’t have to have the same layout everywhere. You can highlight key points by changing the proportion between information on screen and the video for each slide. To do that, click on Slide Properties on the toolbar.
In the Layout column, pick the desired layout for a particular slide from the drop-down list.
The layouts for the Video Lecture player can be changed at any time during playback. You can still preset them, and they will work as follows:
The No Sidebar layout displays the full slide with a miniaturized video.
The Maximized Video layout will show the enlarged video and a smaller slide.
It is insisted that you set slides to advance automatically for the entire presentation. To do that, in the Presentation Explorer, select all slides and click on the Auto button.
The built-in presentation player has flexible customization options: you can provide your viewers with the presenter’s info, a brand logo, outline, and more. First, let’s choose what player to use. Click on Player on the product ribbon, and choose whether to use the Universal or Video Lecture player, as shown in the picture.
For this guide on making a video presentation, we will use the Universal player. To customize it, click on Templates. There are a number of player templates to choose from. We will use the Online Lecture with Video template as an example.
You can also experiment with the settings, doing things like turning off the outline and notes by clicking on the Layout button on the ribbon. Here’s what our player will look like:
Additionally, you can customize a presentation to match your brand colors by choosing one of the built-in color schemes or creating your own.
When you’ve finished customizing the player, click on Apply & Close in the upper left corner. Well done, you’ve put finishing touches for your video presentation.
When your video presentation is ready, the last step is to publish it to web format so it can be easily accessed via a browser.
In the Publish Presentation window, select the My Computer tab from the left-hand menu. Enter the presentation title and select a Local folder where the presentation will be saved. Under Output Options, choose a format. We’ll be publishing to HTML5 format to make our video presentation play seamlessly across all platforms and devices. You can learn more about publishing presentations here.
In case you want to know more about other presentation software to create engaging video presentations, there are software solutions available that also come with a shallow learning curve. These apps range from video recording or video editing software all the way to animating your own cartoons. Here’s an overview of five of the most powerful yet still easy-to-learn video presentation makers.
If you want to create a video presentation but don’t have the time to put layouts together, you can use the Camtasia video recorder software. Camtasia offers a library of video presentation templates and assets that users can use to make their own presentation videos. Users can also create their own video templates and save them for later projects.
Like iSpring, Camtasia allows you to record both screen and webcam. You can’t create a slidedeck in it, but it’s a good solution if you need to record and show yourself as well as everything you do on your screen.
Animation is a universal language without limits: it hooks any audience immediately. Promotional cartoons are now available to everyone, thanks to software like PowToon. The service has an intuitive user interface and amazing comic graphics. You can start from scratch or use ready-made scenes and layouts that are editable with a drag-and-drop feature. The complete animated presentation can then be uploaded to YouTube channels or social media with one click.
Biteable is a video editing software that allows you to make professional-quality video presentations and animated videos online in minutes. It sacrifices the ability to capture video and record voice for powerful animations. The ingredients are your own photos, texts, pre-made templates, and stock video footage. The styles of presentation videos produced vary from animated illustrations to live action. The really cool thing about this video presentation maker is the ability to create engaging video infographics.
With Emaze, spectacular video presentations are at your fingertips. With an intuitive creator interface and a number of ready-made templates available, creating a video presentation is no longer time-consuming. If you already have a PowerPoint presentation that you want to enhance, you can import it into Emaze and use its collection of tools – attaching photos, GIFs, videos, and 3D images.
Animoto is an online video maker that allows you to create video presentations by simply dragging and dropping your own images and video clips into a pre-built video presentation template. To customize your videos, you can quickly adjust colors, fonts, background music, add your company watermark, and more. No video editing experience is required.
If you’d like to know more about other tools for making video presentations, read our article on the Top 10 Video Presentation Makers for Promotion and Education.
By default, you can make your PowerPoint presentation into a video by saving it as one. It can be a solid choice if you don’t need narration for this video. But if you need to, you’ll still be able to record narrations from that menu, without going back to the original PowerPoint presentation.
Here’s what you need to do to download your slides as a video in PowerPoint:
To make your presentation even better, consider the following tips for creating a successful video presentation:
Feel free to learn the answers to a few popular questions about making a video presentation.
First and foremost, think about your target audience. What are their ages, genders, and occupations? What is their prior knowledge on a topic or their level of proficiency? After you define this, choose the way you will be presenting accordingly. You should connect with your audience emotionally and ‘speak their language.’ In this way, you’ll communicate the right message to the viewers.
Second, it will be useful to prepare a script for your video. Of course, the slideshow will support you, and you can base your speech on its content. But if you write an intro, outro, some key points, and transition words in advance, you will present more confidently, and reduce rambling or unnecessary pauses. This will help you focus on the effectiveness of your message.
Make sure you’re physically and technically ready. When delivering a presentation, prevent your mouth and throat from getting dry. You can use a lip balm and have a glass of water nearby to refresh during pauses. This will make you sound better, and your recording will be clearer. For recording, it’s better to choose a smaller quiet space to avoid echoes, and check your microphone sound.
Also read: → How To Record PowerPoint Presentation With Audio
PowerPoint allows you to save your presentation in these video formats: MPEG-4 (or MP4 / .mp4), Windows Media Video (.wmv) or MOV (if it’s PowerPoint on a Mac). MPEG-4 is the most common video format and is widely supported. Opt for this if you have PowerPoint versions 2013, 2016, or 2019. With PowerPoint 2010, the Windows Media format is preferable.
We hope this post will help you turn static presentations into an engaging video lecture. To start creating video presentations and other kinds of eLearning content, try iSpring Suite today. Get a 14-day trial and access all of its advanced features without spending a cent.