4 main purposes categorize presentations
Every presentation has a specific purpose. And based on those underlying purposes, presentations can be classified into different categories. The team or individual must have the understanding of the purpose before embarking on the preparation of a presentation.
- Descriptive presentations: Descriptive presentations contain details regarding products or services of a company, fine points on different processes and quality-measures followed there, the ins-and-outs of the system, conventions and varied policies rules, operational philosophy and other fundamental information in an assorted manner.
- Report-centric presentations: A report-centric presentation is structured on a specific report summing up an event, experiment, trial, test, research, project or any experience, aimed to improve the productivity of a company. Different sales & marketing reports, initiatives, advertising campaigns, seminars, proposals, conferences etc. can be encapsulated in an appealing presentation.
- Influential presentations: Influential presentations are the mother of all presentations. Business-world moves on these Influential presentations. These presentations depict the real craft and art of making presentations. PPTs or Flash-based, these presentations sway, encourage and convince the target-audience to buy the products or services that get mentioned here. These presentations turn out to be a supremely effective communication-medium, backed by different multi-media features, in which an organization or company makes an entertaining assortment of its profile, qualities and offerings. Extracting business is the prime purpose here and a Call-of-Action from prospective clients is the accomplishment. These are called Transactional presentations as well.
- Brand-building presentations: A brand embodies the distinctiveness of an entity. A brand is a compact identity of something. And in this age of aggressive marketing, where you would have an enormous number of competitors breathing on your neck, brand-building is a necessary exercise. What separates you from the rest, your uniqueness in terms of products or services, the quality-measures in your organization and your company’s achievements over a period of time cumulatively build brand for you. All of this and more are shown succinctly in a presentation in the format of an engaging story, with the proper use of different multi-media-utilities.
Sales presentations, Motivational presentations, Educational presentations or other purpose-based presentations may vary in nomenclature, but carry the soul of at least one of the aforementioned.