How to Create a Video Presentation in PowerPoint

Have you ever gone on YouTube to watch just one video, only to find yourself stuck there a few hours later? You aren’t the only one. TechJury reports that last year the combined watch count on YouTube was 5 billion views per day.

People love watching videos. According to a report by Forrester Research, videos are 75% better at keeping the audience engaged than documents, articles, and other forms of plain media. This is why 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.

• What Is a Video Presentation
• Why Create a Video Presentation
• How to Create a Video Presentation
• The Top 5 Tools for Making Video Presentations
• How to Turn Your PowerPoint Presentation into a Video
• Tips and Best Practices for Making Video Presentations
• FAQ on Video Presentations

What Is a Video Presentation?

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, and even to present an enterprise at expos or conventions. 

Video presentations can take 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.

Why Create a Video Presenation?

Besides being more appealing than a basic cut-and-dry content piece, video presentations are also:

• Persuasive. Video presentations more effectively persuade your target audience through audio-visual design, storytelling, and bringing emotions, ideas, and sounds into the mix.
• Better for information retention. Invisia reports that viewers retain 95% of a message in video form, as compared to 10% when reading it in text. Thus, educators often use video presentations within the framework of the digital storytelling concept or when pre-installing new educational material. Here you will find detailed information about how you can apply digital storytelling in your lessons.
• Accessible anytime, anywhere. Most people like to spend time on their phones and tablets, and they prefer to browse videos on them. Emarketer found that 75% of all videos are played on cell phones and tablets.
• Time-efficient. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Video presentations are meant to convey information in smaller chunks that are easy to process. This allows viewers to explore larger amounts of information more quickly and easily.

Video Presentation Examples

Do you need some inspiration for your video presentation? Take a look at some examples of quality video content created for different purposes and audiences.

Product/Sales video presentation

A good video presentation is a winning format if you want to present your product or service to potential customers to drive conversions and sales. You can highlight the key features, benefits, and value propositions of your offerings effectively and easily distribute the presentation via online platforms, such as your company website, social media channels, email newsletters, and video posting sites.

This is a short product presentation of Character Builder, one of iSpring Suite’s flagship features. The video is concise yet clear, explaining the feature and outlining its use in eLearning content creation. In just under 35 seconds, the viewers (aka potential or actual customers) can see how characters look and get an idea of how to create them.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgXBCvm4wVI

Educational video presentation

An educational video presentation is designed to convey information, ideas, or instructions in an engaging visual manner. These videos help viewers acquire new knowledge and learn new skills. Educational video presentations might include:

• Video lectures
• Employee training video presentations
• Employee onboarding videos
• Whiteboard animation videos 

Many educational presentations use the talking-head video format, in which a presenter records themselves (sometimes simultaneously with their screen or a video slideshow). This helps enhance comprehension and retention of the presented material since viewers can see the speaker’s facial expressions, gestures, and body language.

In the video below, Dr. Pauls gives viewers an overview of learning experience design. This video presentation is visually dynamic: the presenter uses a talking-head video format to explain and react to ideas, together with screencasting, embedded videos, animations, and other video backgrounds.

The final product is a rich, engaging, lecture-style presentation that keeps learners hooked.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyMahZWuQIg. 

Explainer video presentation

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, a video is worth even more! You can use a video presentation to explain complex concepts or processes in a simple and understandable manner. Some popular types of explainer videos include: 

• Product or service explainers
• Workflow explainers
• Q&A 

97% of marketers say that explainer videos help users get a better understanding of a product or service and feel more compelled to purchase it.

Pro tip: if you don’t have a designated presenter but still want to add a human touch to your explainer video presentations, you can use static or animated characters. For example, you can easily build custom characters in iSpring Suite and feature them in your presentations. 

Take a look at this explainer video presentation on how to set up learning tracks in iSpring Learn. It’s done in the form of a screencast, in which the viewer follows the process from beginning to end. The presenter uses voice-over narration throughout the presentation to explain the setup steps and help users see the logic behind each one.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgaGiKfi60s

How to Create a Video Presentation in PowerPoint

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 provide you with other presentation makers that can help you create a professional video presentation fast.

iSpring Suite is an easy-to-use tool with robust video and screen recording functionalities 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 the slides that you’ve made in PowerPoint into a video presentation, record a separate video, or 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. 

Follow these five steps to make a video presentation within 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

Step 1. Add a video narration

Open your slides in PowerPoint. Then go to the iSpring Suite tab and click on Manage Narration. This can function as a video presentation maker.

Once the iSpring Narration Editor window appears, you can either record a new video narration or import an existing video file.

How to import 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 the same time. To do that, press and hold the Ctrl key while selecting 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 the 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. 

How to record a video in PowerPoint

To film yourself on a webcam, you can use the video narration feature. 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 start recording video for the current slide, mark Process current slide only.

Step 2. Synchronize video with slides

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 the sequence. Click on those buttons at the appropriate moment. 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.

Step 3. Switch layouts in Slide Properties

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 Full layout displays the slide, sidebar, and navigation panel.

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 the on-screen information 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 Full layout displays video and the presentation in equal proportions.

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 recommended that you set slides to advance automatically during the entire presentation. To do that, in Presentation Explorer, select all slides and click on the Auto button.

Step 4. Customize your player template

The built-in presentation player has flexible customization options for creating presentation templates: you can provide your viewers with the presenter’s info, a brand logo, an outline, and more. First, let’s choose which 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 image below.

For this guide on making a video presentation, we’ll use the Universal player. To customize it, click on Templates. There are several player templates to choose from. We’ll 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 have finished customizing the player, click on Apply & Close in the upper left corner. Well done! You’ve put the finishing touches on your video presentation. 

Step 5. Publish your video presentation

When your video presentation is ready, the last step is to publish it to a web format so it can be easily accessed via a browser.

In the Publish Presentation window, select the My Computer tab from the menu at the left. 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 the HTML5 format to make our video presentation play seamlessly across all platforms and devices. You can learn more about publishing presentations here.

The Top 5 Tools for Making Video Presentations

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 to animating your cartoons. Here’s an overview of five of the most powerful yet easy-to-learn video presentation makers.

1. Camtasia 

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 future projects. 

Like iSpring, Camtasia is a video presentation maker that allows you to record both screen and webcam. You can’t create a slide deck 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.

2. PowToon 

Animation is a universal language without limits; it hooks any audience immediately. Promotional cartoons are now available to everyone, thanks to software like PowToon. This service can function as a video presentation maker that has an intuitive user interface and amazing comic-style 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 a single click.

3. Biteable

Biteable is a video presentation maker and video editing software that allows you to make professional-quality video presentations and animated videos online within minutes. It sacrifices the ability to capture video and record voice in favor of the creation of powerful animations. The ingredients are your photos, texts, pre-made templates, and stock video footage. Styles of presentation videos produced vary from animated illustrations to live action. What’s cool about this video presentation maker is its ability to create engaging video infographics.

4. Emaze 

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 to attach photos, GIFs, videos, and 3D images.

5. Animoto

Animoto is an online video presentation 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.

How to Turn Your PowerPoint Presentation into a Video

By default, you can make your PowerPoint presentation into a video by saving it as one. This can be a solid choice if you don’t need narration for your 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:

1. With the presentation open, head over to File on the PowerPoint toolbar and select Export to view the export options.
   
2. In the Export menu, select Create a Video. You are now ready to save the presentation as a video.
3.  In the drop-down menu, you can choose how to export the presentation: with narration (if you’ve already recorded it) or without. If you want to record a narration at this point, click on Record Timings and Narration.
   
4. Choose how long each of your slides will appear. Manage the speed of the demonstration in the small drop-down menu.
   
5. Click on the Create video tab to start downloading your video.

Tips and Best Practices for Making Video Presentations

To make your presentation even better, consider the following tips for creating a successful video presentation:

• Make your videos short and sweet. Keep your video clips long enough to grab the attention of your target audience but short enough to incite curiosity. Your goal is to maintain the viewer’s interest. Remember, the optimal length of a video presentation is no longer than 4-7 minutes.
• Keep to the point. Make your goals and objectives known at the start of the presentation, and don’t stray from the message. Your text and visuals should relate to the subject matter and not detract from the goal of your video presentation.
• Add engaging elements. Enrich your video presentation with useful and interesting content. For example, add background music, colorful infographics, embed YouTube videos, or insert interactive quizzes to engage learners.
• End on a meaningful note. Leave your audience with something they can take away from the presentation. A new idea, a short story, a visual representation of your product, or even a link to your website works to provide the strong ending needed to create a lasting impression.

FAQ on Creating Video Presentations

Here are answers to a few popular questions about making a video presentation.

How do I make an effective video presentation?

First and foremost, think about your target audience before you create video presentations. What are their ages, genders, and occupations? What is their prior knowledge on a topic or their level of proficiency? After you define the audience, 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.

How can I prepare myself for a video presentation?

Make sure you’re physically and technically prepared. 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, quieter space to avoid echoes and check your microphone’s sound.

Also read → How To Record PowerPoint Presentation With Audio 

What is the best video format for a PowerPoint presentation?

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.

To Sum Up

We hope this post will help you turn static slides into an engaging video presentation that captivates your audience. To start creating video presentations and other kinds of eLearning content, try iSpring Suite today. Get a 14-day free trial and access all of its advanced features without spending a cent.