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I like to think of Microsoft PowerPoint as a test of basic marketing skills. To create a passing presentation, I need to demonstrate design skills, technical literacy, and a sense of personal style.

If the presentation has a problem (like an unintended font, a broken link, or unreadable text), then I’ve probably failed the test. Even if my spoken presentation is well rehearsed, a bad visual experience can ruin it for the audience. Expertise means nothing without a good presentation to back it up.

No matter your topic, successful PowerPoints depend on three main factors: your command of PowerPoint’s design tools, your attention to presentation processes, and your devotion to consistent style. Here are some simple tips to help you start mastering each of those factors, and don’t forget to check out the additional resources at the bottom of this post.

PowerPoint Tips: Style

Step 1: Don’t let PowerPoint decide how you use PowerPoint.

Microsoft wanted to provide PowerPoint users with a lot of tools. But this does not mean you should use them all. Here are some key things to look out for:

• Make sure that preset PPT themes complement your needs before you adopt them.
• Try to get away from using Microsoft Office’s default fonts, Calibri and Cambria. Using these two typefaces can make the presentation seem underwhelming.
• Professionals should never use PPT’s action sounds. (Please consider your audience above personal preference).
• PowerPoint makes bulleting automatic, but ask yourself: Are bullets actually appropriate for what you need to do? Sometimes they are, but not always.
• Recent PPT defaults include a small shadow on all shapes. Remove this shadow if it’s not actually needed. Also, don’t leave shapes in their default blue.

Step 2: Create custom slide sizes.

While you usually can get away with the default slide size for most presentations, you may need to adjust it for larger presentations on weirdly sized displays. If you need to do that, here’s how.

1. In the top-left corner, choose “File.”
2. Select “Page Setup.”
3. Type the height and width of the background you’d like, and click “OK.”
4. A dialogue box will appear. Click “OK” again.
5. Your background is resized!

Tip: Resize your slides before you add any objects to them or the dimensions of your objects will become skewed.

Step 3: Edit your slide template design.

Often, it’s much easier to edit your PowerPoint template before you start — this way, you don’t have design each slide by hand. Here’s how you do that.

1. Select “Themes” in the top navigation.
2. In the far right, click “Edit Master,” then “Slide Master.”
3. Make any changes you like, then click “Close Master.” All current and future slides in that presentation will use that template.

Step 4: Make sure all of your objects are properly aligned.

Having properly aligned objects on your slide is the key to making it look polished and professional. You can manually try to line up your images … but we all know how that typically works out. You’re trying to make sure all of your objects hang out in the middle of your slide, but when you drag them there, it still doesn’t look quite right. Get rid of your guessing game and let PowerPoint work its magic with this trick.

How to align multiple objects:

1. Select all objects by holding down “Shift” and clicking on all of them.
2. Select “Arrange” in the top options bar, then choose “Align or Distribute.”
3. Choose the type of alignment you’d like.

How to align objects to the slide:

1. Select all objects by holding down “Shift” and clicking on all of them.
2. Select “Arrange” in the top options bar, then choose “Align or Distribute.”
3. Select “Align to Slide.”
4. Select “Arrange” in the top options bar again, then choose “Align or Distribute.”
5. Choose the type of alignment you’d like.

PowerPoint Tips: Design

Step 5: Get more control over your objects’ designs using “Format” menus.

Format menus allow you to do fine adjustments that otherwise seem impossible. To do this, right click on an object and select the “Format” option. Here, you can fine-tune shadows, adjust shape measurements, create reflections, and much more. The menu that will pop up looks like this:

Although the main options can be found on PowerPoint’s format toolbars, look for complete control in the format window menu. Other examples of options available include:

• Adjusting text inside a shape.
• Creating a natural perspective shadow behind an object.
• Recoloring photos manually and with automatic options.

Step 6: Take advantage of PowerPoint’s shapes.

Many users don’t realize how flexible PowerPoint’s shape tools have become. In combination with the expanded format options released by Microsoft in 2010, the potential for good design with shapes is readily available. PowerPoint provides the user with a bunch of great shape options beyond the traditional rectangle, oval, and rounded rectangle patterns, unlike even professional design programs like Adobe Creative Suite or Quark.

Today’s shapes include a highly functional Smart Shapes function, which enables you to create diagrams and flow charts in no time. These tools are especially valuable when you consider that PowerPoint is a visual medium. Paragraphing and bullet lists are boring — you can use shapes to help express your message more clearly.

Step 7: Create custom shapes.

When you create a shape, right click and press “Edit Points.” By editing points, you can create custom shapes that fit your specific need. For instance, you can reshape arrows to fit the dimensions you like.

Another option is to combine two shapes together. When selecting two shapes, right-click and go to the “Grouping” sub-menu to see a variety of options.

• Combine creates a custom shape that has overlapping portions of the two previous shapes cut out.
• Union makes one completely merged shape.
• Intersect builds a shape of only the overlapping sections of the two previous shapes.
• Subtract cuts out the overlapping portion of one shape from the other.

By using these tools rather than trying to edit points precisely, you can create accurately measured custom shapes.

Step 8: Crop images into custom shapes.

Besides creating custom shapes in your presentation, you can also use PowerPoint to crop existing images into new shapes. Here’s how you do that:

1. Click on the image and select “Format” in the options bar.
2. Choose “Crop,” then “Mask to Shape,” and then choose your desired shape. Ta-da! Custom-shaped photos.

Step 9: Present websites within PowerPoint.

Tradition says that if you want to show a website in a PowerPoint, you should just create link to the page and prompt a browser to open. For PC users, there’s a better option.

Third party software that integrates fully into PowerPoint’s developer tab can be used to embed a website directly into your PowerPoint using a normal HTML iframe. One of the best tools is LiveWeb, a third-party software developed independently.

By using LiveWeb, you don’t have to interrupt your PowerPoint, and your presentation will remain fluid and natural. Whether you embed a whole webpage or just a YouTube video, this can be a high-quality third party improvement.

Unfortunately, Mac users don’t have a similar option. Agood second choice is to take screen shots of the website, link in through a browser, or embed media (such as a YouTube video) by downloading it directly to your computer.

PowerPoint Tips: Process

Step 10: Embed your font files.

One constant problem presenters have with PowerPoint is that fonts seem to change when presenters move from one computer to another. In reality, the fonts are not changing — the presentation computer just doesn’t have the same font files installed. If you’re using a PC and presenting on a PC, then there is a smooth work around for this issue. (When you involve Mac systems, the solution is a bit rougher. See Tip #11.)

Here’s the trick: When you save your PowerPoint file (only on a PC), you should click Save Options in the “Save As …” dialog window. Then, select the “Embed TrueType fonts” check box and press “OK.” Now, your presentation will keep the font file and your fonts will not change when you move computers (unless you give your presentation on a Mac).

Step 11: Save your slides as JPEGs.

In PowerPoint for Mac 2011, there is no option to embed fonts within the presentation. So unless you use ubiquitous typefaces like Arial or Tahoma, your PPT is likely going to encounter font changeson different computers.

The most certain way of avoiding this is by saving your final presentation as JPEGs, and then inserting these JPEGs onto your slides. On a Mac, users can easily drag and drop the JPEGs into PPT with fast load time. If you do not use actions in your presentation, then this option works especially well.

If you want your presentation to appear “animated,” you’ll need to do a little tinkering. All you need to do is save JPEGs of each “frame” of the animation. Then, in your final presentation, you’ll just display those JPEGs in the order you’d like the animation to appear. While you’ll technically have several new slides in place of one original one, your audience won’t know the difference.

An important consideration: If your PPT includes a lot of JPEGs, then the file size will increase.

Step 12: Embed multimedia.

PowerPoint allows you to either link to video/audio files externally or to embed the media directly in your presentation. You should embed these files if you can, but if you use a Mac, you cannot actually embed the video (see note below). For PCs, two great reasons for embedding are:

1. Embedding allows you to play media directly in your presentation. It will look much more professional than switching between windows.
2. Embedding also means that the file stays within the PowerPoint presentation, so it should play normally without extra work (except on a Mac).

Note: Mac OS users of PowerPoint should be extra careful about using multimedia files.

If you use PowerPoint for Mac, then you will always need to bring the video and/or audio file with you in the same folder as the PowerPoint presentation. It’s best to only insert video or audio files once the presentation and the containing folder have been saved on a portable drive in their permanent folder. Also, if the presentation will be played on a Windows computer, then Mac users need to make sure their multimedia files are in WMV format. This tip gets a bit complicated, so if you want to use PowerPoint effectively, consider using the same operating system for designing andpresenting, no matter what.

Step 13: Bring your own hardware.

Between operating systems, PowerPoint is still a bit jumpy. Even between differing PPT versions, things can change. One way to fix these problems is to make sure that you have the right hardware — so just bring along your own laptop when you’re presenting.

Step 14: Use “Presenter View.”

In most presentation situations, there will be both a presenter’s screen and the main projected display for your presentation. PowerPoint has a great tool called Presenter View, which can be found in the “Slide Show” tab of PowerPoint 2010 (or 2011 for Mac). Included in the Presenter View is an area for notes, a timer/clock, and a presentation display.

For many presenters, this tool can help unify their spoken presentation and their visual aid. You never want to make the PowerPoint seem like a stack of notes that you use a crutch. Use the Presenter View option to help create a more natural presentation.

Pro Tip: At the start of the presentation, you should also hit CTRL + H to make the cursor disappear. Hitting the “A” key will bring it back if you need it!

Conclusion

With style, design, and presentation processes under your belt, you can do a lot more with PowerPoint than just presentations for your clients. PowerPoint and similar slide applications are flexible tools that should not be forgotten.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in 2013 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

 

Sometimes, I think that we here at HubSpot are just a bunch of mad scientists.

We love to run experiments. We love to throw bold ideas at the wall to see if they stick, tinkering with different factors, and seeing how what happens can be incorporated into what we do every day. To us, it’s a very hot topic — we’re writing about it whenever we can, and trying to lift the curtain on what, behind the scenes, we’re cooking up on our own marketing team.

But we’re going to let you in on yet another secret: Experiments are not designed to improve metrics. a systematic method to determine the relationship between factors affecting a process and the output of that process.” So, much like the overall point of conducting experiments in the first place, this method is used to discover cause-and-effect relationships.

To us, that informs a lot of the decision-making process behind experiments — especially whether or not to conduct it in the first place. In other words, what are we trying to learn, and why?

Experiments Are Quantitative User Research

From what I’ve seen around the web, there seems to be a bit of a misconception around experimentation — so please, allow me to set the record straight. As marketers, we do not run experiments to improve metrics. That type of thinking actually demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what experiments are, and how the scientific method works.

Source: Carson-Dellosa Publishing

Instead, marketers should run experiments to gather behavioral data from users, to help answer questions about who these users are and how they interact with your website. Prior to running a given experiment, there may have been some misinformed assumptions about users. These answers challenge those assumptions, and provide better context to how people are using your online presence.

That’s one thing that makes experimentation such a learning-centric process: It forces marketers to acknowledge that we might not know as much as we’d like to think we do about how our tools are being used.

But if it’s your job to improve metrics, fear not — while the purpose of experimentation isn’t necessarily to accomplish that goal, it still has the potential to do so. The key to unlocking improved metrics is often the knowledge gained through research. To shed light on this, let’s take a closer look at assumptions.

Addressing Assumptions

In reality, many marketers build an online presence based on what I call a “pyramid of assumptions.” That often happens when we don’t thoroughly answer the following questions prior to that build:

• Do we know who is finding a particular page?
• Do we know why they are visiting a particular page?
• Do we know what they were doing before visiting a particular page?

When you think about it, it’s kind of a looney concept to build online assets without these answers. But hey — you’ve got things to do. There are about a hundred more pages that you need to build after this one. Oh, and there’s that redesign that you need to get to. In other words, we understand why marketers take these shortcuts and make these assumptions when facing the pressure of a deadline. But there are consequences.

If those initial, core assumptions are wrong, conversions might be left on the table — and that’s where experimentation serves as a potential opportunity to improve metrics. (See? We wouldn’t leave you hanging.) The data you collect from experiments helps you answer questions — and those answers give you context around the customer journey. This context helps you make more educated decisions on what to build, and why. In turn, these educated decisions help to improve metrics.

Experimental Design: A Hypothetical Framework

The Experiment Scenario

Let’s say you’ve been hired as the marketing manager for the fictional Ruff N’ Tumble Boots Co., a.k.a., RNT Boots. Now, let’s say this brand has a product detail page for its best-selling boot, which goes in depth as to why this particular boot is perfect for the most intense hikes. This page’s conversion rate is “okay,” at best, with about 5% of visitors purchasing the boot. And overall, the page is well-designed.

But did you catch the assumption that this page makes? It was built with the presuming mentality of, “People are buying the boot for hiking.” Core assumptions, like this one, must always be validated on high-value pages.

The hypothesis: By modifying the value proposition of the product details pages, we’ll be able to observe any difference in purchase rate between them and build better product pages with higher conversion rates.

The objective: In the scientific method, your objective should be to answer a question. Here, our objective is to learn the optimal way to position the boot product in our online store. Improving metrics is a potential downstream effect from gaining this learning.

Success indicators: If this experiment shows a difference in purchase rate between value propositions of +-3 percentage points or more, we will consider it successful. A result of this degree will signal whether people purchase this boot for hiking — or not.

The Experimental Design

First, we need to determine whether our experiment can hit statistical significance within a reasonable amount of time — one week or less. Here’s a calculator that can help with this step.

Source: VWO

Then, we need to establish the control of our experiment: the untouched, unmodified, pre-existing assumption that the value proposition of product pages should be activity-focused. In this case, that activity is hiking.

Next, we’ll determine three variants, or experiment groups pertaining to product page value propositions:

• Variable A: Work or task; e.g., construction or landscaping tasks.
• Variable B: Seasonal; e.g., snow, mud, or hot weather.
• Variable C: Lifestyle; e.g., these boots fit into and are imperative to a lifestyle that is athletic and outdoorsy, but also trendy.

The Results

This experiment has three likely outcomes.

1) The control group will outperform the variant groups.

This isn’t necessarily bad — it means that the experiment has validated your preexisting assumption about the product page’s value proposition. But, it also means that the value proposition isn’t what’s causing the less-than-stellar conversion rate. Document and share these results, and use them to figure out how you will determine the cause.

2) One or more variant groups will outperform the control group.

Wowza — you just learned that most people do not visit this page to purchase the boot for hiking. In other words, the experiment has invalidated your preexisting assumption.

Again, document and share the results, and figure out how you’ll apply these findings. Should you fully swap out the value prop of the product details page? Should you also move the needle on your target audience? These are the questions that should stem from an outcome like this one.

3) Nothing — all groups perform about the same.

When nothing changes at all, I like to always take one step back, and ask a few clarifying questions:

• Did different buyer segments show contrasting behavior on different variants?
• Are these segments evenly distributed?
• Could it be that none of these value propositions are resonating with our audience?
• Are they not resonating because users arrive at the product page already having decided to buy the boots?

In sum, according to your hypothesis, this outcome is inconclusive. And while that means going back to the drawing board and redesigning your experiment (and its variables), use the answers to the above questions to guide you.

If you’re not eager to jump back into another experiment — after all, they can require resources like time and labor — there are some alternatives to consider.

Was an experiment the only way to challenge these assumptions?

Aha — here we are, back at the great do-we-need-to-run-this-experiment question. The honest answer: Probably not.

There are other tactics that could have been applied here. For example, something like a quick survey or seamless feedback tool could be added to the purchase flow of the boot.

However, that type of tactic is not without its flaws. Sometimes, for instance, there’s a difference between what people say on a survey, and the behavior they actually carry out.

As marketers, we sometimes refer to this concept as the “lizard brain”: When someone might say that they plan to use the boots for hiking, but in reality, is more likely to purchase the boots if he can be convinced that he’ll look good in them — which creates a degree of consumer bias.

So if you’re going to “build a story with surveys and interviews,” as my colleague, HubSpot Tech Lead Geoffrey Daigle puts it, “validate that story with data.”

Your Experimentation Checklist

Now that you have all of the context on what experiments are, why we run them, and what we need to run them, let’s circle back and answer the original question: When should you run an experiment? Here’s your criteria:

• A page has enough traffic volume to statistically prove experiment results within a reasonable amount of time.
• The page is built on top of unvalidated assumptions, and you’ve identified:
• What the unvalidated assumptions are.
• The stability of those assumptions.
• You are unable to validate assumptions by leveraging other methods.

And as for determining alternatives to experiments, here’s a checklist of questions to ask:

• Do you have existing quantitative or qualitative data that you can leverage?
• Can you run a quick survey?
• Can you run a moderated user test?
• Can you run a user interview?

How do you approach the decision-making process and design of experiments? Let us know about your best experiments in the comments –and hey, we might even feature it on our blog.