If you're in business, you need to know how to create captivating presentations. Whether you're trying to convince your boss to support a new campaign, talking with a prospect to close a deal, or building a new piece of marketing collateral, you need to know how craft a presentation that won't put people to sleep.
The best (and easiest) way to do that? Use the right tools to create and deliver your presentation.
If you're not sure which tools to use, look no further than this blog post. We’ve compiled our list of the top presentation tools for sales and marketing professionals. They’re listed below, in no particular order. But first ...
Why You Should Use Business Presentation Templates
Using a professional presentation design ensures your content is conveyed in a clear, creative, and visually appealing way. To make it stand out further, try using HubSpot’s custom-build templates rather than utilizing one of the existing templates in in your presentation software. You can download them for free here.
Best Presentation Tools
1. Canva
Canva makes design easy -- even for marketers and salespeople who feel like they're design-challenged. The platform gives you a bunch of presentation templates to use right away, and it's very easy to customize them to your organization and presentation objective. Plus, a variety of apps that integrate with Google Drive, Instagram, and YouTube, to name a few.
Pricing: Free; Pro, $12.95/month for up to five people; Enterprise, $30/month per person
2. Powtoon
Often, being different is what attracts prospects, and Powtoon can help you do that in your presentations. Powtoon’s animation software lets you easily create videos with props, characters, and more -- which can help you differentiate your company when talking with prospects.
Pricing: Pro, $19/month; Pro+ $49/month; Agency, $89/month
3. PowerPoint
For years, PowerPoint has been the standard in presentation software, but it hasn’t remained static. PowerPoint is full of features to make sales and marketing presentations dynamic and engaging. (Here are just a few ways you can do that.)
Pricing: Business Basic, $5/user/month; Business Standard, $12.50/user/month; Business Premium, $20/user/month
4. Oomfo
A PowerPoint add-in, Oomfo helps sales and marketing pros create those oh-so-important interactive charts for presentations. Specialized charts, live charts from multiple files, data from cloud applications, interactive options, one-click conversions -- it’s all possible, and more, with Oomfo.
Pricing: Free
5. Keynote
Apple’s Keynote allows users to work between their Mac and iOS devices, as well as with people who use Microsoft PowerPoint. With easy-to-use visual tools, drag and drop functionality, interactive charts, and more, Keynote is a popular choice among sales and marketing professionals.
Pricing: Free
6. Beautiful.ai
Create beautiful slides, pitches, and proposals without a team of designers. AI applies design rules in real time, and a library of free photos and icons are at your fingertips.
Pricing: Basic, $0; Pro, $12/month; Team, $38/user/month
7. Haiku Deck
Available for the web or iPad, Haiku Deck has become a favorite of sales and marketing pros. With Haiku Deck, professionals can quickly create presentations that can be "easily projected, shared, posted, embedded on a website or blog, or viewed on any web-enabled device." Though it's another tool that helps you create presentations from scratch, its ease-of-use sets it apart from the rest.
Pricing: Pro, $9.99 - $19.99/month; Premium, $29.99/month
8. Vyond
Vyond is an online animation software that allows you to create animated videos for marketing campaigns, sales enablement, or even human resources. Use their library of customizable templates or create your own from scratch.
Pricing: Essential, $229/year; Premium, $649/year; Professional, $999/user/year; Enterprise, contact for pricing
9. emaze
Busy sales and marketing pros choose emaze because it makes creating amazing presentations quick and easy. The options abound with emaze: Choose a professionally designed template and then create a slideshow, video presentation, or 3D presentation.
Pricing: Business Plan, contact for pricing; Executive Plan, $40/month; Pro Plan, $13/month
10. Camtasia
TechSmith’s Camtasia is an amazing tool that helps you create professional videos. You can record screen movements, import HD video from another source, customize and edit the video, and then share the completed video presentation on practically any device.
Pricing: Individual, $249.99/user/year; Business $249.99/user/year; Education, $169.99/user/year; Government and Non-Profit, $223.99/user/year
11. SlideShare
SlideShare is a popular choice for sales and marketing professionals looking for a way to share their content publicly. Because it already has a built-in audience, you can easily distribute your presentation out to lots of people -- and those people can embed your SlideShares on websites and blogs, or share them on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
Pricing: Free
12. SlideDog
Sometimes, sales and marketing professionals need to be able to move between presentation tools, but it’s not always possible because of their technical limitations. SlideDog is the solution, as it enables users to switch between PowerPoint, Prezi, PDF, web pages and others.
Pricing: Free; Pro, $99/year; Pro Event, $49 for one-time payment
13. Presentation Assistant
Presentation Assistant lives up to its name: It assists professionals by enabling them to annotate, zoom, and more during a presentation. Sales and marketing professionals can clarify and emphasize points more clearly to their audience with Presentation Assistant.
Pricing: Presentation Pointer, $29.95; Presentation Screen Master, $29.95
14. authorSTREAM
Sales and marketing pros choose authorSTREAM to make their presentations dynamic and engaging. authorSTREAM allows users to share their PowerPoint presentations publicly or privately, broadcast them, convert them to video, communicate and collaborate about them, and more.
Pricing: Free or paid plans start at $4.20/month
15. Zentation
With Zentation, salespeople and marketers combine video and slides into a simulated live experience. Presentations created with Zentation become webinars, webcasts, and virtual events for prospects and customers -- all great collateral for marketing and sales.
Pricing: Free; Premium, $10 - $45/month; White-Label, contact for pricing
16. Prezi
Sales and marketing professionals love Prezi because it is cloud-based. Prezi makes creating, editing, and presenting from your browser, desktop, iPad, or iPhone possible anywhere, any time.
Pricing: Standard, $5/month; Plus, $15/month; Premium, $59/month
17. Brainshark
Sales reps and marketers often choose Brainshark, a cloud-based presentation tool, because it allows them to create and deliver presentations live or on-demand (even using their iPad or iPhone), use on-demand video content, polls, or surveys for increased engagement, and embed presentations in websites and blogs.
Pricing: Contact for pricing
18. Vcasmo
Vcasmo is a unique presentation tool -- it's a multimedia solution that enables users to synchronize a video and slideshow, side by side. Sales and marketing pros love Vcasmo because it supports playback in three forms: browser, mobile, and iPad.
Pricing: Free; Standard, $10.99/month; Professional, $16.99/month
19. ViewletBuilder
ViewletBuilder is a different presentation tool; it captures critical screen updates and cursor position changes so sales and marketing pros can create presentations detailing how their product or sites work. With a plethora of features, ViewletBuilder allows for editing and enhancing and includes a variety of publishing and sharing options, too.
Pricing: Pro, $399; Enterprise, $599
20. Zoho Show
Zoho Show is a top pick for sales and marketing pros because it lives online, making it possible to create, access, present, and more from anywhere, any time. The simple, intuitive interface and collaboration features are just two of its beloved benefits.
Pricing: Contact for pricing
What are you waiting for? Pick a tool and start creating. Your prospects are waiting.
Editor's Note: This post was originally published in October 2014 and has been updated for freshness and comprehensiveness.
