PowerPoint presentations have completely changed the way information and public speakers deliver their message. For example, take a look at any company board meeting or even at a conference, every person that is speaking to an audience usually has a presentation slide working behind them.
Just like all public speakers and entrepreneurs are unique and skilled in their own ways, PowerPoint can be seen in the same way. The slides used are also a huge determining factor of whether or not an audience is going to be fully engaged or simply falling asleep. You’ve likely put a lot of time and effort into what you are going to say and the message you are going to deliver to your audience, for this reason, your slides need to be working for you and not against you!
In this article, we are going to break down seven tips to create amazing presentations and PowerPoint slides that will leave your audience wanting more.
How to Create an Engaging and Exciting PowerPoint Presentation
When it comes to preparing your PowerPoint slides, most people start off in a bad direction — which is to work off a simple white screen or one of the default templates provides by the software. With so many different customization options and high-quality images that the internet has to offer, there is simply no excuse to walk into your next meeting or event with a boring presentation.
Follow these quick presentation tips and impression your audience with both your speaking skills and visual presentation!
Write a Presentation Script
As mentioned earlier, when it comes to starting your presentation from scratch, you are simply left with a blank page. When in the world did you every do anything in life without preparation or guidance and find immediate success? Likely never.
Your presentation and slides should be treated the same way. Instead of trying to come up with useful content as you progress through numerous sites, you should have a plan for your content and how you want to portray it to your audience. A good way to get started with this is to map out the beginning, middle, and end of your slides. You can then work on the filler content in between.
Enough with the Clutter
I’m not sure why, but many presenters and slideshow users think they need to stick as much content as they possibly can within each slide. Never before has the saying “Less is More” been so relevant.
Think about it this way… You are “speaking” to an audience and what you have to say is more important than what is being shown on your slides. The last thing you want is for your audience to be completely distracted with whatever is going on with your slides, versus what you are trying to talk to them about.
No matter if its charts, images, text or numbers… keep your text and data limited to a minimal amount per slide.
Stay Away from Paragraphs of Text
When it comes to slides and presentations, the less text you have, the better.
Again, this goes back to the concept of you speaking to your audience. Two things that you don’t want to happen are:
- Your audience reading from your slides word for word
- Your audience trying to read while you speak
With a minimal amount of text on each of your slides this will allow you to keep track of where you are and what you are supposed to say. Bullet points and sentences are fine, but definitely, stay away from paragraphs of text, or anything that might need to be squeezed into your slides or shown in a minimized font size.
Design is Everything
As you’ve seen so far, the common theme across many of the points we’ve covered is to not go with the basic white template that PowerPoint immediately starts you off at. There are times when the white slideshow is recommended or required, but unless you have those specified terms in place, stay away from a white template.
We also mentioned that PowerPoint comes with a wide range of templates within the software as well. These templates are fine to use, but not recommended if you are trying to impress your audience or represent yourself as an expert in your space. The same holds true for speaking at different conferences or representing a business.
So what’s a presenter to do? Simple… use any of the PowerPoint template resources found across the internet, or work directly with InfographicDesignTeam to have a custom design created for your slides. This is something you can also accomplish yourself, but the amount of time and frustration involved in having this done correctly is quite thorough.
Use Images to Compliment Your Voice
Gone are the days of using clipart and images provided from within Microsoft PowerPoint. Not only are they aged, they are also quite unprofessional.
When it comes to creating a presentation that represents you and your brand well, you want to make sure the images are of the high-quality and that they align perfectly within the message you are trying to deliver.
There are plenty of sites on the internet that offer low-priced stock photos which can be used within your slides. Take the time to find the best images for your slides and invest a few dollars to stand above the competition.
Ask Questions to Your Audience
Presentations don’t have to be focused on the presenter endlessly speaking for a full 30 or 60 minutes. Instead, presentations can be broken apart to allow for time for questioning during each transition phase.
Something we commonly see while at conferences and events is a presenter talking on many different topics without hesitation throughout their presentation. This can lead to confusion at times, leaving an audience without answers to their questions.
A great way to keep the attention of your audience and making sure they are following you is to allow for a few quick questions in between slide topics. This will also allow for yourself, as the speaker, to take a moment to reflect on previous talking points while also gaining your composure.
Leave a Final Call-to-Action
How many times have you been to a meeting or conference and at the end of the speaking session, the speaker awkward stands there and just says “Thanks!”? While this is a common scenario, there is a much more powerful way to end your PowerPoint presentations — and that’s with a call to action!
Here are some great examples on how you can end your next presentation with an actionable task.
- Follow me on social media and visit my site
- Text # on mobile device to get free gift
- Provide a unique web link for gift or free trial
The end of your presentation is one of the absolute best times to provide a call to action to your audience, as they are just sitting there, fully engaged and waiting for something to do.
Create a Winning PowerPoint Presentation with InfographicDesignTeam
In addition to creating some of the most amazing infographics seen on the internet, InfographicDesignTeam also specializes in PowerPoint slide presentations as well.
All of our work follows each of the key points and elements mentioned above. To see a few examples of what’s possible when it comes to presentation design and customization, be sure to check out our portfolio.
Should you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to contact our design and sales team.
