5 Principles for Making PowerPoint Slides That Make an Impact
Whether you are delivering webinar training to deliver those all-important tactics to your sales forces, or using webinar coaching to educate and develop members of staff, it’s important that your presentations make an impact. Presentations are hosted for a number of reasons, and as a host it’s important that you understand the principles that make for a successful presentation.
1) Ensure the Presentation Is About You, Not Your Slides
There is nothing wrong with having information on your slides, in fact, it’s encouraged. But it’s also important to obtain a balance between the information on the slides and the content you are delivering orally. Use the slides to provide facts about what you are delivering, but ensure the information is clear and concise. Having too much information displayed on your slides can divert attention from what you have to say, and what you have to say is the most important aspect of the presentation.
2) PowerPoint Slides Should Support Your Point
Audience members find nothing more confusing than being told information while viewing slides that either have irrelevant information, or points that are skipped over completely. Don’t use PowerPoint as a script for your presentation, instead use slides to emphasize your points. This will ensure that your audience stays focused on you rather than the PowerPoint slides.
3) Incorporate Media into Your Presentation to Evoke Emotion
It can be very tempting to have bullet points and reams of facts detailed within your presentation, but as previously mentioned, this can be a little too much for your audience to absorb. As well as ensuring your slides emphasize the point you are trying to make, you should also look to include graphics and video to help build an emotional connection between you and your audience.
If you do find yourself with slides that contain a lot of bullet points, try and break these points up into single slides. This will give you more room to add media and make the presentation more aesthetically pleasing. It will also make the information much easier to understand for your audience.
4) Ensure Your Presentation is Kept Simple
It can be difficult to know what to include when preparing slides for a presentation. It would be easy to assume that your audience needs to know the same information as you do, but you need to take a step back and carry out some brain storming. As slides are only there to emphasize your point, words should be kept to a minimum. What this means is that slides should have a clear design that displays the relevant information. Your audience won’t want to look at an Excel spreadsheet during your presentation, so in this regard, you should opt for a more eye-catching infographic.
You should also ensure that your presentation is easy on the eye. Although it can be tempting to include lots of eye-catching colors, this can actually lead to your audience turning away. Using a single-colored background is the best approach, you can change colors to match the changing topics of your presentation.
Ensure you remove any “filler” from your slides. For example, if you work for a particular company, you may find yourself with a template that includes reams of information about the company. Try and remove these as most of your audience should be aware of who you are representing, and having such information included on the slides can be distracting.
5) Tell a Story During Your Presentation
Storytelling is an ideal way for a speaker to convey information while making the presentation more entertaining. You may wish to include just one story, or a collection of separate stories. Whatever approach you choose, it is important that the stories match the tone of the presentation. Stories could include success stories of those who have used your product, or highlight the success of a business that chose to follow your advice. Being able to include stories into your presentation means you will be able to connect with your audience more readily.