You want to know the secret of giving your ideas a competitive edge or make them create a positive and long-lasting impression? The secret is very simple – you have to captivate your audience with whatever you are showing them.
Certainly, your ideas will play the major role but remember, that serving makes the food tastier! The importance of an effective message is high and so is the presentation design. I know what you’re thinking: you must be thinking that how can a presentation design be as important as the message itself. Trust me, even I used to think like that when I began my career.
You need to start thinking liking a salesperson. Your product could be anything, right from a tangible product to an idea. We, humans, are drawn to visuals and as a pitcher of an idea or product you have to show your ideas, so that you can help your viewers visualize the whole thing.
Here’s a fact for you – According to a study by Weiss and McGarth, whereas a person can expect 100% attention with a visual demonstration, he or she can expect 600% with audiovisual inputs. This fact should be enough to motivate you to design a presentation properly!
Therefore, to help you understand more about the importance of visuals and designs and at the same time, help you make your presentations perfect here are some slideshow design tips for your powerful marketing presentation. Let’s begin!
Tip #1. Attraction and Focus
It’s a given fact that your first slide won’t just have the idea; you will need something that will the viewers hooked into it right away and a good visual can do that. Make sure that the color theme is neither too bright nor gloomy. In addition to that insert some good visuals, such as pictures or animation to it. Make your slides as attractive as you can without making it look messy. You must have heard this line before – One picture can paint thousand words!
Tip #2. Retention and Understanding
I always believed that it’s better to see something once than hear about it thousands of times, especially a business plan or an innovative idea. Therefore, a simple and easy three-point presentation on your product or idea is always better than hearing or just looking at it. Your presentation should be simple enough for clear understanding and retention.
Tip #3. Professional Image
Your image in an office or a company is very important and your presentations should complement that. Marshal McLuhan, the Canadian philosopher, said that, “the medium itself is the message!” You have to believe the man who predicted internet’s arrival 3 decades before it was invented! Therefore, you need to make sure that your medium must carry your message crystal clear. In addition to that, if you care about audience, you should also make sure the slides are just as good.
Tip #4. Efficiency
The primary objective of your presentation is always to get the message understood clearly and that will determine if your presentation was worth it or not. You should make sure that you make a slideshow in such a way that the main objective doesn’t get overshadowed by anything else – not too many facts or colors. Your slideshow design should not just be easy or impressive on eyes but should also ensure that the main purpose is served.
Tip #5. Use more images than text
Finally, focus on images as they can help you put across a certain point better than just writing down points. For example, if you want to prove a point you can just put a bar diagram that will show how your idea was effective in various scenarios; or maybe you can make a graph on past trends and put it in your slideshow!
The simple fact that “text can be boring” plays a big role here and when you use more images in your slideshow; it will enhance the overall storytelling. But make sure that you use high quality images so that it would look good and your viewers can see them properly.
Tip #6. Avoid BAD cliparts
The idea is to make the slideshow appealing as well as clear. While cliparts can be interesting, overusing them or using bad cliparts will only make your effort look bad. Since clip arts are not a must in every slideshow, make sure that you don’t choose the bad ones. Remember, you will be making your slideshow for people who are serious about work, putting too many or bad cliparts will make your slideshow childish.
Tip #7. Choose the fonts carefully
Your slideshow should not only be visible but also readable. Bad choice of fonts or too small or big fonts will make the whole presentation look ugly and will fail miserable to get your viewers’ attention.
“Make the type size on your slides bigger,” says Kawasaki. While Kawasaki suggests using 30-point text at a minimum, he reveals that Jobs used 190-point text. Why? The simple answer, according to Kawasaki: “Bigger text is easier to read. Duh!”
But, if there are too many bullet points then you can make the fonts smaller, ensuring that they are visible. Similarly, you have to be careful about the font style as well; don’t choose to curvy fonts as they are not readable from a distance. Use the fonts that look good and are readable as well.
Finally
Understanding how to make a slideshow is certainly important, but making a slideshow that will hit the main goal is more important. As mentioned earlier the idea is important but how you present it as also important. The mentioned tips will certainly help you make a powerful and impressive slideshow, which will make your presentation appealing and impressive. To sum it up your presentation should be:
Researched, well-planned, and prepared in such a manner that it should get the message across in an interesting manner.The design of your slideshow will get your audience hooked to it and will make the points clear. Therefore, you should design your slideshow in such a manner that it should stand-out without complicating or confusing the matter unnecessarily.You are the presenter and you should be well-rehearsed and make sure that you don’t say too little or too much.
Your slideshow should be easy and appealing to the eyes, so choose your font style and size carefully. The fonts should be readable and pleasing; making the fonts too small or big will ruin the overall appeal and choosing a font that’s hard to read from a distance will make the whole presentation bad.Use clip arts and images in an effective manner. Just the way, images can help you get the message delivered in an interesting way, too many or bad clipart can ruin it.Finally, make sure that all the information are free of mistakes.
I hope that the key points and tips will help you make an excellent presentation. These tips are time-tested and will definitely make your presentation powerful.
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All the best!