Ideas to write compelling and effective presentation content with structure.

Presentations play a key role in your business development or marketing strategy or even your college webinar. Many of us make the grave mistake of settling down with very plain presentations with text written all over the whitespace. And, worst-case scenario, people tend to write everything down on their presentation and read it out during a meeting or an event.

But, if you want your presentation to actually make a positive impact on your business or get people thinking about your product, there are certain factors you need to note down. Even though it is astronomical to match the level of Steve Jobs, we can improve several folds by taking inspiration from him. So, here are a few tips on how to curate more eye-catchy presentations with good structure.

Ideas to create a compelling presentation

• Know your content:

  The basis of pitching your idea or your product or any topic you are presenting on needs thorough research. If your content is hollow, your audience will eventually lose interest. So, it is your responsibility to gather proper information about any product, its customer base, the pros and cons, the potential market, etc before you start making your presentation. Presentations are not only for business purposes. For example, you need to present your college project in front of the class. In this case, also, you need to know inside out about the topic you studied or worked on.

• A mandatory outline:

  After you made thorough research about the related topic, you are now overloaded with information. But, it is your responsibility to understand what is the main idea you want to convey to your audience. On the basis of that, you need to form a basic outline and include the main points of your presentation. You must do this on a rough sheet and not directly jump into designing slides. First, create a background, create the flow of your topics, note down points that are to be included, and when you have a basic structure then proceed with it.

• Give your presentation a proper shape:

  Any presentation should consist of three main parts, namely, an introduction, build a case and raise questions, and resolve the problem. The first part of the presentation is very crucial as this is where you need to catch the attention of each one of your audience. You can start with a very interesting story with a personal touch or a very eye-catchy visual image conveying a powerful message.

  The next part is where you have to keep the audience engaged so that you have their undivided attention. In this part, you talk about the problems your target audience is facing, show statistics, and how an ideal solution would look like. The third and the last part is providing them with the perfect solution through your business idea. In this step, you should also add a conclusion part to brief your main points. And, make sure to take questions from the audience. If you make it interactive and respond to people’s queries it conveys that you are genuinely interested in resolving a crisis.

• Always be to the point:

  This is one major mistake that most of the presenters tend to make by adding too much to the slides. After you write your main points in the basic outline, keep the content in your slides concise as well. For example, you have five points to discuss, so you write only the keywords for these five points and describe them thoroughly to the audience. Simply jotting down everything and reading it aloud is a nightmare.

• Visuals are crucial:

  An image can speak louder than words or convey the message better than words put together. So, don’t forget to add captivating visuals to your presentation. In many studies, you will find that humans are more capable of retaining any piece of information if they are in visual form. So, curate powerful graphics and you can put them as a centerpiece in many slides. But, at the same time you should explain to your audience why did you choose to put the image and what is inferred.

• Know your audience:

  The way how you are going to present before your audience varies a lot with the interest of your audience. For example, you have a business idea that you want to pitch to both your potential customers and your potential investors. In this case, you cannot create one single presentation for both the group of people. The content of your presentation will vary with the audience you are dealing with. Though the main idea of the product will not change, you should pitch it in a way that sounds advantageous from their perspective.

• Take reference from professional sites:

  Well, it is obvious that you won’t become an excellent presenter within a day. If you are struggling with how to design the slides and add everything so that it looks more compelling, go and check out websites that provide free PowerPoint templates. If you have the outline of your presentation ready, you can take references from these professional presentations which are easily available. You can then have a better idea of fonts, visual graphics, data representation, etc.

These are some of the basic and fundamental factors that one should keep in mind before building a compelling presentation. But, apart from the content, one should also put equal emphasis on how to convey it. For example, always be relaxed and look confident before your audience. Try to convey your idea in the simplest words and don’t add too many technical terms to it. Pause after your end on point and then proceed to the next one. I hope these tips will help you in the future to create a better presentation.