6 Things You Can Do To Make Your Powerpoint Presentation A Success

Powerpoint Presentation

The best Powerpoint presentations are the ones that only serve as support to the presenter. If a Powerpoint presentation stands out more than the presenter, it becomes a distraction.

Hence, getting your message across becomes difficult. This article will provide 6 tips on how you can have a successful presentation without overdoing your PowerPoint.

1. Use A Powerpoint Template

We don’t mean the ones that are available by default when you open up your Powerpoint program. Those are fine but they only serve to give your Powerpoint presentations a more aesthetic appeal.

But when you make use of free Powerpoint templates found on numerous websites, you will be able to select a template that is best suited for your goal. Let’s say that you are about to present a discussion on your next marketing strategy.

You could look for Powerpoint templates that are geared towards marketing strategies. Meanwhile, if you are presenting for a student body, you could look for student-friendly Powerpoint Presentation templates.

The great thing about Powerpoint templates is that everything is already prepared for you. The only thing left for you to do is to customize the template and include the information that you want to present.

This saves you time and effort in brainstorming how you want your Powerpoint presentation to look. Most importantly, you can be rest assured that your presentation was made to be pleasing to the eyes because it was made by PowerPoint designers. Making it effective for your purpose will be your responsibility.

2. Only Highlight What’s Important

There are times when creating a Powerpoint presentation is perceived to be an easy task. This is because most people only copy and paste certain text into their presentation. While this does get the task done, it isn’t necessarily effective in delivering the message that you want to convey.

Your Powerpoint presentation isn’t meant to be read out loud to your audience. On the contrary, it should be used as support as you explain and expound on your points. Hence, we highly recommend that you think of a one or two-liner for each of your points.

And this should be what you will highlight in the presentation. These lines should briefly explain your point. The explanation should come from the presenter. Decktopus shared a survey and collected data on presentation related trends and tendencies.

3. Rehearse the Presentation

Powerpoint Presentation

Not everyone can spontaneously explain their point in front of an audience. Sometimes, impromptus can lead to mistakes if you’re not used to it. There are moments when you may not find the right words to say during the presentation.

Another unforeseen circumstance would be when your audience would ask questions that you’re not prepared for.

Preparation, or the lack thereof, could make or break your presentation. Statistics show that 90% of the anxiety that we feel before a presentation is due to being unprepared. Therefore, it’s only fitting that we get ready to avoid that pre-presentation anxiety.

You could create a script so that you already know what to say to the audience beforehand. The script does not have to be written word-per-word. It can even be just an outline. What’s important is that you write the general idea of what you want to say. And then you can just ad-lib the entire thing. That way, you will be able to present naturally and candidly.

4. Practice Minimalism

Copying and pasting text into your Powerpoint presentation isn’t the only way you could ruin your presentation. Making your presentation too flashy can also distract your audience to a point that they wouldn’t be interested in your presentation anymore.

A flashy presentation is full of animations that don’t serve a purpose. It also uses loud colors that don’t really complement each other. For example, having a bright blue background and big bright red texts. That will definitely hurt the eyes of your audience.

Most people are visual learners. This means that they can only maintain focus if they can look at something appealing related to the discussion at hand. That’s the reason Powerpoint became a popular tool for presenters.

But if the visual aid that you provide your audience is too flashy and disorganized, people wouldn’t want to focus on it anymore. Instead, they would look away and talk with their seatmates or they would go on their phones and ignore you altogether.

When that happens, your audience will no longer be able to pay attention to what you have to say. Hence, this will get in the way of you being able to deliver the message that you wanted to convey through the presentation.

This is why we recommend that you keep your slides simple. Try experimenting with colors that will fit the theme of your presentation.

For example, you’re presenting to a company that specializes in ecological solutions. Using earthy tones can be a smart move since it looks professional and it fits the brand of the company. What’s important is to make sure that the colors complement each other. You can always find color palettes online that can help you figure out what palette you’ll use.

5. Include Images & Other Media

business

Powerpoint presentations are your visual aids for your audience. Hence, aside from the brief text, we highly recommend that you mix it up with images.

With images, your audience will be able to comprehend your meaning a lot easier. This is because aside from hearing your explanation, they will be able to envision a scenario based on the image you show them.

You could also add in some videos as a way to aid you in explaining certain concepts or processes. If you use a video, expounding on the subject would be a lot easier because the audience already has gotten a clear picture of your point.

For instance, if you need to present some instructions, instead of going through the steps one by one, you could simply show the audience a short video. And then afterward, you don’t need to expound further. You can simply provide a summary of the subject at hand.

6. Use Charts and Graphs

This is yet another way to make your visual aid more appealing. Images and videos can effectively capture the interest of an audience and make learning a lot easier.

But using charts and graphs can help you depict numbers. For instance, if you need to insert some numbers or statistics into your presentation, it would be a good idea to use charts and graphs. Otherwise, the discussion could become boring and you will lose the attention of the audience.

Aside from that, numbers can also be difficult to comprehend without visuals to back you up. It also adds credibility since it shows that your numbers are obtained from real data and are not just made up.

Final Takeaway

Almost every venture these days requires you to become a presenter one way or another. This is why you need to learn and master successful presentations. We hope that you gained a lot of value from the tips that we shared with you today. And we hope that you will be able to apply it in your class or business discussions.

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