10 Tips to Prepare Effective and Easy-to-Understand Presentations | #powerpointdesigners

Do you have an upcoming presentation that’s giving you jitters? Do you feel overwhelmed with the pressure to make it an impactful experience? Well, you are not alone. You could be an experienced presenter or just starting; the nervousness of delivering the perfect public speech haunts most of us. And what’s more significant, you might have put your best foot forward to create an impeccable presentation, but if the delivery isn’t right, the entire purpose gets lost. It all boils down to how comfortable you are as a presenter and how well your audience was able to connect with you.

This article details a few tips/tricks to help you deliver effective, memorable, and easy-to-understand presentations.

10 Tips to Give Impressive and Easy-to-Understand Presentations

1. Spend Significant Time Researching Your Topic

Researching your topic well will help you get comfortable with it and have the needed knowledge. And it will be easy for you to explain your thoughts and viewpoints to others when you understand the topic well. You will also be in a better position to resolve queries and interact with your audience, state supporting facts in a memorable manner, and break down complex information. 

2. Make A Short Presentation

A lengthy presentation bears the risk of losing your audience’s interest midway. Your audience might tune you away, and your message might be lost in the process. Keep your presentation short and slides even shorter. As a rule of thumb, try keeping your presentation not more than 20 minutes long.

3. Use the Power of Story

Storytelling works amazingly well when you want to catch hold of someone’s attention. It also helps in getting the messages etched in the long-term memory of the listener. Make your presentation a combination of facts and stories, and you will have your audience’s attention. They will also be able to retain the information more.

4. Keep Your Audience in Mind

Keep your audience in mind when delivering your presentation, i.e., you can tailor your speech accordingly. Learn about the background and knowledge of your audience and use vocab and terms appropriately.

Note – Use relatable stories to connect with your audience. You can try sharing a personal experience that’s relatable for everyone in the audience.

5. Pace Yourself Well

Looking at all those faces might make you nervous in your speech. But be careful with that, as pacing yourself too slowly or fast might cost you your presentation. Going too fast or too slow can disorient your audience, and they might struggle to understand the objective of your presentation.

Maintain a moderate and uniform pace during your presentation but don’t go into a robotic monotone. You can try animating your speech in between to emphasize points.

6. Try Humor

Humor is a great way to connect to someone and take the edge off. It will help you build a bond with your audience and give them the space to relax and lighten up. Humour also invokes a positive image of the speaker and helps people retain information better.

You can initiate your presentation with a punchline or tell relatable stories or humorous situations to explain points eventually.

7. Go for More Visuals Over Texts

Think of a spreadsheet sharing numbers and a bar/graph sharing that same information in a more visually catchy way. What will catch your attention more? Nobody is going to read the big blocks of text in your presentation. And it is unwise for you to read the content of your presentation. So, big chunks of text are a no-no in every situation.

Try including high-definition graphics and visuals to engage your audience. However, be wise while using visuals. You will not want long videos or unwanted images to distract your audience.

8. Keep Your Presentation Simple

The thumb rule is to keep it simple always. Overdoing graphics, visuals, or texts will distract your audience from taking in the intended message of your presentation. There are a lot of numbers/rules to dictate the number of words in your slides and the number of slides in total. You can choose whichever you like to keep the word count and visuals minimal and concise. Unnecessary long texts or confusing/complicated words can clutter your slides and puzzle your audience.

Note – State your idea with a clear statement and create your presentation around that thought (every message and data should reinforce the principal concept). This way, you can refrain from adding unnecessary facts and figures.

9. Let Your Audience Interact with You

Imagine sitting through an hour-long monologue. No matter how interesting, you will have more than a few moments of drifting away. Your audience might have questions and queries along the way, and not giving them the space to interact can turn out to be a real downer.

You can allot a Q&A space along each slide so that your audience has the space to interact when needed. It will help you resolve queries and build a rapport with people.

 Note – Address everyone with their names and make it a genuine interaction.

10. Be Organized

There is a saying that sweat more in practice, and you will bleed less in the battleground. Staying organized will help you tackle roadblocks with ease during the presentation. Go for the 10/20/30 rule, i.e., no more than ten slides, max 20 minutes for the presentation, and font size 30. It will help you be organized with your content and create a crisp presentation.

 Note – Use bullets to organize your texts. Do not have more than 3-4 bullets in a slide.

In a Nutshell

Engaging your audience is the best way to keep them interested and attentive to your words during the presentation. If your audience resonates with what you are saying, getting them to reach the result (some information or CTA) of your message would be easier too. You will be likely to have better conversions and make more people resonate with your idea.

You can use icebreakers to connect with your audience (initially). Keep your body language welcoming, look people in the eye, address them with their names and interact during the presentation. And you will have a smooth path to tread while delivering your presentation.