what does good presentation look like

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How To Make a Good Presentation [A Complete Guide]

By Krystle Wong , Jul 20, 2023

A top-notch presentation possesses the power to drive action. From winning stakeholders over and conveying a powerful message to securing funding — your secret weapon lies within the realm of creating an effective presentation .  

Being an excellent presenter isn’t confined to the boardroom. Whether you’re delivering a presentation at work, pursuing an academic career, involved in a non-profit organization or even a student, nailing the presentation game is a game-changer.

In this article, I’ll cover the top qualities of compelling presentations and walk you through a step-by-step guide on how to give a good presentation. Here’s a little tip to kick things off: for a headstart, check out Venngage’s collection of free presentation templates . They are fully customizable, and the best part is you don’t need professional design skills to make them shine!

These valuable presentation tips cater to individuals from diverse professional backgrounds, encompassing business professionals, sales and marketing teams, educators, trainers, students, researchers, non-profit organizations, public speakers and presenters. 

No matter your field or role, these tips for presenting will equip you with the skills to deliver effective presentations that leave a lasting impression on any audience.

Click to jump ahead:

What are the 10 qualities of a good presentation?

Step-by-step guide on how to prepare an effective presentation, 9 effective techniques to deliver a memorable presentation, faqs on making a good presentation, how to create a presentation with venngage in 5 steps.

When it comes to giving an engaging presentation that leaves a lasting impression, it’s not just about the content — it’s also about how you deliver it. Wondering what makes a good presentation? Well, the best presentations I’ve seen consistently exhibit these 10 qualities:

1. Clear structure

No one likes to get lost in a maze of information. Organize your thoughts into a logical flow, complete with an introduction, main points and a solid conclusion. A structured presentation helps your audience follow along effortlessly, leaving them with a sense of satisfaction at the end.

Regardless of your presentation style , a quality presentation starts with a clear roadmap. Browse through Venngage’s template library and select a presentation template that aligns with your content and presentation goals. Here’s a good presentation example template with a logical layout that includes sections for the introduction, main points, supporting information and a conclusion: 

2. Engaging opening

Hook your audience right from the start with an attention-grabbing statement, a fascinating question or maybe even a captivating anecdote. Set the stage for a killer presentation!

The opening moments of your presentation hold immense power – check out these 15 ways to start a presentation to set the stage and captivate your audience.

3. Relevant content

Make sure your content aligns with their interests and needs. Your audience is there for a reason, and that’s to get valuable insights. Avoid fluff and get straight to the point, your audience will be genuinely excited.

4. Effective visual aids

Picture this: a slide with walls of text and tiny charts, yawn! Visual aids should be just that—aiding your presentation. Opt for clear and visually appealing slides, engaging images and informative charts that add value and help reinforce your message.

With Venngage, visualizing data takes no effort at all. You can import data from CSV or Google Sheets seamlessly and create stunning charts, graphs and icon stories effortlessly to showcase your data in a captivating and impactful way.

5. Clear and concise communication

Keep your language simple, and avoid jargon or complicated terms. Communicate your ideas clearly, so your audience can easily grasp and retain the information being conveyed. This can prevent confusion and enhance the overall effectiveness of the message. 

6. Engaging delivery

Spice up your presentation with a sprinkle of enthusiasm! Maintain eye contact, use expressive gestures and vary your tone of voice to keep your audience glued to the edge of their seats. A touch of charisma goes a long way!

7. Interaction and audience engagement

Turn your presentation into an interactive experience — encourage questions, foster discussions and maybe even throw in a fun activity. Engaged audiences are more likely to remember and embrace your message.

Transform your slides into an interactive presentation with Venngage’s dynamic features like pop-ups, clickable icons and animated elements. Engage your audience with interactive content that lets them explore and interact with your presentation for a truly immersive experience.

8. Effective storytelling

Who doesn’t love a good story? Weaving relevant anecdotes, case studies or even a personal story into your presentation can captivate your audience and create a lasting impact. Stories build connections and make your message memorable.

A great presentation background is also essential as it sets the tone, creates visual interest and reinforces your message. Enhance the overall aesthetics of your presentation with these 15 presentation background examples and captivate your audience’s attention.

9. Well-timed pacing

Pace your presentation thoughtfully with well-designed presentation slides, neither rushing through nor dragging it out. Respect your audience’s time and ensure you cover all the essential points without losing their interest.

10. Strong conclusion

Last impressions linger! Summarize your main points and leave your audience with a clear takeaway. End your presentation with a bang , a call to action or an inspiring thought that resonates long after the conclusion.

In-person presentations aside, acing a virtual presentation is of paramount importance in today’s digital world. Check out this guide to learn how you can adapt your in-person presentations into virtual presentations . 

Preparing an effective presentation starts with laying a strong foundation that goes beyond just creating slides and notes. One of the quickest and best ways to make a presentation would be with the help of a good presentation software . 

Otherwise, let me walk you to how to prepare for a presentation step by step and unlock the secrets of crafting a professional presentation that sets you apart.

1. Understand the audience and their needs

Before you dive into preparing your masterpiece, take a moment to get to know your target audience. Tailor your presentation to meet their needs and expectations , and you’ll have them hooked from the start!

2. Conduct thorough research on the topic

Time to hit the books (or the internet)! Don’t skimp on the research with your presentation materials — dive deep into the subject matter and gather valuable insights . The more you know, the more confident you’ll feel in delivering your presentation.

3. Organize the content with a clear structure

No one wants to stumble through a chaotic mess of information. Outline your presentation with a clear and logical flow. Start with a captivating introduction, follow up with main points that build on each other and wrap it up with a powerful conclusion that leaves a lasting impression.

Delivering an effective business presentation hinges on captivating your audience, and Venngage’s professionally designed business presentation templates are tailor-made for this purpose. With thoughtfully structured layouts, these templates enhance your message’s clarity and coherence, ensuring a memorable and engaging experience for your audience members.

Don’t want to build your presentation layout from scratch? pick from these 5 foolproof presentation layout ideas that won’t go wrong. 

4. Develop visually appealing and supportive visual aids

Spice up your presentation with eye-catching visuals! Create slides that complement your message, not overshadow it. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words, but that doesn’t mean you need to overload your slides with text.

Well-chosen designs create a cohesive and professional look, capturing your audience’s attention and enhancing the overall effectiveness of your message. Here’s a list of carefully curated PowerPoint presentation templates and great background graphics that will significantly influence the visual appeal and engagement of your presentation.

5. Practice, practice and practice

Practice makes perfect — rehearse your presentation and arrive early to your presentation to help overcome stage fright. Familiarity with your material will boost your presentation skills and help you handle curveballs with ease.

6. Seek feedback and make necessary adjustments

Don’t be afraid to ask for help and seek feedback from friends and colleagues. Constructive criticism can help you identify blind spots and fine-tune your presentation to perfection.

With Venngage’s real-time collaboration feature , receiving feedback and editing your presentation is a seamless process. Group members can access and work on the presentation simultaneously and edit content side by side in real-time. Changes will be reflected immediately to the entire team, promoting seamless teamwork.

7. Prepare for potential technical or logistical issues

Prepare for the unexpected by checking your equipment, internet connection and any other potential hiccups. If you’re worried that you’ll miss out on any important points, you could always have note cards prepared. Remember to remain focused and rehearse potential answers to anticipated questions.

8. Fine-tune and polish your presentation

As the big day approaches, give your presentation one last shine. Review your talking points, practice how to present a presentation and make any final tweaks. Deep breaths — you’re on the brink of delivering a successful presentation!

In competitive environments, persuasive presentations set individuals and organizations apart. To brush up on your presentation skills, read these guides on how to make a persuasive presentation and tips to presenting effectively . 

Whether you’re an experienced presenter or a novice, the right techniques will let your presentation skills soar to new heights!

From public speaking hacks to interactive elements and storytelling prowess, these 9 effective presentation techniques will empower you to leave a lasting impression on your audience and make your presentations unforgettable.

1. Confidence and positive body language

Positive body language instantly captivates your audience, making them believe in your message as much as you do. Strengthen your stage presence and own that stage like it’s your second home! Stand tall, shoulders back and exude confidence. 

2. Eye contact with the audience

Break down that invisible barrier and connect with your audience through their eyes. Maintaining eye contact when giving a presentation builds trust and shows that you’re present and engaged with them.

3. Effective use of hand gestures and movement

A little movement goes a long way! Emphasize key points with purposeful gestures and don’t be afraid to walk around the stage. Your energy will be contagious!

4. Utilize storytelling techniques

Weave the magic of storytelling into your presentation. Share relatable anecdotes, inspiring success stories or even personal experiences that tug at the heartstrings of your audience. Adjust your pitch, pace and volume to match the emotions and intensity of the story. Varying your speaking voice adds depth and enhances your stage presence.

5. Incorporate multimedia elements

Spice up your presentation with a dash of visual pizzazz! Use slides, images and video clips to add depth and clarity to your message. Just remember, less is more—don’t overwhelm them with information overload. 

Turn your presentations into an interactive party! Involve your audience with questions, polls or group activities. When they actively participate, they become invested in your presentation’s success. Bring your design to life with animated elements. Venngage allows you to apply animations to icons, images and text to create dynamic and engaging visual content.

6. Utilize humor strategically

Laughter is the best medicine—and a fantastic presentation enhancer! A well-placed joke or lighthearted moment can break the ice and create a warm atmosphere , making your audience more receptive to your message.

7. Practice active listening and respond to feedback

Be attentive to your audience’s reactions and feedback. If they have questions or concerns, address them with genuine interest and respect. Your responsiveness builds rapport and shows that you genuinely care about their experience.

8. Apply the 10-20-30 rule

Apply the 10-20-30 presentation rule and keep it short, sweet and impactful! Stick to ten slides, deliver your presentation within 20 minutes and use a 30-point font to ensure clarity and focus. Less is more, and your audience will thank you for it!

9. Implement the 5-5-5 rule

Simplicity is key. Limit each slide to five bullet points, with only five words per bullet point and allow each slide to remain visible for about five seconds. This rule keeps your presentation concise and prevents information overload.

Simple presentations are more engaging because they are easier to follow. Summarize your presentations and keep them simple with Venngage’s gallery of simple presentation templates and ensure that your message is delivered effectively across your audience.

1. How to start a presentation?

To kick off your presentation effectively, begin with an attention-grabbing statement or a powerful quote. Introduce yourself, establish credibility and clearly state the purpose and relevance of your presentation.

2. How to end a presentation?

For a strong conclusion, summarize your talking points and key takeaways. End with a compelling call to action or a thought-provoking question and remember to thank your audience and invite any final questions or interactions.

3. How to make a presentation interactive?

To make your presentation interactive, encourage questions and discussion throughout your talk. Utilize multimedia elements like videos or images and consider including polls, quizzes or group activities to actively involve your audience.

In need of inspiration for your next presentation? I’ve got your back! Pick from these 120+ presentation ideas, topics and examples to get started. 

Creating a stunning presentation with Venngage is a breeze with our user-friendly drag-and-drop editor and professionally designed templates for all your communication needs. 

Here’s how to make a presentation in just 5 simple steps with the help of Venngage:

Step 1: Sign up for Venngage for free using your email, Gmail or Facebook account or simply log in to access your account. 

Step 2: Pick a design from our selection of free presentation templates (they’re all created by our expert in-house designers).

Step 3: Make the template your own by customizing it to fit your content and branding. With Venngage’s intuitive drag-and-drop editor, you can easily modify text, change colors and adjust the layout to create a unique and eye-catching design.

Step 4: Elevate your presentation by incorporating captivating visuals. You can upload your images or choose from Venngage’s vast library of high-quality photos, icons and illustrations. 

Step 5: Upgrade to a premium or business account to export your presentation in PDF and print it for in-person presentations or share it digitally for free!

By following these five simple steps, you’ll have a professionally designed and visually engaging presentation ready in no time. With Venngage’s user-friendly platform, your presentation is sure to make a lasting impression. So, let your creativity flow and get ready to shine in your next presentation!

Blog > How to structure a good PowerPoint Presentation

How to structure a good PowerPoint Presentation

08.09.21   •  #powerpoint #tips.

When creating presentations, it is particularly important that they are well organized and have a consistent structure.

A logical structure helps the audience to follow you and to remember the core information as best as possible. It is also important for the presenter, as a good presentation structure helps to keep calm, to stay on the topic and to avoid awkward pauses.

But what does such a structure actually look like? Here we show you how to best organize your presentation and what a good structure looks like.

Plan your presentation

Before you start creating your presentation, you should always brainstorm. Think about the topic and write all your ideas down. Then think about the message you want to communicate, what your goal is and what you want your audience to remember at the end.

Think about who your audience is so that you can address them in the best possible way. One possibility is to start your presentation with a few polls to get to know your audience better. Based on the results, you can then adapt your presentation a little. Use the poll function of SlideLizard and have all the answers at a glance. SlideLizard makes it possible to integrate the polls directly into your PowerPoint presentation which helps you to avoid annoying switching between presentation and interaction tool. You can keep an eye on the results while the votes come in and then decide whether you want to share them or not.

• an informative
• an entertaining
• an inspiring
• or a persuasive presentation?

Typical Presentation Structure

The basic structure of a presentation is actually always the same and should consist of:

Introduction

Make sure that the structure of your presentation is not too complicated. The simpler it is, the better the audience can follow.

Personal Introduction

It is best to start your presentation by briefly introducing yourself which helps to build a connection with your audience right away.

Introduce the topic

Then introduce the topic, state the purpose of the presentation and provide a brief outline of the main points you will be addressing.

Mention the length

In the introduction, mention the approximate length of the talk and then also make sure you stick to it.

The introduction should be no longer than two slides and provide a good overview of the topic.

Icebreaker Polls

According to studies, people in the audience only have an average attention span of 10 minutes, which is why it is important to increase their attention right at the beginning and to arouse the audience's interest. You could make a good start with a few icebreaker polls for example. They lighten the mood right at the beginning and you can secure your audience's attention from the start.

For example, you could use SlideLizard to have all the answers at a glance and share them with your audience. In addition, the audience can try out how the polls work and already know how it works if you include more polls in the main part.

Get to know your audience

As mentioned earlier, it is always useful to think about who your audience actually is. Ask them questions at the beginning about how well they already know the topic of your presentation. Use SlideLizard for this so that you have a clear overview about the answers. You can use both single- and multiple-choice questions or also open questions and display their results as a WordCloud in your presentation, for example.

Include a quote

To make the beginning (or the end) of your presentation more exciting, it is always a good idea to include a quote. We have selected some powerful quotes for PowerPoint presentations for you.

Present your topic

The main part of a presentation should explain the topic well, state facts, justify them and give examples. Keep all the promises you made earlier in the introduction.

Length and Structure

The main part should make up about 70% of the presentation and also include a clear structure. Explain your ideas in detail and build them up logically. It should be organized chronologically, by priority or by topic. There should be a smooth transition between the individual issues. However, it is also important to use phrases that make it clear that a new topic is starting. We have listed some useful phrases for presentations here.

Visualize data and statistics and show pictures to underline facts. If you are still looking for good images, we have selected 5 sources of free images for you here.

Focus on the essentials

Focus on what is most important and summarize a bit. You don't have to say everything about a topic because your audience won’t remember everything either. Avoid complicated sentence structure, because if the audience does not understand something, they will not be able to read it again.

Make your presentation interactive

Make your presentation interactive to keep the attention of your audience. Use SlideLizard to include polls in your presentation, where your audience can vote directly from their smartphone and discuss the answers as soon as you received all votes. Here you can also find more tips for increasing audience engagement.

Repeat the main points

The conclusion should contain a summary of the most important key points. Repeat the main points you have made, summarize what the audience should have learned and explain how the new information can help in the future.

Include a Q&A part

Include a Q&A part at the end to make sure you don't leave any questions open. It's a good idea to use tools like SlideLizard for it. Your audience can ask anonymous questions and if there is not enough time, you can give them the answers afterwards. You can read more about the right way to do a question slide in PowerPoint here.

Get Feedback

It is also important to get feedback on your presentation at the end to keep improving. With SlideLizard you can ask your audience for anonymous feedback through star ratings, number ratings or open texts directly after your presentation. You can then export the responses and analyse them later in Excel.

Presentation style

Depending on the type of presentation you give, the structure will always be slightly different. We have selected a few different presentation styles and their structure for you.

Short Presentation

If you are one of many presenters on the day, you will only have a very limited time to present your idea and to convince your audience. It is very important to stand out with your presentation.

So you need to summarize your ideas as briefly as possible and probably should not need more than 3-5 slides.

Problem Solving Presentation

Start your presentation by explaining a problem and giving a short overview of it.

Then go into the problem a little more, providing both intellectual and emotional arguments for the seriousness of the problem. You should spend about the first 25% of your presentation on the problem.

After that, you should spend about 50% of your presentation proposing a solution and explaining it in detail.

In the last 25%, describe what benefits this solution will bring to your audience and ask them to take a simple but relevant action that relates to the problem being discussed.

Tell a Story

A great way to build an emotional connection with the audience is to structure a presentation like a story.

In the introduction, introduce a character who has to deal with a conflict. In the main part, tell how he tries to solve his problem but fails again and again. In the end, he manages to find a solution and wins.

Stories have the power to win customers, align colleagues and motivate employees. They’re the most compelling platform we have for managing imaginations. - Nancy Duarte / HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations

Make a demonstration

Use the demonstration structure to show how a product works. First talk about a need or a problem that has to be solved.

Then explain how the product will help solve the problem and try to convince your audience of the need for your product.

Spend the end clarifying where and when the product can be purchased.

Chronological structure

When you have something historical to tell, it is always good to use a chronological structure. You always have to ask yourself what happens next.

To make it more interesting and exciting, it is a good idea to start by telling the end of something and after that you explain how you got there. This way you make the audience curious and you can gain their attention faster.

Nancy Duarte TED Talk

Nancy Duarte is a speaker and presentation design expert. She gives speeches all over the world, trying to improve the power of public presentations.

In her famous TED Talk "The Secret Structure of Great Talks" she dissects famous speeches such as Steve Jobs' iPhone launch speech and Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. In doing so, she found out that each presentation is made up of 4 parts:

• What could be
• A moment to remember
• Promise of “New Bliss”

Related articles

About the author.

Helena Reitinger

Helena supports the SlideLizard team in marketing and design. She loves to express her creativity in texts and graphics.

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What It Takes to Give a Great Presentation

• Carmine Gallo

Five tips to set yourself apart.

Never underestimate the power of great communication. It can help you land the job of your dreams, attract investors to back your idea, or elevate your stature within your organization. But while there are plenty of good speakers in the world, you can set yourself apart out by being the person who can deliver something great over and over. Here are a few tips for business professionals who want to move from being good speakers to great ones: be concise (the fewer words, the better); never use bullet points (photos and images paired together are more memorable); don’t underestimate the power of your voice (raise and lower it for emphasis); give your audience something extra (unexpected moments will grab their attention); rehearse (the best speakers are the best because they practice — a lot).

I was sitting across the table from a Silicon Valley CEO who had pioneered a technology that touches many of our lives — the flash memory that stores data on smartphones, digital cameras, and computers. He was a frequent guest on CNBC and had been delivering business presentations for at least 20 years before we met. And yet, the CEO wanted to sharpen his public speaking skills.

• Carmine Gallo is a Harvard University instructor, keynote speaker, and author of 10 books translated into 40 languages. Gallo is the author of The Bezos Blueprint: Communication Secrets of the World’s Greatest Salesman  (St. Martin’s Press).

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What are the main difficulties when giving presentations?

How to create an effective presentation, after that, how do i give a memorable presentation, how to connect with the audience when presenting.

If you’ve ever heard someone give a powerful presentation, you probably remember how it made you feel. Much like a composer, a good speaker knows precisely when each note should strike to captivate their audience’s attention and leave them with a lasting impression.

No one becomes a great public speaker or presenter without practice. And almost everyone can recall a time one of their presentations went badly — that’s a painful part of the learning process.

Whether you’re working within a small creative team or a large organization, public speaking and presentation skills are vital to communicating your ideas. Knowing how to present your vision can help you pitch concepts to clients, present ideas to your team, and develop the confidence to participate in team meetings.

If you have an upcoming presentation on the horizon and feel nervous, that’s normal. Around 15-30% of the general population experience a fear of public speaking . And, unfortunately, social anxiety is on the rise, with a 12% increase in adults over the last 20 years . 

Learning how to give a good presentation can dismantle your fears and break down these barriers, ensuring you’re ready to confidently share your point of view. 

It’s the week before your presentation, and you’re already feeling nervous . Maybe there’ll be an important mentor in the room you need to impress, or you’re looking for an opportunity to show your boss your value. Regardless of your countless past presentations, you still feel nervous. 

Sharing your vision and ideas with any sized group is intimidating. You’re likely worrying about how you’ll perform as a presenter and whether the audience will be interested in what you offer. But nerves aren’t inherently negative — you can actually use this feeling to fuel your preparation.

It’s helpful to identify where your worries are coming from and address your fears. Here are some common concerns when preparing for an upcoming presentation:

Fear of public speaking: When you share your ideas in front of a group, you’re placing yourself in a vulnerable position to be critiqued on your knowledge and communication skills . Maybe you feel confident in your content, but when you think about standing in front of an audience, you feel anxious and your mind goes blank.

It’s also not uncommon to have physical symptoms when presenting . Some people experience nausea and dizziness as the brain releases adrenaline to cope with the potentially stressful situation . Remember to take deep breaths to recenter yourself and be patient, even if you make a mistake.

Losing the audience’s attention: As a presenter, your main focus is to keep your audience engaged. They should feel like they’re learning valuable information or following a story that will improve them in life or business.

Highlight the most exciting pieces of knowledge and ensure you emphasize those points in your presentation. If you feel passionate about your content, it’s more likely that your audience will experience this excitement for themselves and become invested in what you have to say.

Not knowing what content to place on presentation slides: Overloading presentation slides is a fast way to lose your audience’s attention. Your slides should contain only the main talking points and limited text to ensure your audience focuses on what you have to say rather than becoming distracted by the content on your slides.

Discomfort incorporating nonverbal communication: It’s natural to feel stiff and frozen when you’re nervous. But maintaining effective body language helps your audience stay focused on you as you speak and encourages you to relax.

If you struggle to incorporate body language into your presentations, try starting small by making hand gestures toward your slides. If you’re working with a large audience, use different parts of the stage to ensure everyone feels included. 

Each presenter has their own personal brand and style. Some may use humor to break the ice, while others might appeal to the audience’s emotional side through inspiring storytelling. 

Watching online presentations, such as TED talks, is an excellent way to expose yourself to various presentation styles and develop your own. While observing others, you can note how they carry themselves on stage and learn new ways to keep your audience engaged.

Once you’ve addressed what’s causing your fears, it’s time to prepare for a great presentation. Use your past experience as inspiration and aim to outshine your former self by learning from your mistakes and employing new techniques. Here are five presentation tips to help you create a strong presentation and wow your audience:

1. Keep it simple

Simple means something different to everyone.

Before creating your presentation, take note of your intended audience and their knowledge level of your subject. You’ll want your content to be easy for your intended audience to follow.

Say you’re giving a presentation on improving your company’s operational structure. Entry-level workers will likely need a more straightforward overview of the content than C-suite leaders, who have significantly more experience. 

Ask yourself what you want your audience to take away from your presentation and emphasize those important points. Doing this ensures they remember the most vital information rather than less important supporting ideas. Try organizing these concepts into bullet points so viewers can quickly identify critical takeaways.

2. Create a compelling structure

Put yourself in your audience member’s shoes and determine the most compelling way to organize your information. Your presentation should be articulate , cohesive, and logical, and you must be sure to include all necessary supporting evidence to strengthen your main points.

If you give away all of your answers too quickly, your audience could lose interest. And if there isn’t enough supporting information, they could hit a roadblock of confusion. Try developing a compelling story that leads your audience through your thought processes so they can experience the ups and downs alongside you. 

By structuring your presentation to lead up to a final conclusion, you’re more likely to keep listeners’ attention. Once you’ve reached that conclusion, you can offer a Q&A period to put any of their questions or concerns to rest. 

3. Use visual aids

Appealing to various learning styles is a great way to keep everyone on the same page and ensure they absorb your content. Visual aids are necessary for visual learners and make it easier for people to picture your ideas.

Aim to incorporate a mixture of photos, videos, and props to engage your audience and convey your key points. For instance, if you’re giving a presentation on anthropology subject matter, you could show your audience an artifact to help them understand how exciting a discovery must have been. 

If your presentation is long, including a video for your audience to watch is an excellent way to give yourself a break and create new jumping-off points for your speech.

4. Be aware of design techniques and trends

Thanks to cutting-edge technology and tools, you have numerous platforms at your disposal to create a good presentation. But keep in mind that although color, images, and graphics liven things up, they can cause distraction when misused.

  Here are a few standard pointers for incorporating visuals on your slides: 

• Don’t place blocks of small text on a single slide
• Use a minimalistic background instead of a busy one
• Ensure text stands out against the background color
• Only use high-resolution photos
• Maintain a consistent font style and size throughout the presentation
• Don’t overuse transitions and effects

5. Try the 10-20-30 rule

Guy Kawasaki, a prominent venture capitalist and one of the original marketing specialists for Apple, said that the best slideshow presentations are less than 10 slides , last at most 20 minutes, and use a font size of 30. Following this strategy can help you condense your information, eliminate unnecessary ideas, and maintain your audience’s focus more efficiently.

Once you’re confident in creating a memorable presentation, it’s time to learn how to give one. Here are some valuable tips for keeping your audience invested during your talk: 

Tip #1: Tell stories

Sharing an anecdote from your life can improve your credibility and increase your relatability. And when an audience relates to you, they’re more likely to feel connected to who you are as a person and encouraged to give you their full attention, as they would want others to do the same.

Gill Hicks utilized this strategy well when she shared her powerful story, “ I survived a terrorist attack. Here’s what I learned .” In her harrowing tale, Hicks highlights the importance of compassion, unconditional love, and helping those in need.

If you feel uncomfortable sharing personal stories, that’s okay. You can use examples from famous individuals or create a fictional account to demonstrate your ideas.

Tip #2: Make eye contact with the audience

Maintaining eye contact is less intimidating than it sounds. In fact, you don’t have to look your audience members directly in their eyes — you can focus on their foreheads or noses if that’s easier.

Try making eye contact with as many people as possible for 3–5 seconds each. This timing ensures you don’t look away too quickly, making the audience member feel unimportant, or linger too long, making them feel uncomfortable.

If you’re presenting to a large group, direct your focus to each part of the room to ensure no section of the audience feels ignored. 

Tip #3: Work on your stage presence

Although your tone and words are the most impactful part of your presentation, recall that body language keeps your audience engaged. Use these tips to master a professional stage presence:

• Speak with open arms and avoid crossing them
• Keep a reasonable pace and try not to stand still
• Use hand gestures to highlight important information

Tip #4: Start strong

Like watching a movie trailer, the first seconds of your talk are critical for capturing your audience’s attention. How you start your speech sets the tone for the rest of your presentation and tells your audience whether or not they should pay attention. Here are some ways to start your presentation to leave a lasting impression:

• Use a quote from a well-known and likable influential person 
• Ask a rhetorical question to create intrigue
• Start with an anecdote to add context to your talk 
• Spark your audience’s curiosity by involving them in an interactive problem-solving puzzle or riddle

Tip #5: Show your passion

Don’t be afraid of being too enthusiastic. Everyone appreciates a speaker who’s genuinely excited about their field of expertise. 

In “ Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance ,” Angela Lee Duckworth discusses the importance of passion in research and delivery. She delivers her presentation excitedly to show the audience how excitement piques interest. 

Tip #6: Plan your delivery

How you decide to deliver your speech will shape your presentation. Will you be preparing a PowerPoint presentation and using a teleprompter? Or are you working within the constraints of the digital world and presenting over Zoom?

The best presentations are conducted by speakers who know their stuff and memorize their content. However, if you find this challenging, try creating notes to use as a safety net in case you lose track.

If you’re presenting online, you can keep notes beside your computer for each slide, highlighting your key points. This ensures you include all the necessary information and follow a logical order.

Tip #7: Practice

Practice doesn’t make perfect — it makes progress. There’s no way of preparing for unforeseen circumstances, but thorough practice means you’ve done everything you can to succeed.

Rehearse your speech in front of a mirror or to a trusted friend or family member. Take any feedback and use it as an opportunity to fine-tune your speech. But remember: who you practice your presentation in front of may differ from your intended audience. Consider their opinions through the lens of them occupying this different position.

Tip #8: Read the room

Whether you’re a keynote speaker at an event or presenting to a small group of clients, knowing how to read the room is vital for keeping your audience happy. Stay flexible and be willing to move on from topics quickly if your listeners are uninterested or displeased with a particular part of your speech.

Tip #9: Breathe

Try taking deep breaths before your presentation to calm your nerves. If you feel rushed, you’re more likely to feel nervous and stumble on your words.

The most important thing to consider when presenting is your audience’s feelings. When you approach your next presentation calmly, you’ll put your audience at ease and encourage them to feel comfortable in your presence.

Tip #10: Provide a call-to-action

When you end your presentation, your audience should feel compelled to take a specific action, whether that’s changing their habits or contacting you for your services.

If you’re presenting to clients, create a handout with key points and contact information so they can get in touch. You should provide your LinkedIn information, email address, and phone number so they have a variety of ways to reach you. 

There’s no one-size-fits-all template for an effective presentation, as your unique audience and subject matter play a role in shaping your speech. As a general rule, though, you should aim to connect with your audience through passion and excitement. Use strong eye contact and body language. Capture their interest through storytelling and their trust through relatability.

Learning how to give a good presentation can feel overwhelming — but remember, practice makes progress. Rehearse your presentation for someone you trust, collect their feedback , and revise. Practicing your presentation skills is helpful for any job, and every challenge is a chance to grow.

Elizabeth Perry

Content Marketing Manager, ACC

6 presentation skills and how to improve them

Tell a story they can't ignore these 10 tips will teach you how, 3 stand-out professional bio examples to inspire your own, how to make a presentation interactive and exciting, how to write a speech that your audience remembers, reading the room gives you an edge — no matter who you're talking to, writing an elevator pitch about yourself: a how-to plus tips, your ultimate guide on how to be a good storyteller, 18 effective strategies to improve your communication skills, similar articles, the importance of good speech: 5 tips to be more articulate, the 11 tips that will improve your public speaking skills, 30 presentation feedback examples, how to not be nervous for a presentation — 13 tips that work (really), how the minto pyramid principle can enhance your communication skills, 8 clever hooks for presentations (with tips), stay connected with betterup, get our newsletter, event invites, plus product insights and research..

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Engage your audience with powerful visual presentations.

Visual tools are critical to have in any presentation as they’re one of the key presentation aids that will help enhance your overall presentation .

We’ll give you tips on how to develop a sense of good presentation design whether you’re using PowerPoint, Prezi, Google Slides or any presentation software under the sun. The secret to creating a great presentation does not lie in a superior software, but understanding a few universal design concepts that can applied for all types of visual presentations.

Don’t be afraid to use a few presentation templates – there are ways to make the presentation ideas in those templates your own ideas and advance it in several different ways. Let’s make your next presentation on point and designed beautifully.

Presentations Are The Visual Communication Tool To Your Story

In the age of information, people remember facts faster through stories. Keep your bullet points and information short. You can use a rule of thumb to not put more than a paragraph and 3 points per slide to start.

Make your presentation the visual component of your story, but not something your audience has to read. Something that is short and succinct on screen will capture your audience’s attention and make sure they retain the main points of your message.

This does not mean incomplete slides. A common mistake presenters make is putting too little information on a slide in the name of simplicity when in fact they’re leaving out the main context.

A well designed visual presentation has a great story behind it and a well rehearsed voice telling it as well. Engaging the audience is also a great way to associate meaning or connection to the content of your slide decks. Ask questions and tell stories while showing off a great visual presentation! Think of writing the copy like writing for social media – you only have a certain amount of characters to use and a short audience attention span.

General Tips For Visual Presentations

Before you begin creating your presentation, you first need to know what makes effective presentations – storytelling. Such presentations target the audience’s emotions leading to a stronger connection to the audience member and the main point of the presentation.

Below are some storytelling tips for your slides, but remember to keep the presentation itself simple and practice makes perfect. And again, these are more for your spoken component that accompanies the visual component. These tips can be useful because they can be applied to all your presentations in general.

Step 1 is to ask yourself who your audience is and how to convey the key message you have in mind to them. Once you settle on your message, you can start designing your slides with that direction in mind.

You may wonder how to connect with an audience with your slides. Look to your own experiences, your own speaking style and tailor your message to what you know. Not many people want to hear others recite facts with no real meaning driving the story. Ask yourself, “Why does this matter to the audience and why should they care?”.

There is a lot of trust that can be built when the audience has a genuine connection to the presenter. Overall, if you have something that can solve a problem or teach someone complex things, that is enough to form a connection with your audience.

Think of the last app you used, the last email you read or perhaps the last business you purchased from. What was the content or visual elements that pulled you in?

Are you making a PowerPoint, Prezi or other form of visual presentation but it’s taking too much of your time? Enlist the help of Presentation Geeks and consider outsourcing your presentation design . Outsourcing your presentation slides allows you to free more of your time while still getting the results of an interesting presentation. You’ll have the support of expert slide designers who know what presentation visuals work and don’t work thanks to years of presentation feedback and background knowledge.

Color Design Tips For Presentation Slides

When designing your presentation, make sure you take into consideration the colors you’re using. We’ve listed a few background color combinations you might want to consider when developing the overall slide deck and the font to use.

Color Wheel Alignments:

Primary Colors: Red, yellow, blue

Secondary Colors: Green, orange, purple

Tertiary Colors: Yellow-orange, red-orange, red-purple, blue-purple, blue-green & yellow-green

Analogous Colors: These are any three colors which are side by side on a color wheel. (Think green, lime green, yellow)

Complementary Colors: These are colors that are directly opposite of a color wheel. (Think green vs. purple, red vs. blue)

Monochromatic Colors: This is when you use one color and various shades or hues of it. It works well for minimal looks.

Color moods:

Red/Orange/Yellow: Generally these convey a sense of energy, are warm colors and catch your attention. Yellow is a happy warm color on one end and red is very striking and can warn of danger, and symbolizes importance, passion and sometimes violence.

Blue/Purple/Green: These colors are calming, reserved, elegant and often used for corporate slides. Think of how indigo blue is used for many large corporate entities. Green often is branded with earth or medical brands. Purple often conveys a sense of royalty, money and creativity.

Use The Power Of Photography Or Video

Pictures and videos are great visuals to incorporate into any presentation. Remember the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words”? Well, it’s true! Photos help visualize complex information. You’ll often come across a lot of photos in research presentations as they help the audience understand examples better.

They can also save you from having to put a thousand thoughts into the PowerPoint presentation slide!

The first tip we can give to make a great visual presentation is to choose all your photos before you start. This way you can keep the consistency of the images across your slide deck and make sure they’re somewhat alike in terms of composition, mood and brand.

Use free stock photos

You don’t have to take the photos or videos yourself.

There are plenty of free resources and web pages for stock photos online – Unsplash , Pexels , Pixabay , Free Range , Creative Commons and some photos from Freepik are free to use with some accreditation.

Effective photo use

Make sure you pick an image that will focus on the main theme of the slide. One image is usually enough if the image choice is very relevant to the slide. If you have multiple photos, avoid poor or loose placement of photos all over the slide. Try to use a grid or gallery placement and it will immediately enhance the layout of the slide.

If you pick great images, making presentations can be faster. Instead of having to create an elaborate template with multiple elements, a photo with a couple of bullet points can go a long way in terms of capturing attention and making your presentation slides look professional. This is true on any presentation design platform – whether its PowerPoint, Google Slides, etc.

You can also embed videos whether they’re located on your computer, YouTube, Vimeo or other major video streaming sites. If you’re feeling nervous about your presentation or have a complex message that would be hard to condense in one slide, a video is a dynamic way of conveying your message in any type of presentation.

The Typography You Use Matters

Typography is how you will arrange and present the words in your presentation. An audience can engage when text is readable, functional and works well with the other elements in the presentation. Fonts and sizing are a good place to start establishing the tone of your presentation.

Overview of Font Choices

Elegant fonts often denote a sense of luxury or lifestyle tone. Use script fonts sparingly, but as titles they immediately give this polished and high-end look. This should not be used as body text or something lengthy to read. Think about if you sent an email in that text – it would be tedious to read. However, maybe if it were a title or a way to name email, the choice may be more correct.

Corporate fonts often are traditional, serif fonts or clean sans serif fonts that evoke a sense of trust and a clear message. Think of the fonts Lato, Helvetica or Arial – they’re go-to fonts that are easy to read, and work across many systems. This is especially helpful if you are working across teams when creating content or having to approve the content, idea or visuals.

Of course, you can incorporate more stylistic or playful fonts if you want to give your presentation a personal feel. Much like the scripted font, when used sparingly but in large titles, this choice of font can be very effective at conveying a certain personality.

Adding Symbols & Icons To Your Presentation

You can consolidate information by using symbols or icons to direct your eye to information such as an arrow symbol. What if you used a symbol instead of a bullet point? Think of symbols as anchors for the eye to quickly find information. You can collect symbols off free stock sites or use the built-in ones in PowerPoint that are free to use!

Depending on if your presentation is formal or informal , you may also want to consider adding emojis! Emojis are fun ways to express different emotions and can help connect with a younger demographic.

Overall Branding, Tone of Voice & Consistency

Another tool you may have at your disposal is if your brand, business or company has brand guidelines. It will be the guide and compass to your presentation’s information that goes within it. By keeping consistent you can achieve a polished look even if it looks very simple.

Use your business voice to communicate ideas and set the tone for your presentation. Are you in an investment banking business and want people to rely on the information given to you? That would inform perhaps using blues and purples, which are calmer colors and a cleaner look. Are you an influencer who’s buying power and spending choices matter to your audience? Maybe choosing bright colors with personal touches will make the connection. Are you designing an innovative app? Maybe more interactive slides would do the trick.

Use these questions to make sure your text and tone is consistent as this is a foundation of a well articulated brand or personal identity.

Consistent Hierarchy

Visual hierarchy is how you will arrange objects and text in relation to one another to guide your user and not confuse the objects and how they should read them in your slides. Setting rules helps differentiate and prioritize what’s important in order.

Look at the difference between these two.

Snoop Dogg just launched a wine and it’s coming to Canada

Daily hive branded content | aug 11 2020, 6:30 am.

Australian winery 19 Crimes recently announced that its new Cali Red wine, created in collaboration with Entertainment Icon, entrepreneur, and hip-hop artist Snoop Dogg, will be hitting shelves across Canada later this summer.

The collaboration offers a refreshing take on celebrity partnerships as the apparent shared values and history between the brand and famous rapper make for a perfectly organic pairing.

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You can see a clear distinction in the example below:

Think of hierarchy of a form of narration or story structure. Your eye goes to the title, then to the subtitle, then to the body copy in a logical manner. Where the eye travels is one of those things we don’t think about often. But you can also utilize eye lines in photos. Is your subject in the photo looking left or right? Consider placing text to where your subject is looking and see how effectively your eye travels to that text.

We’ll look at hierarchy strictly as sizing of words for now, but note you can establish hierarchy with type, white space, alignment, etc. As a general rule of thumb, you should have consistent sizing for your Header (or title slide / slide title), your subtitles and your body text. That’s it! If the sizing in your PowerPoint is consistent, your words will look uniform and clean. Everything will be much easier to read and the eye will be trained to move each slide.

Don’t Forget Your Own Style

Also don’t forget to incorporate your own style and what kind of visuals you like. Even if your early visuals may seem simple, build up that design muscle with the basics and design techniques that look clean and consistent.

You’ll find as you design these basics, you’ll probably start noticing other visuals and things you like in other mediums and presentations. Keep a note or screenshot the presentation that inspired you. Create a mood-board that you can refer to in the future for quick idea inspiration. Copying gets a bad rap, but learning how to design something you like even if it’s a clone copy will teach you many things about design. Build a collection of images that informs everything you do: for your color scheme, your designs, the cadence of images, etc.

That being said, you can also use free stock websites like Freepik for some design layouts inspiration. Creative Market is a paid website but the site offers a ton of design inspiration. This site has design templates for what’s currently in and trending. You can subscribe to an email newsletter on either site to get bite sized design influence each day that goes straight to your inbox.

However, don’t be afraid to try something new!

Once you get to a level of comfortable designing, these new ideas will be much easier to execute with the technical knowledge you amassed when you started. You could even try using a new app to design your ideas to keep your knowledge fresh! (Keep in mind that most online apps like SlideShare use cookies to improve functionality and performance.)

Ask your friends or people at your organization to give you feedback and critique, as that’s also crucial to honing your design skills. The people around you also represent different audiences!

The above image looks boring, right?

That’s because there are no visual elements!

Powerful visual presentations can engage audiences psychologically with both the presentation itself and the energy of the presenter. By understanding a few universal design concepts, you can begin your journey creating wonderful visual presentations and becoming a better presenter ! Thanks for reading this blog post, tell us your tips in the comments below.

Author:  Content Team

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How to Design a Professional PowerPoint Presentation

Our series of tips on presentation design outlined some generic rules and ideas that you can live by to create better, more professional presentations. Today we want to follow that up by taking you through the actual process of designing a presentation from start to finish.

We’ll break down every step of the design process, from choosing colors and images to using whitespace properly. After reading through this you should be all set to design your own beautiful presentation slides that will put your coworkers to shame.

Using a pre-built PowerPoint template can be a good starting point for many people (we collected some of the best PowerPoint templates for you!). But if you’re wanting to design your own from start-to-finish, you’re in the right place!

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A Word About Content

I usually make a big deal about content preceding design, and presentations are no exception. Ideally, you’ll have the topic and much or all of the content outlined before you even think about design. This will in every way shape the appearance of your design, which is why working from pre-built templates isn’t always the best move (though generic templates can and do work great in some circumstances).

The reason that I bring this up is that I don’t really have an actual presentation in mind for this project. I’ll be running with a basic theme, but the textual information will be entirely placeholder copy. Your image, font, color and layout selection shouldn’t necessarily match mine but instead reflect the topic and content you’re working with.

Choosing A Color Scheme

Before I even open Photoshop (yes, I design PowerPoint/Keynote slides in Photoshop and drop them in), I want to find a color scheme on which to base my entire design. When I need to quickly find several colors that go together I usually start with Adobe Color CC . Not only is it a great way to build your own color schemes, it’s an outstanding source to find schemes built by others that you can just grab for your projects.

As luck would have it, I liked the very first color scheme I saw upon opening Color. This scheme was featured on the home page and looked like a great place to start for our presentation design.

Now, if you wanted to get everything exactly right, you could make a list of the RGB or Hex values, but I prefer a quicker, more direct route. What I usually do is snap a screenshot of the color scheme, paste it into my document and stretch it across the canvas on its own layer for easy access. This way I can quickly activate the layer, eyedropper the color I want, then hide the layer and get back to work. It’s a bit like having a palette of colors to dip your paintbrush in.

Designing Your Cover Slide

Now that we have a color scheme, the design work is going to be much simpler. One trick that designers often use in presentations is to leverage the color scheme as heavily as possible. If you’re new to design, you’ll likely think that this is too easy, too plain or even that it’s cheating somehow, but trust me, it’ll be much more attractive and professional than that horrid Microsoft clipart library you love so much.

To start, simply grab one of your colors from the scheme you chose and flood the background of your slide with it (I chose #631c25). Good job, there’s your background. Don’t freak out. It’ll look great. Now let’s throw in some typography.

Choosing a Font

Font choice is a major issue for non-designers. The tendency is to think that most fonts are “boring” and to look around for something exciting and fun. This inevitably leads to the use of Comic Sans or some other equally hideous font.

Unless you’re an elementary school teacher, your presentations should never look like this. Instead, why don’t you try one of those “boring” fonts to see if you can come up with something you like.

Combining fonts can be a tricky task and can take a trained eye to pull off. Fortunately, font designers have already created collections that work well together and if you’re not a designer, they make it easy to pull off great typography. The trick is to just stay in a family. Again, I know this sounds lame, but it works really well if you make sure the two styles you choose are very different.

For instance, I chose a Helvetica Bold Condensed and a Helvetica Light for my cover slide. Notice how different the fonts are from each other in terms of thickness. Choosing two styles that are relatively close causes visual confusion and should be avoided as a general rule of thumb. Instead, what you want is contrast and plenty of it.

Alignment and Layout

Notice a few things about the way I set up this slide. First, I used a strong left alignment for the text. As I say in just about every design article I write, center alignment should be a last resort, not a first. It tends to be the weakest text alignment that you can choose, having a hard edge increases readability considerably (notice that book pages aren’t center-aligned).

Also, notice the generous whitespace that I used. Remember that you don’t have to eat up every inch of space. Giving your text room to breathe helps your layout immensely and gives the design a clean look.

Adding an Image

At this point you might be wondering why you wasted your time reading so I could give you such plain advice. The truth is, most people that create presentations could improve them by 100% from following the advice above. However, I realize minimalism may be too extreme for some folks so let’s throw in an image to make it look nice.

Since our text is on the left, I wanted to find something a little heavy on the right. The general theme that I’ll go for is “City photos” assuming I had some sort of architecture or city-centric presentation to give. Again, you’ll have to choose iamges relevant to your own topic.

I grabbed this Flickr Creative Commons image from photographer Ben Spreng .

Now, if we just made this image our background, the text would become unreadable and we would be ditching our color scheme. What we’re going to do instead is set it on top of the colored slide and set our blending mode to Overlay. Then throw your opacity to around 45%.

As you can see, this helps the slide look much more interesting but keeps the text and colors fairly intact. It’s a simple solution that adds a lot of interest to an otherwise plain design.

Adding Content Slides

The cover may seem like it’s only a tiny part of the battle, but you’ve actually already set the tone for the entire presentation. You’ve got your theme, color scheme and fonts already in place. Now you just need to set up a few different layouts for your content.

The thing to keep in mind is to keep everything extremely simple, and that includes the level of content that you include. Apart from design, these are just good presentation tactics that you’ll learn in every public speaking class. Filling your slides with everything you’re going to say makes you unnecessary. You could just email everyone the slides and shut up.

Instead, the slides are merely meant to be a visual aid. Show a slide with your overall topic or main point, then speak the rest, without reading. Nothing is worse than watching a guy read his note cards word-for-word for thirty minutes, except perhaps watching a guy turn his back to the audience so he can actually read his slides out loud to you the whole time! You may laugh, but I’ve seen it happen folks.

For our first content slide, we’ll grab another Flickr photo and set it to the bottom portion of our slide at full bleed. Then we’ll set the top to another color from our scheme and toss in some text using the same exact formatting that we used on the cover.

See how this closely resembles the theme we’ve already established while still looking significantly different? This is they key to good presentation design: cohesiveness without redundancy.

Now for our third slide, we can simply do the inverse of the second slide with a new color and a new image .

Adding Informational Elements

It would be nice if every slide ever presented could work in a full bleed image, but the truth is that this simply isn’t practical. It will often be the case that you’re presenting graphical information or some other item that isn’t necessarily a photo.

My advice here is to try to stick as close to your theme as possible. For the slide below I flooded the entire background with a solid color from our original scheme and made a quick 3D graph with white columns (I drew a few flat boxes in Illustrator and applied a 3D effect).

As you can see, this slide is very information-focused and yet it doesn’t sacrifice the aesthetics and simplicity we’ve already established.

You’re All Set

From here you might come up with one or two more alternate slide designs and then rotate between them for the duration of your speech. The result is a presentation that is beautiful, very readable and highly professional. The bonus is that the simple, straightforward design will probably result in less work than a clip-art-filled horror show.

Most of the time, great design doesn’t mean being particularly artistic or knowing how to create amazing complex layouts. Instead, it’s about presenting information in an attractive and user-friendly way. With this goal in mind you realize that you’re probably trying way too hard if your end result is ugly. Try cutting out half or more of the elements on one of your slides and giving what’s left a strong left or right alignment with plenty of whitespace.

I hope this article has convinced you to abandon that clip art gallery once and for all. The benefits of clean, minimal design in presentations are clear: the information is easier to take in and the end result is more professional than the mess of information you typically see in presentation slides.

Of course, if you’re looking to get started quickly, flick through our collection of the best PowerPoint templates to find a beautiful set of pre-made designs!

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How to make a good presentation great: 8 pro tips

• 10 Jun 2019

It’s 2am.

You’ve got a huge presentation tomorrow, but you’re afraid to go to bed for fear of having an on-the-stage-in-my-skivvies level nightmare about the big day. We’ve all been there. Learning how to make a presentation (without breaking out into a cold sweat) takes practice.

In our experience, a serious case of the jitters is best fixed by a serious injection of expert wisdom.

We’ve gathered the best advice from experts like Tony Robbins, Steve Jobs, and Guy Kawasaki on how to make a good presentation great, along with insider knowledge on both designing and delivering a presentation.

Plus, as a bonus, we included our best practices for adding video to your next presentation. We also threw in a few of our favorite video presentation templates from Biteable. With Biteable’s online video making software, creating a video presentation is as simple as making a PowerPoint (and far more effective).

Content & Design

How to make a good presentation.

Making a good presentation starts with crafting the content. No matter how compelling your message is, if you don’t get it out of your brain and on to the screen in a simple way, you’ll be met with a sea of blank faces. So, where to begin?

1. Create an easy-to-follow structure

When it comes to what you have to say, break it down into three simple sections: your presentation needs an introduction, body, and conclusion.

A compelling introduction . Your introduction needs to briefly sum up what you’re going to talk about and why it’s useful or relevant to your audience.

Offer a body of evidence . The body of your presentation is where you hit ’em with the facts, quotes, and evidence to back up your main points.

Sum up with key takeaways . The conclusion is where you loop back to your original statement and give the audience some key takeaways on how they can put into practice what they’ve learned.

• No more than 10 slides in total . Who wants to sit through pages and pages of slides? No one, that’s who. By keeping your slide deck to 10 slides, even if your presentation is 30 minutes long, you’ll give the audience a chance to digest the on-screen messages in line with your talk. Using  concept maps  before structuring your slides can help keep to the point.

2. Limit the amount of copy on each slide

Less really is more, especially when it comes to making a good presentation. Too much text and the audience will just be reading the screen instead of looking at you and feeling the emotional impact of your message.

No more than six words per slide . Marketing king Seth Godin says we should have just six words per slide – that’s not a lot of copy. Choose your words carefully and rewrite until you’ve got it just right.

• Think ‘bite-size’ information . We called ourselves Biteable a reason: studies show information is retained better when it’s broken down into bite-sized chunks. Video is a great way to do this, and research suggests it’s  95% more compelling than text.  Consider adding video to your presentation strategy. But regardless, break your information up into smaller, palatable pieces.

3. Be savvy with design details

A well-thought-out design can make all the difference between a good presentation and one that falls flat. Consider these design standards as you make your presentation.

Use color sparingly . Bright colors can dazzle, but too many can be off-putting. Use the colors most relevant to your message. We’d recommend sticking with one or two (not counting black and white) for your palette so it has a consistent look and feel.

Be consistent with your font . Consistent design makes you look more professional. Don’t switch between caps and lower case, Times New Roman and Comic Sans, or 8 and 30 point text size. Stick with one font and one size throughout. You can vary the emphasis with your words later, but keep your on-screen text uniform for a more cohesive message.

• Format for perfection . A wonky line on a slide or a badly pixelated graphic will put some people off, as it will look like you haven’t tried very hard (or worse, that you just aren’t very good). Make sure your text is aligned and neat like in the example below.

4. Polish several times

Just like a pair of well-worn shoes, a good presentation often needs a few rounds of dusting before it’s shiny and sparkly.

Start Messy . Don’t be afraid to start messy. Using a non-linear writing tool like  Milanote  allows you to explore and outline your initial ideas in a flexible way before you even open up PowerPoint or Keynote. Arrange your ideas side-by-side and discover new connections that you didn’t see before.

Edit ruthlessly . At first you might have a huge amount of information and will wonder how you’re ever going get it down to six words per slide. That’s OK. Keep editing ruthlessly until you’ve pared your message down to the bare essentials.

• Get someone else to look at it . A fresh pair of eyes can work miracles when it comes to refining your presentation. Get a trusted mentor or colleague to review your work. If you don’t know anyone who can help, an online writing assistant like  ProWritingAid  or  Grammarly  can help you weed out a lot of problems.

How to give a good presentation

How you deliver your slides is as important as their content and design. Here are some quick pointers to help you get your message across with impact.

5. Have a strong opening

How you start and finish your presentation is extremely important. Audiences usually make up their minds about someone in the first seven seconds, so make those first moments count.

Be different . You’re doing a presentation about saving tree frogs in Costa Rica. You open with an amusing story about one that escaped on a  bunch of bananas  to the UK. A story like this is different and unexpected for your audience, so they’ll sit up and take notice.

Ask a question . Rhetorical questions are a great way to frame a topic and introduce ideas. Martin Luther King Jr. said: “There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, ‘When will you be satisfied?’”

• Tailor it to your audience . How much do you know about your audience? The more you know, the better. Especially if you know their likes and dislikes. Inserting a relevant metaphor or popular culture reference. Oprah Winfrey’s Stanford commencement address spoke to the graduates about her lessons learned and how they were entering ‘the classroom of life.’

6. Be genuine

Oscar Wilde said “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” A lack of authenticity will be spotted a mile away. Whatever you’re saying, speak from the heart and don’t try to impress – there’s no need to prove yourself, just to get the point across as you see it. After all, that’s why you’re there, and you can’t do more than that.

Use humor . Humor can be great for giving a presentation, but cut it out if it feels like a stretch. Telling a humorous story can break down any barriers, make you more likeable, and make your message more memorable (and people are surprisingly generous with laughter) but the faintest whiff of desperation will kill a funny vibe.

Don’t be afraid to mess up . The fear of making a mistake can make you inordinately nervous. Relax, even the best speakers mess up or have bad luck. Theresa May, ex-Prime Minister of England, once stumbled and  coughed her way through a presentation , with someone even handing her a resignation letter. She battled through like a pro, though, and simply acknowledged it and moved on. No big deal.

• Open up and be vulnerable . Brené Brown,  a researcher whose presentations  have amassed over ten million views, says that “Sometimes the bravest and most important thing you can do is just show up.” This means speaking your truth and daring to feel a little uncomfortable as you share a meaningful story. It will connect your audience to you like never before.

7. Have a plan for a smooth delivery

With all the prep you’re doing on the content and design of your presentation, it can be easy to overlook other variables that are within your control for a stress-free delivery.

Have a practice run-through . There’s nothing like reading it out loud to ensure your message makes sense before you actually deliver it. Try recording your presentation on video — this way you’ll be able to review with an accurate eye and notice whether your speech matches up with your slides. It’ll also help you sort out your run time.

Use a remote . A clicker or remote will help you face the audience and not have to keep turning back to your laptop. Sought-after public speaker Garr Reynolds says a remote is essential in order to pause and advance your presentation so you have time to be spontaneous and control the flow of your delivery.

Have backup material . Not everything you say is going to resonate with your audience. It’s best to be flexible enough to change the game as and when needed. Steve Jobs had standby anecdotes prepared to fill time when the technology he was using to give the presentation failed. Preparing for every eventuality will help soothe your nerves and allow you to feel more in control.

• Use a timer . When you get into the flow of your message, it’s easy to go off on a tangent or even spend too long on audience questions. Put your phone on airplane mode and set the stopwatch just as you begin speaking. A quick glance down at the table during a pause will allow you to make sure you’re not going overtime.

8. To conclude, focus on audience value

You’re coming to the end of your presentation. How do you wrap it up in a way that will be everlasting in their memories? The experts recommend you focus on the feeling you want the audience to take home.

Leave your audience with an emotional impression .”They might forget what you said, but they’ll never forget the way they made you feel” said the poet Maya Angelou. By leaving them with an emotional impression, from a piece of video with moving music to a line from a song or poem, you’ll strike that resonant chord and end on a high.

Use a pause for key takeaways . Want the audience to remember something specific? Say it slowly and leave a pause at the end. The silence will emphasize what you said and make it meaningful.

• Make your core message sing . A call-to-action is the best way to wrap up your presentation with strength and impact. What do you want your audience to do next? Tony Robbins tells a great story, moving his audience emotionally towards change.

Make your next presentation shine with one of these video templates

You’ve learned from the pros and you feel much more confident about how to make a presentation that stands out. But to really make your presentation one to remember, consider adding video into the mix.

Create a nice change of pace by  embedding a video in your PowerPoint presentation  or go out on a limb and turn your entire presentation into an engaging, thoughtful video.

Either way, make it great with one of the professionally designed video presentation templates available in Biteable.

Make a video presentation with Biteable

With Biteable, making a video presentation has never been easier.

Biteable’s  online video making software  gives you access to hundreds of brandable templates and video scenes, plus over 24 million stock clips, images, and animations all in an easy-to-use platform.

Add text to your video, include a voice over, and even record your screen without ever leaving the app. Once you’re done making video presentation magic, automatically apply your company colors and logo to your entire video with Biteable’s innovative  brand builder  feature.

Anyone can make an impactful video with Biteable. Are you ready to try?

Make stunning videos with ease.

Take the struggle out of team communication.

Try Biteable now.

• No credit card required
• No complicated design decisions
• No experience necessary

Why a good-looking presentation matters

When it comes to a slide presentation, looks matter. In other words, design is every bit as important as data. While you definitely want to make your point and convey your message, you can't do that effectively if your slides are poorly designed.

Vincent Battaglia

To capture your audience's attention—and keep it—you need to focus on aesthetics as much as bullet points. Fortunately, there are tools out there to help you create a good looking presentation with ease.

5 reasons why a good-looking presentation is key

You can have the most compelling, attention-grabbing data in the world and still deliver a lackluster presentation if your slides are boring, sloppy, or just generally unpleasant to look at. Here are five reasons why a good-looking presentation is just as critical as the information you share.

1. Improve your audience’s data retention

Research shows that 65 percent of people are visual learners. This means they're more likely to understand and retain data when information is presented in a visual format. That’s why infographics are such a powerful method of delivering data. As this list of top infographics shows, information can be easier to comprehend and digest when it's delivered in an aesthetically pleasing way.

If your presentation is just a rote list of numbers and data, you risk losing your audience's attention. However, that doesn't mean you have to omit important data or gloss over relevant materials in your presentation. One effective strategy is to highlight a couple of critical figures or points on a slide and give audience members a handout or link to a report or website that reinforces your point.

2. Keep your audience engaged

A good-looking design is more than just something nice for your audience to look at while you speak. When design is done properly, it keeps people engaged and captures their attention. When you consider that the human attention span is now just eight seconds , this is an impressive feat.

You can make your data more appealing by using things like charts, images, and infographics. You have just a few seconds to give your audience a reason to keep listening. A good-looking presentation can get everyone on the same page (i.e., your slide).

3. Make a good impression

If you're pitching to a prospective client or trying to persuade a group of investors to work with you, a good-looking presentation can make you unforgettable. Well-designed slides can give you and your team a polished, professional look.

You can also use your presentation to reinforce your brand and lend unity to your messaging. Good design leaves the impression that you're competent and prepared.  

4. Inspire your audience to take action

In many cases, the goal of a presentation is to compel the audience to take action. In a business setting, this might mean prompting them to hire the speaker or make a purchase. You deliver the presentation as a way of convincing the audience you have the knowledge and expertise to help them solve a problem.

With a good-looking presentation, you leave your audience feeling confident about your skills and abilities. An aesthetically pleasing design lets your audience know they (and their business) are in competent hands.  

5. Stand out in a crowded field

No matter what kind of industry you're in, chances are you have plenty of competition. You might be the best in the business, but you can lose potential customers with an ineffective presentation.  Your presentation must be as professional as the rest of your communication. Respecting your brand guidelines, and coherent

Understandably, you might be focused on an industry that has nothing to do with design. Good design matters, and there are great tools to help you create stunning slides. However, even the best tools in the world can't replace a professional designer with years of experience.

In Ludus, we are focused on collaboration: Forget the frustration because a template is outdated, don't spend time lost searching for the right asset, or in an endless feedback loop between you and the design team. Everything is synced, up to date and easy to find.

Ludus is a rare platform design where designers and non-designers truly work together. It offers an easy-to-use interface that allows designers to create stunning work that helps clients stand out.

Want good-looking designs? Give Ludus a try today!

Ludus makes great design possible for anyone, including non-designers. You can import your favorite fonts, crop photos, insert GIFs and videos, and even create a library of smart blocks you can return to again and again as you build presentations for various audiences. You can also use your slides to tell a compelling story that keeps your audience engaged and interested in what you have to say.

Good-looking presentations are possible for everyone—regardless of your tech abilities. Want to see how Ludus can revolutionize the way you present information? Give it a try for free and see for yourself how easy it is to build incredible presentations.

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How to Create the Perfect Presentation Handout

One of the most often overlooked parts of a presentation is the presentation handouts. So, in this post, we’ll give you a few examples of presentation handouts that you can create very easily and add impact to your speech or business meetings.

Good speakers and lecturers usually give presentation handouts to accompany their speeches. As a result, a great presentation handout can make your speech more memorable. It gives your audience the freedom to listen to your presentation instead of frantically taking notes.

The handouts you provide also help them remember the key points and highlights from your presentation, making your talk even more valuable. People are grateful for a good handout and will remember you (and the main points of your speech) long after the talk ended. Finally, your handout can be used as an exceptional marketing piece. If it is good enough, your audience members will both keep it and share it with others.

The Successful Speaker’s Guide to the How to Create the Perfect Presentation Handout.

The first rule of slide club is never handout your slides to slide club..

This has always been a hard and fast rule in my business presentation classes. But I have to admit, in recent years, I’ve changed my tune slightly here. When I first started teaching presentation classes, PowerPoint was still in its infancy. And the slideshows that people were creating were really awful. Folks would just create a never-ending series of bullet points on a never-ending slide deck. Since most presentations covered way too much content, it was impossible for the audience to retain most of it. In order to prevent information overload, presenters started printing off their slides and distributing the printed slide deck to their audience as a handout. As a result, the presenter ends up with a bad presentation accompanied by a bad handout.

However, if you get creative with your slides, you can actually use a printout of your slide deck to make your presentation more interactive (more on this later). The main point here is if you have a ton of content in your presentation, stuffing that content onto your slides and then just printing out your slides is not a good idea.

I sometimes make this point in class by starting to deliver a data-heavy slide deck. It typically only takes a few slides before someone in class figures out that I’m violating almost every tip that I’m giving them.

At that point, there is usually a nice laugh. I then switch to a better slideshow that is more audience-centered. The funny thing is, though, that before the class figures out that the bad PowerPoint presentation is a joke, someone in the class will often ask me if I will send them the slide deck.  So, if your audience is asking you for your slide deck, your presentation is probably not designed very well .

Three Easy Examples of Handouts for Presentations.

Presentation handout example #1: just use slide notes in powerpoint as a presentation handout..

One of the main reasons that I have always encouraged my class members to not print out their slides is that the slides, without the speaker, aren’t going to make a lot of sense. However, most people will jot a few speaker notes of important information they want to say in the presentation. If you use the techniques that I cover here, you’ll likely create an outline with a few key items. You’ll likely also use stories, examples, analogies, anecdotes, quotes, statistics, and the like. Well, if you already have that content created before you create your slide deck, you could just insert that content into the Slide Notes in PowerPoint. Viola! Instant presentation handouts.

The Second Example of a Presentation Handout: Give Main Concepts with Space for Audience to Add Notes.

A friend of mine leads three-day training boot camps where he teaches social media marketing and website development. His handout is a three-ring binder full of printed pages. Each page has a series of rules followed by a quarter page of blank space. I once asked him, since the content that he was delivering was so detailed, why didn’t he just type it up and include it in his manuals.

He laughed and told me that he used to do that very thing. But the content in his industry was changing so quickly that, the moment he printed a new manual, those additional details would already be outdated. So, now, he just prints the core message. Then, he allows his students to fill in the blanks with the most current content that he delivers from the stage. (He gets fantastic reviews, by the way.)

I love this technique. It keeps the audience involved. It also allows the audience members to write out the content that is most important to each of them at the time they attended the meeting.

The Most Effective Example: Create a Presentation Handout that Contains Extra Content Not in Your Presentation

You want to include the content from your presentation in a written format. But you also want to add additional information that you won’t cover in the presentation. This is the technique that we use in our seminars and workshops.

For instance, if you are going to use a story as a piece of evidence in your verbal presentation, use a different story in your handout. If you use an analogy in your presentation, use a quote in your handout. When you use audience participation in your presentation, use a unique photograph in your handout.

If you do this, your target audience will see you as a valued expert on the topic. By the way, it is okay to use some of the same content in your slideshows, your oral presentations, and your handouts. It is important to be consistent. However, you want your verbal presentation to cover some key ideas that aren’t in your handout. And you want your handout to cover detailed information that you don’t speak about.

This type of presentation is a great handout because it becomes a textbook for your presentation. It does take longer to create a well-prepared handout. But you will find that the value to your audience far outweighs the additional effort.

During the presentation, you’ll want to say something like, “I’ve given you additional examples in your handout,” or “If you want the full step-by-step approach, you can download the handout from my website at [your URL].”

A Few Bonus Tips to Add Impact to Your Handouts.

Add a list of reference material for further reading

Your audience members will want to pick your brain. They want to know where you went to school, what kind of work experience you have, and most of all, where they can read more about your topic.

There’s a ton of resources out there, so instead of having your audience sort through them (or risk boring them with way too much detail in the presentation), just lead them in the right direction with your recommended reading. If the book is hard to find, or only available online, remember to include the link to where it can be purchased.

Consider adding a worksheet or action sheet

Depending on the type of presentation or speech you’re giving, you will likely have a call to action at the end, where you will encourage people to change or act on something related to your talk.

If a worksheet helped you implement these changes before, include it for your audience. Even a notes section located in the back of your handout will be an effective tool in case your audience wants to jot something down.What did your last handout look like? What will you change for next time? Let us know if you end up implementing any of these tips.

For additional help, here are a few additional posts:

• How Many PowerPoint Slides Should You Have for Your Presentation .
• Make Your Handout Look Great without a Graphic Designer .
• How to Design Your Presentation in a Few Simple Steps .
• We Use the Software Canva to Create Great Presentation Handouts with a Professional Layout

Download the Free How to Create a Great Presentation Handout… Handout.

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How to make visual presentations: 7 types of visuals you can use in your presentation slides right now

Are you ready to make visual presentations?

I’m so happy to hear that!

If I had to sum up the cause of #DeathByPowerpoint in a few words it would be: Too much text, too few good visuals.

If you’re an academic, scientists, or educator who wants to make better presentations, then you need to use good visuals in your presentations.

Using great visuals is one of the easiest and most effective ways to get your audience to:

pay attention

remember, and

use the information you share.

Giant walls of text do not help you achieve any of those goals.

Hi! I’m Dr. Echo Rivera and I help academics, scientists, and educators create engaging presentations.

Although this post is exclusively about visuals, it’s important that you reduce the amount of text you have on your slides, so you have room for great visuals .

But you probably know that presentations need visuals, right? That’s why you’re here, reading this post.

So here’s something you might not know: It’s not just about having any visual in your slides—you need to have good visuals.

A bad visual doesn’t achieve those goals, either.

Let’s talk more about the difference between good vs. bad visuals, and then I’ll share ideas for 7 types of visuals you can use in your presentations.

In this blog post, you’re going to learn:

What makes a visual “good” or “bad”?

Seven types of visuals you can use in your presentations.

This blog post was written specifically for academics, scientists, educators, and similar presenters.

In other words, this blog post is for people who share educational information using slides.

Before I get started, I want to make sure you know about my FREE training video.

Good visuals vs. bad visuals—what is the difference?

A good visual is one that makes it more likely for you to achieve those above goals.

What goals, you ask? Getting your audience to pay attention, understand, remember, and use your information.

A bad visual is one that makes it less likely for you to achieve those goals.

Sounds easy enough, right?

Let’s talk specifics.

Visuals DON’T make an impact when they are:

Formatted or cropped improperly

Distracting

Forgettable (aka “meh”)

A mismatch with the slide content

Evoking the wrong emotion

I’m guessing you’re nodding your head in agreement. All of those things sound like they would hurt your chances of making an impact, right?

Well, most academics, scientists, and educators are using visuals that don’t make an impact. That includes me, several years ago.

Chances are high that you are, too, and you don’t even realize it.

Most people think I’m talking about things like cheesy stock photos.

And, they’re not wrong—those are bad visuals.

But during my presentation workshops, professionals are always shocked at the examples I provide of “bad” visuals.

Many participants share that some of their favorite visuals are on my list of visuals to avoid.

Examples of bad visuals:

PowerPoint SmartArt

Word clouds

Slide template designs

Most modern forms of vector/digital clip art

Bubble people

Humans coming together to form shapes

Disembodied hands shaking

Cheesy stock photos

Did you see something on the list that you use?

Don’t feel embarrassed. I’ve used every single one of those visuals in my presentations before.

How were we supposed to know what visuals to use in our presentations? It’s not like we get trained on this in grad school!

Plus, until 2014 or so we had one of two options:

Pay a lot of money for cheesy stock photos of white people, or

Use Office clip art and PowerPoint SmartArt.

So, I’m not making fun of you (it’s not my style). I just want to make sure you’re able to go through your presentations and delete the bad visuals you have in there.

I’ll focus on one as an example: word clouds.

I remember when I first saw word clouds. I thought they were the coolest things ever. I used them every chance I could.

Until I realized they were just a way to cram even more text into my slides.

Take a look at this slide with a word cloud:

What emotions do you feel while looking at hundreds of words, in multiple colors, forming the shape of a coffee cup?

Nothing probably.

And you’re going to forget this image the second it leaves the screen.

Word clouds are forgettable, at best. At their worst, they’re distracting, confusing, and stressful.

That’s what makes them such a bad visual.

But it’s more than that.

Let’s think about this. What is the visual here. Do we even have one?

I argue we don’t.

Stylized words is still just that: words . It’s still text.

That is still a text-heavy slide, in my professional opinion.

So, what would a good visual look like?

Something like this:

Now you probably had much more of an emotional reaction. If you’re a coffee drinker like I (obviously) am, then you probably can almost feel the warmth of that cup.

You can picture yourself wrapping your hands around the warm cup and taking a sip. Feeling that rush of caffeine…

Plus, do you see how something like this good visual will be more memorable than the word cloud.

That’s what you want.

Do you see how choosing the wrong visual can ruin a slide?

And I didn’t even cheat.

I actually tried to design a nice slide using a word cloud. I could have done what most people do, which is throw a word cloud on top of a template with some bullet points!

Slide templates are never the solution. They will never help you end #DeathByPowerpoint, and one of the first things to do when you’re ready to make better presentations is to stop using them.

And PowerPoint SmartArt is a type of template—you shouldn’t use those either. I’ve written an entire blog post (with before and after makeovers) about why PowerPoint’s SmartArt is not a good visual.

It’s really important to consider all of the elements on your slides and only keep the ones that help achieve our key goal (getting our audience to pay attention, understand, remember, and use the information we share).

Ok. Enough about bad visuals, let’s talk about good ones!

Visuals DO make an impact when they are:

Formatted properly

A match with the slide content

Evoking the right emotion

Now that you have an idea of good vs. bad visuals, let’s talk about 7 types of visuals you can use in your presentation.

  1. Use stock photos for your presentation slides

When I’m giving a presentation training workshop, I ask people what types of visuals they should avoid, and a lot of them say “stock photos!”

I see where they’re coming from. The term "stock photo” has become synonymous with “cheesy stock photo of white people smiling at the camera.”

That’s because, until 2014 or so, that’s what stock photos were.

But things have changed. A lot.

And for the better.

So erase everything you thought you knew about stock photos and let’s start from scratch.

All “stock photo” means is that it’s a photograph taken by someone else, so others could use it for something.

That’s it. That’s all it means.

And stock photos are the #1 type of visual you should use in your educational presentation.

As of 2021, is actually pretty easy to find stock photos that are:

High quality

Memorable in a good way (i.e., not cheesy or forgettable)

Here are four examples of how I’ve used stock photos to create engaging presentation slides.

These are actual slides I’ve used for either educational presentations, doing before/after makeovers, or when sharing evaluation data results.

Tip: Royalty free does NOT mean free to use

I've noticed that a lot of people incorrectly use the terms " royalty free" as interchangeable with " cost free."

Royalty free means you don't have to pay the creator each time you use it or make money from it, but you usually still have to pay for the initial license.

Cost free or free to use means you never had to pay for it, but there may be other license requirements, like giving credit (attribution) every time you use it.

Tip: Copyright still applies to you even when you use photos for non-profit, educational purposes

A lot of researchers, academics, and scientists think that just because they're using photos for education (i.e., non-profit use), they're exempt from copyright laws.

Or, they know the law applies to them but think copyrighted pictures are considered under “fair use.”

Tip: Stop using Google Images to find stock photos

Most people are still using Google Images to find stock photos, so I need to talk about that for a second.

Using Google Images is actually one of the slowest, least efficient ways to find stock photos for your presentations.

It’s also the most risky in terms of copyright violations.

I describe a faster and safer way to find visuals and to create what I call a Visual Database.

If you feel like it takes you forever to find visuals and/or add them to your presentations, then make sure you read that blog post next.

2. Use icons for your presentation slides

Icons are one the easiest and fastest ways to add visuals to your slides. They’re a great place to start if your slides are mostly text.

You can find icons at flaticon.com, but I just use PowerPoint’s built-in icons.

There are tons of them, and they all meet the modern standards for good icons. That’s important because if you aren’t careful, your icons will start to look like clip art.

You want clean, simple, and modern icons—that’s exactly what the built-in icons in PowerPoint are.

I use them to accompany large numbers or single percentages. This isn’t real data here, just a mock up I made for a blog post about how to visualize this type of data.

I use them for teaching purposes, too. For example, in my presentation training, people learn the #1 enemy in presentations — the ONE thing you must avoid.

I use the icon of a wrench to symbolize that “enemy” and create a theme for the entire presentation.

It works well because it sets up a simple, common visual (wrench) that we can all use and reference throughout the training.

I also love to use icons for interactive moments, like this one.

One reason I love PowerPoint icons so much is because it’s easy to do some “icon hacking” and make them even better. The visuals you see above are a combination of PowerPoint icons.

If you have not tried using PowerPoint icons, then I strongly encourage you to start using them in your next presentation.

3. Use your own photos for presentation slides

I see a lot of people using stock photos, so you probably already knew about them.

One thing I rarely see is presenter's own photos, and that's a huge missed opportunity.

Some of the best photos I use are ones I took myself.

And, no, I'm not an expert photographer and many of my photos would not look good on a slide. But, when I do take a gem, I try to use it in my slides.

One of my favorite examples is this pic I snapped of my two dogs -- Biscuit (left) and Sage (right) -- that I used to explain inter-rater reliability to a group of practitioners. 

It was a hit!

After that presentation about validity and reliability, I heard from non-researchers that the presentation was engaging and interesting. A loose quote was, “I know all this academic stuff should be complicated, but the way Echo explains make it easy to understand.”

If that’s what you want to hear from your audience, then using great visuals will help get you there.

Has this post been helpful so far? If so, I bet you’ll LOVE my free training!

4. use your own drawings & illustrations for presentation visuals.

Don’t skip over this section!

Let me bust a few myths about this one right now:

MYTH: I can’t do this because I suck at drawing

Your audience doesn’t want to see an elaborate masterpiece on the slide, anyway.

The scrappier the drawing, the better.

MYTH: I can’t do this because I’m not “a creative”

First of all, you are absolutely creative.

Second, not that it matters because it doesn’t take any creativity to draw a square or a stick figure saying something.

Finally, being able to take your text-heavy slides and create your own visuals for it is a skill that you can develop with training, support, and practice.

MYTH: I can’t do this because it’s unprofessional

Yeah? Says who?

Because in my experience, audiences LOVE when the presenter uses their own drawings.

I mean, yeah, don’t do this for your job talk . But other than that, go for it.

Look . This whole myth of "being professional" seriously gets in the way of my peaceful protest against #DeathByPowerpoint.

Hand drawings are more likely to catch the attention of your audience than a great stock photo or any other type of visual.

They’re also fantastic at helping your audience understand and remember the material.

I'm still waiting for a legitimate argument that being ineffective and boring at presenting is somehow professional .

MYTH: I can’t do this because I don’t have professional software or can’t afford Adobe Illustrator!

Good news: You can draw directly in PowerPoint!

Also: We don’t use Adobe Illustrator.

We use the MUCH more affordable (and easier to use) app called Affinity Designer (bonus: members of my course get a discount on it, too).

Example drawings and illustrations

Sometimes, it's impossible to find a visual that works for your slide.

When it's an important point you want to make, or when you want to connect/resonate with your audience, then your own doodles can come to the rescue.

Here is a very simple set of 2 slides. I was making the point that watching presentations—even if they’re really great presentations—does not effectively teach you how to create effective presentations.

I drew a couple stick figures, then added speech bubbles.

I also combine my own illustrations with icons. I drew the brain using professional illustration software, and then everything else (pencil, paperclip, gear) is a built-in icon from PowerPoint.

Notice the icons aren’t all black—that’s because you can change the colors of PowerPoint icons easily, which is another reason I love them so much!

5. Use emotion-focused Gifs on your presentation slides

Gifs are a great way to add some fun and surprise in your presentation. Use a gif when you want to evoke an emotion from your audience.

For example, use gifs when you want your audience to laugh out loud.

Maybe you know you’re going to tell them something they don’t want to hear. Something that might be hard and will conflict with what they’ve heard before.

You can use a funny gif to both lighten the mood while also letting them know you understand them.

What you would do is state the information upfront, and then maybe you use a gif like this (below) to say something like “I know! I know what you’re thinking. This conflicts with what you’ve heard before. Hear me out.”

If you can get them to laugh (while showing them you understand them), they’ll be more likely to hear your difficult message.

Use gifs when you want the audience to understand how YOU feel (or felt).

For example, maybe you hypothesized that X would happen, but Y happened instead. Or, maybe you designed your study one way but then something happened where you needed to change the design.

Or, maybe this isn’t your study, but instead you’re teaching students about research others have done.

Give your audience a visual clue about whether that is:

Amazing news!

Not great, but also not the end of the world.

A complete and utter disaster that made you (them) want to burn it all down.

There are gifs for all of the above.

Not only will using gifs for this purpose humanize the information you’re sharing, it will be memorable. If you can ignite your audience’s emotions while sharing educational information, they are much more likely to remember it later on.

Use gifs when you want to let the audience know you understand how they feel right now (or give them a cue about how they should feel about the information you just shared).

For example, a lot of people are worried that visual presentations are “unprofessional” or they will be called unprofessional for having a lot of visuals.

So, to debunk that idea, I go into detail (with examples) of what a “professional” presentation would be, then. After going through all the detail and showing the audience terrible slides, I end with this gif:

By the way, you can also create your own gifs using your illustrations! Here is one I made that makes it into most of my presentation training webinars. This is really easy to do in PowerPoint now!

We all relate to gifs, so there is no reason to avoid it as a teaching tool.

Ok, one reason: job talks. Don’t use them in a job talk.

6. Use memes on your presentation slides

Use memes in a similar way to how you would use gifs—to evoke emotions and connect with your audience..

You can find memes online easily. This is the only time I ever use google images, because memes don’t have the same copyright concerns as regular photos do.

Plus it really is the fastest way to find a meme. They’re highly searchable because they’re so specific.

You can also create your own—just search “meme generator” and you’ll find one. You can usually find the image of a meme without the text, so you can add your own, too.

There are some classics that still tend to get people to laugh and make your point:

But you’ll want to be careful about using memes that are too outdated.

There is no universal list of “memes are outdated” and this is not something everyone will agree on. One meme that I think should be shelved is the “winter is coming” memes. But then again, I’m sure there’s someone out there who thinks the Liam Neeson memes are outdated.

If you start noticing confused faces instead of smiles and head nods, then it’s time to switch to something new.

A word of caution when using memes.

Gifs are great because they show a very clear and strong emotion. It’s really hard to misinterpret a gif and the audience doesn’t need any background knowledge to understand a gif.

For example, even if you’ve never seen Schitts Creek ( omg, why would you do that yoursel f), you could still understand that gif I used above.

A meme, however, can sometimes require background knowledge of the content of the meme.

Have you ever had to google what a meme meant?

Did you ever see this meme?

I had absolutely no idea what this meme meant and, even after looking it up, didn’t quite understand how to use it properly.

I was missing something, I didn’t get it.

And I loved the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) movies! But, I missed a handful as they were coming out, including the movie that meme is from.

It wasn’t until COVID-19 hit and we decided to watch all of the movies, that I finally saw this scene and understood the meme.

So, go ahead and still use a meme. Just do your best to make sure it:

isn’t too outdated

doesn’t require background knowledge*

*if that background knowledge isn’t the point of your presentation and if you won’t be explaining it in another way

7. Use videos on your presentation slides

Finally, you can use videos in your presentations.

You can show:

Videos found online (YouTube, Vimeo, Tik Tok, etc)

Regular video files

I don’t show videos from the internet during my presentation, and I strongly encourage clients to avoid this when possible.

When you plan on watching a video from the internet during your presentation, you’re:

Slowing down the momentum of your presentation

Assuming the internet connection will be stable enough to show the video

Assuming there will be internet at all

Sure, you could download the video from YouTube and embed it into your slides…but that’s actually kind of rude to do. When you do that, the YouTube creator does not get those views, and views are really important to YouTube creators.

If you need people to watch a YouTube video (or some other video found online), consider having them watch it from home before or after your presentation.

So how do I use videos?

I create my own and then embed them into the presentation.

I do this a lot when I want to include a quick step by step tutorial in my presentation. I do it in a lot of my YouTube videos , and I do it during live presentation workshops.

What I do is I’ll create a short screencast video ahead of time and add that video into PowerPoint.

Then, during the presentation, I’ll narrate as the video plays.

This allows me to:

Keep up the momentum of my presentation

Ensure I don’t forget an important step

Avoid the risk of running into a glitch while doing it live

Continue using PowerPoint’s live subtitles features, even when showing how to use another program

There you go!

You now know more about the difference between good vs. bad visuals AND you have 7 ideas for what types of visuals to include in your next presentation.

Thank you for reading and for using more visuals in your presentations! Your future audience thanks you :)

If you found this post on the different types of visuals to use in your presentation helpful, then you’re going to LOVE my free presentation training!

with joy, Dr. Echo Rivera

Links mentioned in this article >>

6 reasons you need to use good visuals in your presentation

Stop using Google Images + why copyrighted pictures aren’t fair use

Create a visual database (the fast and safe way to find stock photos)

How to draw in PowerPoint

My old slides

Please stop using SmartArt (2 makeovers)

Yes, you have too much text in your presentation slides

Icons in PowerPoint + example of using pre-recorded video in a PPT presentation

Job talk and teaching demo tips

Replacing slide templates

Why we use Affinity Designer instead of Adobe Illustrator

Flaticon.com

PowerPoint live subtitles

Best Product Launch Presentation Examples to Win the Market

Master how to make a product launch presentation with our guide. Explore examples usable as templates to outshine competitors and captivate your audience.

9 minute read

helped business professionals at:

Short answer

What makes an effective product launch presentation?

An effective product launch presentation captivates with a clear value proposition, engages with compelling storytelling, and persuades with data-driven results.

It's visually appealing, audience-focused, and concludes with a strong call-to-action, setting the stage for market success.

Most new products fail - does yours have what it takes to succeed?

Think about this: every year, over 30,000 new products try to make their mark, yet 95% of them don't catch on.

A big reason so many new products fail is they don't grab and keep people's attention right from the start with a powerful product launch presentation.

But here's the deal: not just any presentation will do. In a sea of competition, only the most compelling, clear, and persuasive presentations manage to break through the noise.

So, how do you ensure your product doesn't become just another statistic?

In this blog post, I’ll walk you through real, actionable strategies to make your product launch presentation a hit. Plus, I’ll share examples that have nailed it in the market, serving as templates for you to draw inspiration from.

Let’s get started!

What is the purpose of a product launch presentation?

A product launch presentation has several key objectives, each critical for carving out your product's place in a crowded market. It's your opportunity to make a lasting impression.

Here’s what it aims to accomplish:

Capture attention: Immediately engage your audience with a striking introduction that makes them want to learn more.

Highlight value: Directly address how your product solves a specific problem or fulfills a need, making it indispensable to your audience.

Drive action: Motivate your audience to take the next step, be it purchasing, subscribing, or sharing, by presenting a clear and compelling call to action.

How do you structure a product launch presentation?

Creating a product launch presentation is like mapping out a journey for your audience, guiding them from awareness to action. It's about weaving a narrative that showcases your product and resonates on a personal level.

9 essential elements of a product launch presentation:

Introduction: Begin with an impactful opening that immediately captures interest. Use a compelling question, a relatable problem, or a striking statistic to draw your audience in and set the tone for what’s to come.

Problem statement: Articulate the specific problem or need your product addresses. This is where you connect with your audience by highlighting a universal challenge they face.

Solution presentation: Unveil your product as the solution to the problem identified. Detail its features and benefits, emphasizing how it offers a practical and innovative solution.

Market analysis: Provide an overview of the current market landscape. This includes trends, consumer behavior, and market needs, establishing the context in which your product enters the market.

Competitive analysis: Dive into how your product stands out from the competition. Discuss your product’s unique selling points (USPs) and how these differences position it as a superior choice.

Customer testimonials or case studies: Share success stories or endorsements from early users or beta testers. Real-world examples add credibility and illustrate the tangible impact of your product.

Pricing and packages: Provide clear, straightforward information about pricing and any packages or deals. Make it easy for your audience to understand what they're getting.

Marketing strategy: Before you call your audience to action, outline your marketing strategy. This shows how you plan to support the product post-launch, reassuring your audience of its longevity and value.

Call to Action (CTA): Conclude with a compelling CTA. Direct your audience towards a specific action, whether it’s making a purchase, signing up for a demo, or following your brand for more updates.

What does a successful product launch presentation look like?

A successful product launch presentation does more than just share information; it creates an experience. It's a dynamic and interactive journey that captivates your audience, making them feel like active participants rather than passive listeners.

Here's what sets these presentations apart:

Engaging storytelling: It starts with a story that resonates. This narrative weaves through the entire presentation, making the problem, solution, and benefits of your product felt on a personal level.

Visual impact: High-quality images, embedded videos, and data visualization components bring your product and its benefits to life. These elements work together to create a visual story that complements your spoken words.

Interactivity: Interactive elements like narrated design, surveys, and clickable demos involve the audience, transforming your presentation into a two-way conversation.

Strong Call to Action: The presentation ends with a clear and compelling call to action. Whether it's signing up for a trial, making a purchase, or simply learning more, the CTA is direct and easy for the audience to follow.

Here’s what a modern product launch presentation looks like:

Product launch presentation examples that beat the competition

When it comes to product launches, standing out is everything. A successful presentation goes beyond facts and figures; it captivates, convinces, and converts.

Let's dive into some product launch presentation examples that do just that, leveraging interactivity to outshine the competition.

Product launch proposal

This deck showcases how interactivity can elevate a product launch presentation from good to great, engaging the audience in a way that traditional slides simply can't match.

What makes this product launch presentation great:

Engaging and interactive: The presentation uses an interactive format, inviting the audience to actively participate in the journey of discovering the product.

Clear value proposition: It effectively communicates the unique selling points of the headphones, such as advanced noise cancellation and intuitive controls, making it clear why they set a new standard in audio excellence.

Compelling narrative: The presentation tells a story of innovation and passion, from the problem statement to the solution, and wraps up with a vision for the future, making it memorable and impactful.

Modern product launch

This product launch presentation introduces a groundbreaking solution designed to revolutionize how companies operate. It promises to streamline operations and boost efficiency through innovative features tailored for the digital era.

Interactive approach: Using an interactive platform, the presentation engages the audience directly, making the exploration of the product an immersive experience.

Clear solution to a common problem: It effectively communicates how the product addresses the pressing needs of businesses looking to enhance collaboration and automate processes in a rapidly evolving corporate landscape.

Visionary and inspirational message: The presentation focuses on the product's features but also shares a compelling vision for the future, emphasizing the transformative impact on businesses and the industry as a whole.

Light mode product launch

This approach to the product launch educates the audience about the product's capabilities and gets them excited about the potential for transformation in their own operations.

User-centric design: The presentation emphasizes the product's user-friendly interface, showcasing how it simplifies complex processes for everyday users, making technology accessible to all levels of technical expertise.

Direct address of business needs: The presentation zeroes in on the specific challenges faced by companies today, demonstrating how the product directly solves these issues with innovative technology.

Scalability and integration: It highlights the product's ability to scale with business growth and seamlessly integrate with existing systems, ensuring a smooth transition and long-term utility.

Dark mode product launch

This striking dark mode-themed presentation unveils a product designed to captivate and cater to modern businesses. This launch introduces a groundbreaking product with a keen eye on user experience and market demands.

Comprehensive market analysis: It dives deep into market trends, consumer behaviors, and competitive landscapes. It provides a detailed view of where the product fits within the current market and how it's poised to meet emerging needs.

Segmented marketing strategies: The content is organized into tabs, each detailing strategies tailored to different segments of their target audience. This ensures that potential customers receive personalized and relevant information.

Multiple smart CTAs: The presentation features various smart Call-to-Action (CTA) buttons, guiding viewers through a journey from initial interest to taking actionable steps.

Versatile product launch presentation

In a market flooded with standard pitches, this deck sets a new standard. By leveraging the latest in presentation technology, it crafts a narrative that's not only about a product but about inviting the audience into a new ecosystem of efficiency and innovation.

Use of grayed-out content: It uses grayed-out content to subtly direct viewers' attention to key areas. This visual technique ensures that the focus is on the most important information, enhancing the audience's retention.

Embeddable videos: It comes with the option to embed videos that can be played directly within the deck. This allows you to showcase your product in action, providing an immersive experience that text and static images cannot achieve.

Data visualization components: The deck incorporates advanced data visualization components, enabling the presentation of complex data in an intuitive and easily digestible format.

Light mode product newsletter

This feature launch within the light mode product newsletter is a game-changer for businesses looking to deepen engagement and track the effectiveness of their communications.

Personalization using dynamic variables: It introduces the ability to personalize using dynamic variables. This means businesses can now tailor their messages to each recipient, making communications more relevant and engaging.

Access to analytics panel: With the panel, businesses gain real-time insights into how readers are interacting with their newsletters. It tracks opens, clicks, and engagement time on each slide, providing valuable data to optimize future decks.

Clickable links: You can incorporate clickable links throughout the presentation. These links offer the audience the opportunity to explore additional information, access detailed resources, or even sign up for product demos.

SaaS product demonstration presentation

This product demonstration presentation effectively communicates the value of the company’s solution, making a strong case for why businesses should consider their platform to revolutionize their operations.

Clean design: The presentation leverages a clean design with ample white space, making it easy for viewers to focus on key information without feeling overwhelmed.

The option to embed videos: The option to embed a product demo video directly into the deck allows potential customers to see the product in action within the context of the presentation.

Clear pricing package overview: The presentation includes a clear overview of pricing packages, making it easy for potential customers to understand their options and make informed decisions.

Modern product demo presentation

By incorporating interactive features, this modern product demo presentation effectively captures the audience's attention and guides them through a compelling narrative, from identifying with the problem to seeing the offered product as the ideal solution.

Clear value proposition: The presentation effectively communicates the company’s value proposition, outlining how their SaaS product can transform business operations.

Problem-solution framework: The presentation is structured around a clear problem-solution framework, making it easy for the audience to understand the context and need for the offered product.

Option to embed multiple smart CTAs: The presentation enhances interactivity by incorporating the option to embed multiple smart CTAs (Calls to Action). This makes readers more likely to take the desired next step after viewing the deck.

Physical product demo presentation

This product launch presentation aims to bridge the gap between traditional business processes and modern efficiency, highlighting a physical product's role in streamlining workflows and enhancing productivity.

Option to extract branding from a website: One of the standout features is the ability to extract branding elements directly from a website, ensuring that the presentation is consistent with the company's branding.

Access to analytics panel: The presentation includes access to an analytics panel that provides insights into how viewers are interacting with the deck.

Option to edit details post-send: This presentation allows for the editing of details even after it has been sent. This ensures that the information remains up-to-date, reflecting any changes in the product, pricing, or other critical details.

ERP software demo presentation

This product launch presentation is designed to showcase how the offered solution can revolutionize business operations by integrating various processes into a single, efficient system.

It aims to demonstrate the software's ability to streamline workflows, enhance collaboration, and significantly improve operational efficiency across the board.

Quirky design: The presentation employs a quirky and engaging design that mirrors the dynamic and multifaceted nature of the ERP industry.

Use of grayed-out content to direct attention: Strategic use of grayed-out content effectively directs viewers' attention to the most critical information, ensuring that key features and benefits of the ERP software are highlighted.

Logo placeholders: The presentation includes customizable logo placeholders, empowered by a logo finder feature, allowing for seamless integration of your or partner branding directly into the presentation.

Software demo presentation

Through a detailed walkthrough of the software's capabilities, this presentation aims to illustrate the seamless integration of tasks, the automation of workflows, and the facilitation of real-time collaboration, all designed to optimize performance and eliminate inefficiency.

Option to embed links to case studies: This feature allows viewers to explore in-depth examples of how your software has been successfully implemented in various businesses, providing tangible evidence of its effectiveness and versatility.

CRM integrations: The presentation leverages CRM integrations, enabling it to pull live data directly into the deck.

Responsive design: The presentation is designed with responsiveness in mind, ensuring that it looks and functions flawlessly across a variety of devices and screen sizes.

How to make a product launch presentation?

In a world where the majority of new products struggle to make an impact, your presentation is the golden ticket to standing out. Let's explore how to craft a product launch presentation that not only showcases your product but also makes it irresistible.

1) Know your audience

Understanding your audience is the cornerstone of a successful presentation. Dive deep into their world—what challenges do your ideal customers face? What solutions have they tried and found wanting?

Personalizing your presentation to address these specific concerns makes your audience feel seen and valued, significantly boosting the relevance and impact of your message.

2) Define your presentation goals

Clarity in your presentation's purpose is crucial. Are you aiming to ignite interest, drive pre-orders, or secure investment?

This goal will dictate your presentation's structure, content, and call to action. It acts as a guiding light, ensuring every element of your presentation is aligned with achieving this objective.

3) Start with a bang

Your first words are your first impression. Start with something that sticks—a startling statistic, a compelling story, a question that piques curiosity, or a bold statement that challenges conventional wisdom.

For example, "In a world where every second counts, we've found a way to give you hours back." piques curiosity and positions your product as a revolutionary solution from the outset.

4) Highlight the problem

David Ogilvy's insight, “More often new products fail because they are not new enough,” underscores the importance of highlighting a genuine problem.

Make your audience feel the pinch of the issue your product resolves, making your solution not just wanted, but needed.

Illuminate the problem your product solves in a way that your audience can feel the pain. This creates a context for your product's introduction and underscores its necessity. Remember, the more relatable the problem, the more desirable the solution.

It's about striking a balance—your product shouldn't be so ahead of its time that it's alien, nor should it be so familiar that it fails to excite.

Here's a great example of a problem slide:

5) Unveil the solution

When introducing your product, clarity and simplicity are key. Explain how it addresses the problem you've outlined, focusing on features that translate directly into benefits.

This is where your product moves from being a concept to a tangible solution in the minds of your audience.

6) Highlight the benefits

Features tell, but benefits sell. Articulate how your product enriches or simplifies life for your customer. Whether it's saving time, reducing costs, or enhancing well-being, benefits that resonate on an emotional level are incredibly compelling.

Here's a great example of solution and benefits slides:

7) Conduct solid research

Akio Morita once famously said, “We don’t believe in market research for a new product unknown to the public. So we never do any.”

While this may have worked for Sony, today's market demands solid research. Understanding your market, competition, and consumer behavior is non-negotiable for crafting a presentation that hits home.

Here's a great market research slide:

8) Incorporate interactive elements

Enhancing your presentation with interactive elements can transform a standard pitch into an engaging, memorable experience.

For instance, embedding interactive charts allows your audience to explore data points relevant to your product's success in real-time.

Interactive timelines can illustrate your product's development journey or future roadmap in a visually dynamic way, inviting the audience to engage with your content at their own pace.

Additionally, incorporating clickable sections within your presentation can lead viewers to more detailed information, videos, or testimonials, enriching their understanding and appreciation of your product without overwhelming them with information all at once.

These interactive elements keep your audience engaged and provide a deeper, more personalized exploration of what your product has to offer.

Here's a great example of an interactive deck:

9) Demonstrate your product in action

A live demo or a well-crafted video demonstration can be incredibly persuasive. It offers proof of concept and allows your audience to see your product in action. This tangible experience can be the push your audience needs to move from interest to action.

10) Personalize your presentation

Personalization can significantly increase the impact of your presentation.

Tailoring content to reflect your audience's specific industry, interests, or challenges shows that you understand and care about their unique needs, making your product more relevant and appealing.

Here's how you can easily personalize your presentation:

11) Provide social proof

Incorporating social proof lends credibility to your product. It's the difference between taking your word for it and seeing evidence of your product's impact. This builds trust and can significantly influence decision-making.

For new products, traditional forms of social proof like user testimonials may not be readily available. However, you can leverage beta tester feedback, expert endorsements, or pilot study results as powerful forms of social proof.

Engaging with industry influencers to review your product or securing a seal of approval from a reputable authority within your field can also serve as compelling evidence of your product's value and effectiveness.

Even highlighting the number of pre-orders or waitlist signups can act as social proof, showcasing demand and anticipation for your product.

12) Present your marketing strategy

When it comes to your product launch presentation, unveiling your marketing strategy is like showing the roadmap of how you plan to introduce your product to the world.

It's not just about the product itself but how you're going to make sure it reaches the right people, in the right way, at the right time.

This part of your presentation should clearly outline the channels you'll use, whether it's social media, email marketing, influencer partnerships, or traditional advertising.

Explain how each channel fits into your overall strategy and the role it plays in engaging your target audience. This is your chance to show that you've not only created a great product but that you also have a solid plan to ensure it's a success.

13) Create a compelling call to action

Your conclusion should be a clear, compelling invitation to take the next step—whether that's to learn more, sign up, or make a purchase. Make this action as simple and straightforward as possible, removing any barriers to engagement.

Here's a great example of a CTA slide:

Interactive product launch presentation templates

Starting from scratch on a product launch presentation can feel like a huge task, especially when so much depends on this one moment.

Your product represents a lot of hard work, dreams, and dedication. Now, you’ve got to share its story in a way that communicates your product's value and captivates your audience.

Interactive product launch presentation templates offer a structured starting point.

They come packed with professional designs and interactive features that are optimized to engage and guide your audience through the story of your product in a meaningful way.

Grab one and create your best deck yet.

Hi, I'm Dominika, Content Specialist at Storydoc. As a creative professional with experience in fashion, I'm here to show you how to amplify your brand message through the power of storytelling and eye-catching visuals.

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The single most effective thing you can to to make your presentation a good one is practice it once beforehand , preferably to a friend, roommate, or teammate who will listen, take notes and offer suggestions afterwards, and time how long you talk (so you know how much to leave out). 

(If you are presenting at a conference, see also Jennifer Widom's tips .) 

Good things — strive for these:

• Not too much material for the time available
• Clear speech (loud enough, not rushed, clear enunciation)
• Voice interest (not monotone, showing your interest and enthusiasm)
• Eye contact (looking mostly at audience)
• Supporting gestures (appropriate for what you are saying)
• Slides that give the most important points of your talk, in phrases (not complete sentences) and any crucial diagrams or figures
• Good organization of material, shown in slides and talk
• Good knowledge of material, shown in the way you present it

Suggestions

There is always the temptation to try and present more material than there is time for.  Rehearse your presentation and time it; leave out material until you can present all of your presentation at a comfortable pace in the time available. 

Don't rush.  If you feel you are running behind, don't try to talk faster; instead, leave things out.  Speak to the people in the last row. 

Avoid speaking in a monotone.  Be interested in what you are saying (which means:  come up with interesting things to say, things that are interesting to you ).

Look at individuals if you wish (but not the same person or people all the time).  Or look between people (less distracting to you, everyone in that area thinks you're looking at them).  Or (especially if you are nervous) look just above the last row of people (then everyone thinks you're looking at the people behind them). 

Be natural (if possible), then you will make the right gestures without thinking about it.  If you are too nervous to make natural gestures, then you can gesture toward the screen when you are talking about something that is on the screen, move your hands a bit when you are saying something important, and otherwise keep them behind your back. 

Your slides should support what you are saying, rather than duplicate or replace it.  Make an outline of what you want to say, and put the outline on your slides.  Leave off anything that isn't important and interesting.  Keep whatever you say on your slides short.  Most people cover a slide every 2 to 3 minutes, so (for example) a 15-minute presentation should probably have around 5 to 8 slides. 

• Put similar things together, and summarize them. 
• Emphasize the important things, and leave out the unimportant things. 
• Talk about basic things first, then later talk about the things that depend on them. 
• Begin your talk with a summary of what you are going to say, and an outline of your talk (make an outline slide).
• End your talk with a summary of what you have said ("tell them what you are going to say, say it, and tell them what you said"). 

Practice your talk ahead of time.  Run through it at least once in front of someone (your teammates, roommate, friend, someone).

Bad things — avoid these!

• Reading your slides
• Looking only at the laptop
• Looking only at the projection screen (better than at laptop, though)
• Slides that have complete paragraphs on them
• Slides with too many words on them
• Too many slides (most people need at least 2 minutes per slide)
• Talking too fast
• Appearing nervous
• Monotone voice
• Talking too long (audience gets antsy and then annoyed when presentations run over the allotted time)

View from Washington, DC

Sun will be 87 % obscured

See what the solar eclipse will look like in your city

April 8 may be your best chance to see a total solar eclipse for two decades.

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If you could look down on Earth from space during April’s total solar eclipse, you would see the moon cast its shadow on the planet, creating a dark blob that will dart across the land from Mexico into Texas and up toward Maine and Canada.

And if you are lucky enough to be looking up from Earth in the moon’s shadow, you’ll see the sky fall dark, it will get colder and quieter, and for a special three to four minutes, you’ll be able to view the sun’s glowing white corona.

For many people in North America, April 8 is likely to be the best opportunity in their lifetime to experience a total solar eclipse. Most in the contiguous United States, however, will only experience a partial eclipse.

Whether you see a total or partial eclipse all depends on where you are to view the phenomenon.

An estimated 31.5 million people live within the roughly 115-mile wide path of totality that stretches from Mazatlán, Mexico, to Newfoundland, Canada. Inside the path, as the sun, moon and Earth become perfectly aligned, the moon blocks the sun and casts its shadow on Earth. The farther away you are from the center of this path, the less the moon will obscure the sun. People within the contiguous United States who are outside the path will see a partial eclipse.

“During a total eclipse, you’re plunged into the moon’s shadow. You’re in this eerie twilight. You can see bright stars and planets in the sky. And of course, the biggest attraction is you see the sun’s solar corona. You don’t see any of those things in the partial eclipse, even at 99 percent,” said Fred Espenak, a retired NASA astrophysicist who has experienced 30 total solar eclipses. “It’s the difference between night and day.”

The difference is so enormous, even veteran eclipse viewers often don’t have words that do justice to totality.

“You think you know what you’re going to experience, but you have no idea,” said Kate Russo, an author, psychologist and eclipse chaser who will be seeing her 14th total solar eclipse in April. “I always say it’s like the ineffable,” she added. “Sometimes things happen to us that we just have no words to describe.”

View of a total eclipse

Eagle Pass, TX • Sun will be 100% obscured

View of a partial eclipse

Washington, D.C. • Sun will be 87% obscured

Inside the path, as the moon creeps closer to fully blocking the sun, the temperature drops and the light and wind change. Insects and animals may fall silent. Some birds might return to home to roost. And even though you’re expecting it, Russo said, it’s still so surprising.

“You notice the darkening that’s coming toward you, and that’s really eerie and it puts the hair on the back of your neck,” she said. “It really is quite exciting and thrilling, and you just can’t believe that it’s going to happen.”

The fleeting moments of totality will last anywhere from a few seconds to over four minutes, depending where you are inside the path. Mexico and 12 U.S. states have cities that will get duration times longer than four minutes. The longest totality will be in Torreón, Mexico, and will last 4 minutes and 28 seconds . Compared with other eclipses that typically only last a couple of minutes, that’s quite a long time. In 2017, the longest duration was near Carbondale, Ill., where the eclipse lasted for 2 minutes and 42 seconds.

Percentage of the sun

blocked by the moon

Indianapolis

Little Rock

San Antonio

Mexico City

Max coverage percent

Source: NASA

Percentage of the sun blocked by the moon

Max coverage

Los Angeles

For one of her books , Russo interviewed first-time eclipse viewers asking how totality made them feel. Their responses aligned with her own experiences: Within totality, the awe, connection and euphoria that people experience leaves them feeling both insignificant and a part of something greater than themselves, Russo said.

“We’re only on this Earth for just a split second of time. And I think these moments actually highlight that for you,” she said. “It puts all our other concerns or problems just into perspective.”

Within totality, there’s a lot to see when you remove your safety glasses. April’s eclipse will coincide with heightened solar activity. As the moon blocks the bright face of the sun, it reveals the sun’s outer atmosphere, called the corona, and can show plumes of gas, referred to as streamers, escaping into space. These look like bright streaks or feathery rays flowing around the edge of the sun. Prominences, or magnetic loops that glow bright pink or red around the inner atmosphere, will also probably be more visible. Venus and Jupiter can also be seen on either side of the sun.

Outside of totality, the partial eclipse — even a view with 99 percent of the sun obscured — must be viewed safely with a simple viewer or safety glasses . According to Espenak, once you’re out of the path of totality, there’s not a big difference in what you’ll see. “It’s just a thinner slice of the sun that’s visible. It’s only when you make that transformation from the partial eclipse to a total eclipse that you get this dramatic change.”

Patrick Poitevin, an eclipse chaser and astronomer from Derbyshire, England, has experienced 24 total eclipses. Poitevin, who said he’s always looking for a “different” or “extreme” view, will travel to Mazatlán in April. He added that there’s lots to see along the edge or just inside or outside the path of totality using a telescope with a hydrogen-alpha filter. “What a show!” he wrote of an eclipse last year in Kosrae, Micronesia, in which he saw from a mile outside of the path a nearly 360-degree view of the chromosphere, a colored layer of the sun’s atmosphere, just above the solar surface. “Mesmerising,” he added.

Eclipses over the next 50 years

This year’s eclipse

While total solar eclipses happen about every 18 months , they are often in remote parts of the world, including the middle of the ocean. By contrast, this eclipse will pass through several densely populated cities. “It’s not that common that you get a total eclipse going through your home country,” Espenak said. “We had the 2017 eclipse, and before that it was 1979. So that was a 38-year gap.”

The next total solar eclipse visible across the contiguous United States won’t be until 2045 and will travel from California through Florida. After that, a 2078 eclipse will pass through nine Southern states.

“If you can’t travel [to totality], still go out and enjoy the partial eclipse,” Russo advises. To view the eclipse in April, she will be heading to Uvalde County, Tex., where she has held workshops and helped local officials with planning. “This is your chance,” she said, “an easy chance to get into the path.”

Espenak, whose work at NASA included eclipse predictions, met his wife, Patricia, during a 1995 eclipse in India. For 25 years, Patricia had struck out on seeing totality — her view was either partial or cloudy. It was only in India where she finally saw totality. The two will be traveling from Arizona to Mazatlán to view April’s eclipse, and Fred will be speaking.

“ I’m excited at every single one. Over a lifetime of seeing these things, I get goose bumps, and there’s that thrill of seeing it every single time,” Espenak said. “No matter how many photographs or videos you look at, it’s nothing like the real McCoy.”

About this story

We created the eclipse animations by interpolating the moon’s path, calculating its trajectory based on the initial, midpoint and final positions during the eclipse.

Eclipse animation data was sourced from the Five Millennium Canon of Solar Eclipses Database by Xavier M. Jubier, which is based on NASA’s eclipse predictions by Fred Espenak. The algorithms used were drawn from “Elements of Solar Eclipses 1951-2200” and “Astronomical Algorithms.” Eclipse track data was obtained from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.

Eclipse city view animation speeds are not reflective of actual eclipse durations. Half of the city of San Antonio, Texas falls within totality and half falls outside of totality. So depending on where you are inside the city, the sun may not be 100% obscured as it is depicted in the animation.

Kevin Schaul and Denise Lu contributed to this report. Editing by Emily M. Eng and Victoria Jaggard. Copy editing by Vanessa Larson.

Tasmania votes: Here's what you need to know for the 2024 state election

Tasmanians have cast their vote today to decide which, if any, major political party can form government.

A record number of people voted early — more than 26 per cent of about 400,000 enrolled voters for this election.

Polls closed at 6pm and the counting has started.

Opinion polls before election day had suggested neither the Liberals nor Labor would secure enough support to form majority government in the expanded 35-seat lower house.

The Tasmanian Electoral Commission said a final count may not be known until April 8.

Six quick questions

• When will we have a result?

How many people have already voted?

• How many candidates are there?
• Where do I vote?

Does the way I vote have to change with more seats?

• Does the count pause on Sunday?

Voters turn out in Braddon

At the polling booth at Devonport's Reece High School in the electorate of Braddon, voters trickled steadily through the doors on Saturday morning.

For local voter Steven Turley, Tasmania's housing crisis is personal.

"Our family has battled for the past 10 years. We've been homeless three times," he says.

"We've felt the full force of that crisis."

Mr Turley and his family have a home now, but he will be voting with housing as well as health and education at the top of his mind.

Outside the polling booth, he wasn't sure how he would vote, but he hoped for a majority government so it could tackle the big issues.

Locals Layken and Paige Farrugia are voting with their young kids in mind.

Health and education are big topics for them.

"The major parties are prioritising the stadium over healthcare understaffing at hospitals," Mr Farrugia said.

"Imagine what that money could do for the health system."

Ms Farrugia hopes something will change after the election.

"We vote for the same people all the time and nothing's changing," she says.

Party leaders cast their votes

After five and a half weeks of campaigning, Tasmanian political candidates have reached the finish line. 

The majority of more than 400,000 enrolled Tasmanians will cast their votes today, deciding which, if any, major political party can form majority government.

Liberal leader Jeremy Rockliff was out at Sassafras with his mum this morning to celebrate her birthday before dropping in to a polling booth in his Braddon electorate.

"We're still working hard to achieve that majority," Mr Rockliff said.

"I know our candidates will be working around their electorates respectfully, today on polling day as well, to see if we could achieve that majority.

"I'm proud, particularly of our candidates. [They're a] great bunch of people from all walks of life."

Labor's Rebecca White was the first of the major party leaders to cast a vote, heading to Sorell's Memorial Hall in her electorate of Lyons at 9am.

Ms White said she was proud of the campaign the party had run and she felt there was a "mood for change" on the ground.

"[The Liberals] have been, I think, caught on the hop a little bit. And that's ironic, even though they called the election early," she said.

"I do honestly believe that Labor has set this agenda this election campaign. I'm proud of our campaign. I'm proud of our candidates.

"I think our policies really will help to deliver a good government for Tasmania, if we are elected."

The Labor leader will be hoping it is third time lucky when the voting booths close, after losing at the 2018 and 2021 state elections.

At Warrane Public School on Hobart's eastern shore, Greens leader Rosalie Woodruff said there was a mood for change which she was confident would be reflected in the polls and put the Greens in the balance of power.

"So many Tasmanians have put their voices behind the issues that the Greens have been campaigning for," she said.

"We've really put the issues on the agenda for the campaign. If it wasn't for the Greens we wouldn't have been talking about free public transport, renters' rights, short-stay regulations and real fixes for the health system."

Ms Woodruff said what she had been hearing was that people want a different way of doing things and they wanted people who would fight for them.

"They want respectful politics," she said. "They want action. They want people who are prepared to sit down and collaborate. They want solutions."

Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie joined fellow Jacqui Lambie Network party members at a Devonport polling booth, where she was questioned on her party's decision to not announce lead candidates.

"We don't have lead candidates because we only have three in each electorate running. I'm not sure what a lead candidate is," she said.

"It's really unfair to put a lead candidate out and concentrate on them and ask others to run. You've got to give everybody a fair chance."

Fancy a Jacqui 'Lamb'ington with that?

Voters in the Hobart suburb of Mt Nelson have been able to to munch on a politically themed bickie while mulling over their vote and queuing outside the Mt Nelson Primary School hall ahead of putting pencil to paper.

From the Sue Hickey Sticky Toffee Cake to the "Madeleine" Ogilvie, few sitting politicians and candidates from across Tasmania's political sphere have escaped the school's sugary treatment. 

Amanda Avens, a parent at the school and chief fundraiser, said the school was well known for its tongue-in-cheek cake stall.

"We've had some great things like the Jacqui lamingtons and the Simon Behra'Kiss' biscuits," Ms Avens said.

"We just keep that tradition going and we'll try to be creative with all the new pollies that come through to add to that list."

Final remarks as voters head to the ballot box

Liberal leader Jeremy Rockliff, who called the election more than a year earlier than scheduled due to governing in minority, is attempting to be elected as premier in his own right for the first time.

He urged voters to elect a majority Liberal government for the fourth straight time.

"We have done a lot. There's more to do. There's a lot at risk," he said.

Labor Leader Rebecca White is hoping it's third time lucky after losing at the 2018 and 2021 elections.

In a letter to members on Friday, she said voters had a clear choice.

"Between a tired, decade-old Liberal government that is focused on the wrong priorities. Or a Labor government that is ready to take urgent action to ease the cost of living, repair the health system and get more people into affordable housing."

As voters head to the polls, the ABC took a look at what people need to know.

Let's start with the big one. When will we have a result?

It'll take some time to know exactly what Tasmania's next parliament will look like.

ABC chief election analyst Antony Green said we'll have a pretty good idea about whether the Liberals or Labor can govern in majority on election night, but there will likely be a handful of contests where the winner is unclear.

According to Electoral Commissioner Andrew Hawkey, it could take more than two weeks until the final result is formally declared.

With Tasmania's lower house — the House of Assembly — expanding to 35 seats, there's more MPs who will be elected, and more candidates contesting the available spots. And with an Easter break in the middle of the process, less time to count.

"Due to the increased number of candidates and the need to elect seven rather than five candidates, it is expected that this will add at least one day to the Hare-Clark process," Mr Hawkey said. 

"Therefore, final outcomes and results may not be known until the week commencing Monday April 8."

As of Friday morning, 66,352 people had cast their votes at the 14 early voting centres around the state.

It's expected that will end up totalling close to 80,000, smashing the previous pre-poll record of 69,664 at the 2021 election.

Mr Hawkey said about 20,000 of the 29,000 postal voting forms sent out had already been returned, and more than 2,000 interstate and overseas voters had cast their ballots for the first time over the phone. 

All up, it means more than a quarter of enrolled Tasmanians have already voted in advance of polling day.

How many candidates are contesting the election?

There are 167 candidates, a Tasmanian record. The largest number are in Lyons, with 36 candidates. There are 35 in Clark, 33 in Braddon, 32 in Bass and 31 in Franklin.

I didn't vote early. Where do I go today?

There are 255 polling places around the state. No matter where you are in Tasmania, you can make your voice heard, and maybe have a democracy sausage while you're at it.

There's a list of polling places in the three daily newspapers, and you can also find it here .  

It sure does. Instead of numbering at least five boxes for your vote to count, you now have to do at least seven. And Mr Hawkey recommends doing more than that, to ensure that your vote counts.

There's nothing stopping you numbering every box, to get that satisfying feeling of putting your least-liked candidate last.

Just remember to give your favourite candidate a number one, and to fill out at least seven boxes.

Does the vote counting pause on Sunday?

Normally, yes. This time it might continue, depending on how much progress is made on election night.

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