How is it that some celebrate promotions while others keep working hard without even receiving any credits? Well, here is where a presentation plays a vital role. Despite having an overall strength, if you fail to present your thoughts effectively, it might lead to a downfall. 

Presentations are not necessarily used in corporate sectors alone. You can use it in your schools, colleges, proposing a venture idea, delivering a lecture, etc. Though creating an effective presentation might be an Achilles Heel to some, not anymore. Here we have provided you with some presentation template to help you take the necessary guidelines while customizing one. Some practical tips can also help you have the upper hand over your competitors and inspire your target audience beyond words. 

So before starting with creating your presentation, let us quickly understand what a presentation is, its various structures, importance, and a lot more.

What Is a Presentation? 

A presentation helps you effectively convey your message to a group or target audience. A PowerPoint presentation also includes graphics to support your speech and hook your audience's interest and attention. 

A presentation often contains a persuasive element to impact the audience. For example, it can address a team, employees, clients, students, social gatherings, etc.

Some common presentation structures include:

  • Demonstration method
  • Storytelling method
  • Problem-solution method
  • Remaining method

A beautifully written presentation:

  • Helps communicate the institute's or organization's mission and vision 
  • Assists in striking deals and gaining clients
  • Transmits the message clearly
  • Increases the message effectiveness 
  • Allows for real-time feedback
  • Reflects professionalism (in the corporate sector)

What Are the Vital Elements of a Presentation

The critical elements of a presentation include:

  • Context
  • Message
  • Method
  • Impediments 
  • Presenter
  • Audience 
  • Reaction/feedback 

Critical Inclusions of a Powerful Presentation

For writing an effective and powerful presentation, always remember to include:

  • Title slide or a logo animation
  • Presentation goals 
  • A genuine problem 
  • A solution to the stated problem
  • Timeline animation slides for analysis 
  • Interaction 
  • Multilingual texts for a diverse audience 
  • Animated infographics 
  • Factoid animations 
  • End slide or key takeaways 

Impact of a Wonderful Presentation Skill

For once, every person must give a presentation in their life, be it a student, a volunteer, a teacher, or a working professional. Presentation skills can impact you in numerous ways. Some of them are listed below:

  1. Builds confidence
  2. Aids in individual success 
  3. Assists in business success
  4. Helps reduce stress
  5. Helps in time management 
  6. Builds scope for leadership
  7. Helps build a public image and opinion
  8. Assists in grabbing the audience's attention
  9. Creates innovative ideas

Presentation Template: Designs and Formats

If you are someone new to the corporate sector or clueless about how you can make your presentation interesting, you can take the help of the readily available presentation template. These preloaded templates save you enough time and give you additional ideas to use fonts, style, and colors in a pre-organized manner.

You can edit these templates with your details or create a new one by merging them for customized specifications. Fortunately, these are only a click away as they are readily available online. 

Some of the popular websites that can help you with a presentation template include:

  • Canva
  • Miro
  • University relations 
  • Adobe 
  • Pitch
  • Creative market 
  • Beautiful.ai 
  • Graphic river 
  • Visme
  • Dribble 
  • Slides go
  • Elements Envato
  • Slide model 
  • Venngage
  • Slides carnival 
  • Pikto chart 
  • Templates office 

Generally, the presentation template is in PDF format. You must have PDF software in hand to access these PDF documents on your device. For example, you can use SwifDoo PDF Reader to open, read and edit your templates once you download and print them.

SwifDoo PDF software assists you in cropping, merging, and compressing your PDF files, retaining their fonts, formats, and original quality. This software also enables you to sign your essential PDF documents electronically.

How To Create an Impressive Presentation: Designing Tips and Guide

You can either take help from the presentation template or choose to customize one according to your needs and preferences if you have ample time. Here is a quick structure that you can follow to design your presentation seamlessly. 

1. Research well on your topic:

Before writing your presentation, you must be thorough with the idea to be communicated. It would always be great if you did prior research on the topic well to gain a deeper insight into the message you will be presenting. 

2. Collect all the necessary material:

You must collect and compile all the necessary information to structure it in the form of valuable data. Your information area must encircle three main questions- what, why, and how.

  • What: Your key message.
  • Why: For the audience to think about your 'what.'
  • How: Offer suggestions to clear any confusion or query.

3. Frame an outline of your presentation:

Frame an outline of your presentation to include the introduction, body content, and conclusion. You can choose to add some storytelling concepts. 

4. Write a title name:

Start your slide by introducing the audience to the title of your presentation. 

5. Play with the number three:

As easy as it may sound, the number three significantly impacts human minds. Usually, people have greater chances of remembering three points than four points. You must divide the structuring of your message into three elements. These can include:

  • Three ideas
  • Three points
  • Three numbers

You must further subdivide these points into three points for a clear understanding. 

6. Write a catchy introduction: 

You must write a catchy introduction to have a firm grip on the attention and interest of your audience. Step in your audience's shoes and think from the perspective of your target audience.

7. Include the problem or the primary body language:

Be selective with the set of words on your proposed idea. The language of the content highly depends on your target audience. For example, a more formal language is used with data and graphs for the corporate sector, while you can use fun animations and fancy fonts for an informal presentation.

8. Keep an eye on the number of slides:

As a rule of thumb, your presentation must no longer be ten slides. That will include a conclusion slide. So frame your content accordingly to fit your message in the most conveying manner.

9. Add a conclusion slide:

Before ending your presentation, you must have a formal conclusion with an end slide to prepare the audience with their critical questions beforehand.

10. Edit your slides:

Once your presentation is complete, remember to think from the perspective of your target audience and edit it wisely not to leave any loopholes. You can consider the following points to focus on:

  • Language of your content
  • Structuring of your sentences
  • Structuring of your slides
  • Additional 'hooks' to grab your audience's attention
  • Use stories and metaphors for a natural connection 
  • Cross-check for any spelling or grammatical errors

11. Thank the audience and invite questions:

Lastly, thank your audience for their valuable time and invite feedback and questions to clarify their doubts and queries. 

Essential Tips to Follow While Making and Delivering an Effective Presentation

Creating an effective presentation shall no more be a worry as we have already listed you with the templates. But it can always be considerate of how you are making one. Of course, anyone can make a presentation, but only those few move forward who have an everlasting impression on their audience and clients. 

1. Making a Presentation:

  • Build an easy-to-follow structure
  • Don't keep more than ten slides in total
  • Follow a 10-20-30 rule:
  • Maximum slides: ten
  • Presentation time: 20 minutes
  • The font size of a minimum 30 pt
  • Write only bite-size information on each slide (maximum six words per slide)
  • Use your design details effectively- fonts, formats, and colors
  • Remember to polish your presentation several times before the delivery

2. Delivering a Presentation:

  • Make eye contact with your audience with a pleasant smile
  • Maintain an audible tone and pace
  • Have a strong introduction
  • Connect naturally with your audience 
  • Customize your presentation according to your audience 
  • You can ask questions to engage the audience
  • Be genuine by using humor and being messy
  • Face the audience by using a remote/clicker for your presentation 
  • Have a backup material 
  • Time management is the game to not overdo with any slide
  • Leave an emotional impression on your audience 
  • Deliver the key takeaways with a pause
  • Always build an audience value for an everlasting impression

Additional Tips to Make an Effective Presentation 

Some generic tips to consider to make your presentation effective include:

  • Always keep your presentation simple
  • Feature the core ideas in your slide
  • Don't clutter all the ideas on one slide
  • Don't read your slides 
  • Use simple sentences
  • Use eye-catching graphics and visuals
  • Consider your audience and their emotions while writing your presentation 
  • Remember to not use slides as notes 
  • Use the power of repetition to clear the concept
  • Be as natural as possible
  • Respect audiences time

A Quick Wrap Up

An effective presentation speaks a thousand words, probably only if you portray it well. Presentation is an example of how less is more and how you can write that 'less' meaningfully with utmost perfection. 

With the help of a presentation template, you can always have multiple ideas at your end to make a creative presentation. Such templates act as a quick rescue, especially if you are in a corporate sector and your boss schedules an urgent meeting in a few minutes. Instead of panicking, simply download and edit a template, top it with confidence, and there you are to inform and inspire your audience through your message.

We have also listed some additional tips you can follow while creating your presentation. These tips often come in handy to give you an upper edge and draft your presentation style to hook, entertain, and activate your audience.

So what are you waiting for? Hurry up. Create a compelling presentation now to impress your boss and score brownie points. You never know if you might be in for a promotion.

Monica

Columnist