How to Make Effective And Productive Presentations

To this day and age, very many people still struggle to create mind blowing presentations or presentations that wow! However, in today’s world, effective communication is very paramount. Be it at the workplace or school, presentations have become a common way of conveying information. So, to truly captivate an audience and leave a lasting impression, one must strive to create presentations that WOW!

Don’t Stew! I am here to help — Here are a few tips for your fingers on how to WOW your audience when making a presentation;

Set Clear Objectives

Before you even start, it is very important to have a clear objective for your presentation. What message do you want to convey? What do you want your audience to take away from your presentation? What message do you want to sell?By defining these goals, you can structure your content accordingly and ensure that every slide contributes to the overall message making it easy to move with your audience all through the presentation.

1 Idea, 1 Slide

You want to keep your audience captivated therefore there is no use cluttering too much information into one slide. Put each idea on its own slide, less cluttered, beautifully managed, and you will have your audience glued.

Here is a sample I recently prepared for a social media teaching/mentoring opportunity.

Visuals

It’s important to be visual and avoid so much text in your presentation — after all, you know what you are talking about and they don’t. Therefore, utilize eye-catching graphics, relevant images, and well-designed templates to engage your audience visually. Avoid cluttering slides with excessive text; instead, use bullet points or concise phrases that highlight key ideas which you intend to burst with.

Incorporating other elements like videos or audio clips can also enhance the overall impact of your presentation. These elements help break the monotony and keep the audience engaged throughout your presentation as they tend to keep the audience much more engaged.

It’s also important to use a maximum of two (2) fonts in your presentation. Consistency is key, and you want to make sure your slides look close-knitted and like they belong together.

Choose a tool

In this growing tech-world, there are a number of tools both online and offline that you can use to make killer presentations — Although most of these tools might not be free, many have a free version and also some very good templates that you could employ in your presentation.

I personally use Canva but you can also try;

• Visme
• Slidebean
• Prezi, among others.

Practice Public Speaking

Very many young people these days don’t have the art of public speaking, however, effective delivery is the last nail in the coffin when it comes to creating a presentation that leaves a WOW effect on your audience. Practice speaking confidently and clearly while maintaining eye contact with your audience. Use gestures and body language to emphasize important points and maintain a dynamic presence on stage, this will keep your audience glued to you.

Don’t Use African Time

There’s that old adage about time and Africans. Please divert from it and be mindful of time management during your presentation. Respect your audience’s time by keeping it concise yet informative and fun. People lately don’t want to waste their time in one place as they have other things to tend to.

Creating presentations that wow requires careful planning and execution. When or if the above tips are followed to the bone, one can create presentations that leave a lasting impact on their audience.

Happy Presenting!!!

Ps. Shared templates are some pieces of work I designed for a mentorship opportunity.