An essential part of most presentations and a useful way to add a striking visual element to a lecture or pitch, PowerPoint is one of the most useful tools public speakers have at their disposal.
To ensure that all of your future presentations are pitch perfect, follow these handy tips and create unbeatable PowerPoint shows every time.
Keep text to a minimum
Your PowerPoint slides will be on display throughout your presentation. If you use long paragraphs and lots of text, your audience will end up reading when they should be listening to what you’re saying.
What’s more, if your pitch is taking place in a large room, the people at the back may not be able to see the text, causing them to miss crucial information and feel left out of the event.
Use slides to emphasise your points
The slides are there to emphasise your points, not deliver the information for you.
Place key pieces of data or text clearly on the slide, making it easy for everyone to read and take in while you continue to elaborate and explain your point.
Make slides simple and powerful
A bold, simple graphic, graph or piece of text can be a lot more powerful than an overcrowded slide stuffed full of information.
Try to keep all of your slides simple and powerful, ensuring that each page of your PowerPoint has a clearly visible message and is a necessary part of your overall presentation.
Add a bit of colour
There’s nothing like a bit of colour to brighten up a PowerPoint presentation, so why not add a few bold tones to your slides.
Rather than simply splashing your pages with colour, try choosing a tonal theme and use a range of related shades to add a professional look to your presentation.
Use high quality graphics
The better the quality of your graphics, the more professional your presentation will look.
If you don’t have access to high quality images or illustrations, it may be better to replace your graphics with graphs or other visual elements as poor quality images will make your PowerPoint look amateurish.
Create a unified design
Using the same font, text size, colours and the same types of images throughout your presentation is incredibly important as it helps to create a unified design.
If you don’t put a bit of effort into bringing your slides together, it could make your presentation appear disorganised and chaotic.
Practice
As with any presentation, one of the keys to producing a successful PowerPoint is practice.
Make sure you’re familiar with the software and the equipment that you need to run it and ensure that you know exactly what order your slides will be displayed in. Our conference halls all have AV equipment available including data projectors and flat screen TV's to help you deliver your presentation.
By putting some time, effort and thought into your next PowerPoint, you can ensure that your lecture, presentation or sermon is a success and that you give your subject the chance to shine.
