Presentations are extremely popular because they’re an effective way to get your message across to a big audience. It is everyone’s aspiration to produce the perfect presentation. Your goal is to execute it perfectly, while also keeping your audience engaged.
This might seem like there are too many variables, but there’s a secret. With enough hard work and research, you’ll definitely be able to reliably achieve that. Additionally, we’ll give you some successful presentation ideas to boost your skills.
In this article, we’ll identify the factors that create great presentation ideas. We’ll be analyzing what makes a presentation good in order to help you bring your presentation ideas to life.
And if you’re out of ideas, we’ll help you kickstart your brainstorming with some inspiration, whether you are looking for unique business presentation ideas or simply some fun presentation ideas.
But before we start figuring out your next big hit, we need to understand what makes a great presentation.
What Makes a Great Presentation
There are a couple of elements which make a killer presentation. Luckily, these are fairly easy to get the hang of. Specifically, the two levers you can pull are presentation design and execution. Here’s what you need to know.
Design
Having great presentation ideas does not necessarily guarantee the success of your presentation. It needs to be complemented by great visuals and consistent design. This conveys your message while keeping your audience engaged.
Formatting
You should always make sure that your presentation slides follow a consistent theme. This means that all your slides need to share a consistent font and formatting. All of your headings need to be the same size.
Additionally, you should avoid cluttering your slides with text. Generally, your slide should not exceed 10 words in order to avoid distracting your audience by too much reading. Additionally, you should stick to one idea per slide in order to avoid confusing the audience.
Images
Images are a great way to attract the viewer’s attention. By using images, you should be able to direct the attention of the viewer towards the current idea you are discussing.
This is why it is extremely important to master the art of placing images in a way which makes the presentation flow. You need to make sure that the images are of high quality and are large enough for the audience to easily see.
In addition, you need to choose images that suit the colour scheme of the presentation. Otherwise they’ll stick out and distract the audience too much.
You should avoid using stock images as they are and instead use them to form one big image that complements your topic.
Once you master the art of visuals, they’ll compliment your great presentation ideas extremely well.
A very popular rule that most people use is the 10-20-30 rule. Basically, this rule states that you should have no more than 10 slides, your talk should be no more than 20 minutes and your font should never be smaller than 30.
This ensures that you capture and maintain the audience’s attention which ultimately means that you’ll efficiently get your message across.
Execution
The second essential factor for the success of your presentation ideas is how you execute it. The way you address the audience and the topic at hand can make or break a presentation.
We’ll go through some of the factors that’ll help you ace your presentation. If you’re looking for more tips, be sure to check our guide on how to overcome stage fright. Now let us take you through the process of executing your great presentation ideas.
The Set-up
Before your presentation, you need to make sure that your projector or screen is properly set up. You should always check the colour-balance, focus, and speakers if necessary.
Because no one likes a rushed presentation, it’s important that you ensure that the setup is perfect. This conveys professionalism that forces the audience to pay attention.
It’s often a good idea to go through the slides while viewing from where the audience would be. This ensures that all the text is appropriately sized in order to be visible to the audience.
The Talk
The speaker can make or break a presentation. You need to convey an aura of confidence when addressing your audience. This is why you need to make sure that you’re well hydrated, relaxed and confident in your speech.
This is why practice is extremely important because your familiarity with the topic will allow you to adjust it during the presentation in response
to the audience. For some examples of great presentations, check out the TEDx archive which has some of the best talks on the internet.
Here are some additional guidelines that are agreed upon by presentation experts:
- Be confident,
- Show your passion for the topic,
- Utilize your voice,
- Embrace body language,
- Smile and maintain eye contact.
Fun Presentation Ideas
There are many objectives that you can achieve through presentations and one of them is to make the audience excited about something. Aside from being informative, presentations can be used to make the audience look forward to an upcoming event or project.
When it comes to fun presentation ideas, creativity is your biggest ally. You need to provide the audience with a unique perspective that motivates them to take action. Here are some examples:
Tell a Story
Telling a story is one of the greatest ways to stimulate your audience. It is a great way for you to keep them engaged while also teaching them about your topic.
A story is especially engaging to your audience because they get to visualize the event in their own mind which allows them to internalize your talk.
Once the viewer internalizes your scene, they can put themselves in that scenario and determine the appropriate decision to be made. This can provide you with valuable feedback that you may use to address an issue or decision.
Additionally, this allows you to deliver serious messages in a light-hearted way through humor and simplified storytelling.
Use Music
Music is a valuable asset that you may use to capture the attention of the audience. You can capture the attention of your audience by stimulating their hearing to ensure that they are not distracted.
There are many ways to utilize music, and here are a few of them:
- Pre-presentation music can be used to set the mood for the presentation. By playing the right kind of music, you can help your audience relax or stimulate their brain to ready them for your talk.
- During presentations, music can be used in order to maintain the audience’s attention. By continuously playing music, you can ensure that their mind does not drift elsewhere. You need to make sure that the music you use is appropriate where it should not overwhelm the viewers or distract them from the talk.
- Interlude music can be used as a breaking point once you’re done with one topic and moving onto the next one. This gives your audience a few minutes to digest your talk and ready them for your next part. Having an interlude is especially important if your presentation ideas happen to be long. Not only will it help them digest previous information, interlude music will also help them relax and look forward to the next part.
Use Animations
Images are great and all but sometimes animations can be the perfect way to get something across. By utilizing animations, you can easily explain a certain element of your presentation in a clean, streamlined way.
Animations can also be a great way to represent data in an interesting way that captures the audience’s attention.
Create a Competition
Communication in presentations doesn’t necessarily have to be a one-way channel. You can make your presentation ideas much more fun by implementing simple competitions that lighten the mood.
For example, you can challenge your audience to find a certain word or character that’ll appear in your presentation. Similarly, you can encourage interaction by asking your audience questions at the end of the presentation.
Go Physical
There is nothing more interesting to the audience than a physical object that they may interact with during a presentation. This helps them visualize the topic of interest and captures their attention.
This method is especially useful when you’re dealing with a younger audience or if you’re trying to pitch a product you’ve created.
Unique Business Presentation Ideas
When it comes to professional presentations, being unique is extremely important for impressing your audience. In this section, we’ll be discussing ways that’ll provide a unique twist to your presentation in order to make sure that you leave a good impression.
Teach a Skill
In a professional environment, presentations can be a great way for you to teach your staff valuable skills. You can create a presentation that tells a story which teaches your audience a skill that is beneficial to your business.
This is also a great way to address problems in the work environment in a much friendlier way without singling out individuals. A good application of this is to teach your staff the importance of working as a team to solve an issue.
You can do this by presenting a problem to the audience, with all the necessary variables then ask them to discuss it together and come up with a solution. Not only does this teach your staff a valuable lesson about critical thinking but it also enhances their teamwork and cooperation.
Pitch a Product
One of the most convincing ways to sell your product to an audience is to convince them of your ability to innovate. This can be displayed through the creativity of your presentation ideas.
A great way to create a unique presentation that’ll stick is to bring in your product to the next presentation. Instead of telling them how great your product is, show them. Allow the audience to closely observe your product or even use it themselves.
This will give them a much more detailed idea of your vision while also giving you credibility in their eyes.
Pitch Your Perspective
When it comes to pitching your business or person, telling the audience what you can do is sometimes not enough. They need to know what others can’t do. This will be the biggest influence when it comes to choosing you over the competition.
First, you need to identify your unique selling point. This will be your greatest ally. You should focus your presentation on why your company offers what other businesses can’t.
Show them your ability to tackle problems from a unique perspective, just how you’ll tackle their problems. Creativity is your biggest ally because it is quite impressive in the world of business. And that is why it should be your main concern for your presentation ideas.
Show that audience that you will be able to tackle their problems from an angle that no one else could.
Group Presentation Ideas
Another unique source of presentation ideas is to use them as a team-building exercise. Instead of presenting your own topics, you should try assigning it to a team.
The assigned team will have to distribute the work among themselves and help each other with researching the topic. This can be a great opportunity for a team to learn about each other’s working techniques which they might benefit from.
Additionally, your team having to work on one presentation will teach them about cooperation and to brainstorm as a team.
This will reflect positively on their presentation since a team that complements each other will produce a consistent presentation that is sharply focused on the topic at hand.
Furthermore, this will also motivate them when they receive good feedback from the audience, praising them for their creation which further gets your team closer.
How Can You Make a Presentation More Interesting?
Mastering the art of presentations can often be tricky. Thankfully with enough practice, you’ll be able to master it in no time. We’ve provided you with the basis for crafting a great presentation that is sure to impress your audience.
You should use these design tips to make your presentation ideas come to life. And if you’re out of presentation ideas, we’ve provided you with some that may help kickstart your next big hit. Remember, like any other art, the secret is dedication and consistency.
And remember that the key to impressing your audience is to be creative with your presentations. If you’re looking for more tips, be sure to check out our guide on public speaking.
