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Mastering the Art of Presentations: 8 Essential Skills for Marketers

Introduction

Presentations are a vital tool for marketers to connect with their audience and convey information effectively. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or a budding marketer, there is always room to improve your presentation skills. In this article, we will explore eight essential presentation skills, provide tips for leveling up, and showcase some top-notch presentation examples that can inspire and guide you. Let’s dive in.

What are Presentation Skills?

Presentation skills refer to the techniques and abilities that marketers utilize to convey information, ideas, and messages to their audience, whether it be potential clients, colleagues, stakeholders, or the public. These skills go beyond data and facts and involve crafting a compelling narrative, engaging the audience, and inspiring them to take action.

8 Effective Presentation Skills

One of the key presentation skills is clarity. It’s essential to say what you mean and mean what you say. Using action words and being clear in your delivery helps ensure that your message is easily understood by your audience.

2. Conciseness

Being able to convey your message concisely is a skill that helps keep your audience engaged. Avoid packing too much information into your presentation, as it can lead to boredom. Instead, focus on delivering the most relevant and impactful points.

3. Creativity

Creativity is a powerful presentation skill that allows you to captivate your audience. Find innovative ways to present your information, such as using animations, personal anecdotes, or integrating videos. Adding creativity to your presentation keeps it engaging and memorable.

Staying on topic is crucial for delivering a good presentation. Mastering the skill of focus ensures that you stay on track with your message, allowing your audience to follow along easily.

Understanding your pacing is an important skill to develop. Avoid rushing through your presentation and take breaks when necessary. Practicing your pacing will help you deliver your message effectively and keep your audience engaged.

Using humor in your presentation can make it more engaging and enjoyable. Hone the skill of incorporating appropriate jokes or light-hearted moments to amplify the audience’s interest and connection with your message.

Effective presentations strike a balance between humor and seriousness. Find the right balance for your presentation style and content to create an engaging and impactful delivery.

8. Confidence

Confidence is key to delivering a successful presentation. Believe in yourself and your message, as this will resonate with your audience. Your expertise and manner of speaking will inspire confidence in your listeners.

How to Improve Your Presentation Skills

While listing the essential presentation skills is easy, mastering them requires effort and practice. Here are some best practices to help you improve your presentation skills:

1. Take your time

Practice your pacing by timing yourself during your rehearsal. Identify areas where you may be rushing or dragging and work on adjusting your timing accordingly.

2. Relax your shoulders

Pay attention to your body language and try to relax your shoulders. Practicing at home will help you identify any tension in your body and take action to release it before your presentation.

3. Practice

Rehearsing your presentation multiple times is crucial for boosting your confidence and familiarity with the material. Consider practicing in front of a friend or family member who can provide feedback on your delivery.

4. Annunciate

Work on clear enunciation to improve the clarity of your words. This will enhance the audience’s understanding and reduce the chances of miscommunication. Write down tricky words phonetically on note cards for reference during your presentation.

5. Figure out where to take breaks

Identify natural pauses in your presentation where you can take a sip of water, anticipate laughter, or take a moment to breathe. This helps maintain engagement and prevents rushing through your material.

6. Figure out what you can cut

Review your presentation critically to identify sections that can be cut or condensed. Eliminate any information that may cause the presentation to drag or lose the audience’s interest. Keep your presentation concise and engaging.

7. Say what you mean

Be clear and precise in your language, avoiding hyperbole. Make sure that your words accurately convey your intended message. Your audience will appreciate the clarity and accuracy of your words.

8. Be a storyteller

Incorporate storytelling techniques into your presentation to engage your audience. Utilize case studies, user personas, or metaphors to create a narrative thread throughout your talk. Storytelling keeps your audience captivated and connected to your message.

9. Memorize structure, not words

Instead of memorizing your entire presentation word-for-word, focus on memorizing the structure and key points. This allows for a more natural delivery and prevents stumbling if you forget a specific word. Practice delivering different parts of your presentation in various ways.

10. Present slowly and pause frequently

When practicing, consciously slow down your pace to combat nerves. Include deep pauses throughout your presentation, especially when transitioning between slides, to allow for audience absorption and to give yourself breathing room.

11. Focus on actionable takeaways

Hook your audience from the start by highlighting the actionable takeaways they will gain from your presentation. Avoid overwhelming them with a comprehensive overview. Leave them with clear steps on what they can do next after your presentation.

12. Get comfortable with technology

If you’re using technology, such as slide decks or video conferencing platforms, familiarize yourself with the specific tools and practice using them beforehand. Feeling confident with the technology involved will contribute to a smoother presentation experience.

13. Think about movement

Consider your movement during the presentation and how it aligns with your speaking style. Are you comfortable walking and talking, or do you prefer to stay stationary? Find a balance that suits your presentation and the space you’ll be in.

14. Ask for feedback

Seek feedback from peers, managers, or even survey your audience to gather insights on areas of improvement. Constructive feedback is invaluable for refining your presentation skills

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Home Blog Education Presentation Skills 101: A Guide to Presentation Success

Presentation Skills 101: A Guide to Presentation Success

Getting the perfect presentation design is just a step toward a successful presentation. For the experienced user, building presentation skills is the answer to elevating the power of your message and showing expertise on any subject. Still, one can ask: is it the same set of skills, or are they dependable on the type of presentation?

In this article, we will introduce the different types of presentations accompanied by the skillset required to master them. The purpose, as always, is to retain the audience’s interest for a long-lasting and convincing message.

Table of Contents

The Importance of Presentation Skills

Persuasive presentations, instructional presentations, informative presentations, inspirational presentations, basic presentation skills, what are the main difficulties when giving a presentation, recommendations to improve your presentation skills, closing statement.

Effective communication is the answer to reaching business and academic goals. The scenarios in which we can be required to deliver a presentation are as diverse as one can imagine. Still, some core concepts apply to all presentations.

 We define presentation skills as a compendium of soft skills that directly affect your presentation performance and contribute to creating a great presentation. These are not qualities acquired by birth but skills you ought to train and master to delve into professional environments.

You may ask: is it really that evident when a presenter is not prepared? Here are some common signs people can experience during presentations:

• Evasive body language: Not making eye contact with the audience, arms closed tightly to the body, hands in pockets all the time.
• Lack of interest in the presenter’s voice: dull tone, not putting an effort to articulate the topics.
• Doubting when asked to answer a question
• Irksome mood

The list can go on about common presenter mistakes , and most certainly, it will affect the performance of any presented data if the lack of interest by the presenter is blatantly obvious.  Another element to consider is anxiety, and according to research by the National Institute of Mental Health, 73% of the population in the USA is affected by glossophobia , which is the fear of public speaking, judgment, or negative evaluation by other people.

Therefore, presentation skills training is essential for any business professional who wants to achieve effective communication . It will remove the anxiety from presentation performance and help users effectively deliver their message and connect with the audience.

Archetypes of presentations

Persuasive presentations aim to convince the audience – often in short periods – to acquire a product or service, adhere to a cause, or invest in a company. For business entrepreneurs or politicians, persuasive presentations are their tool for the trade.

Unless you aim to be perceived as an imposter, a proper persuasive presentation has the elements of facts, empathy, and logic, balanced under a well-crafted narrative. The central pillar of these presentations is to identify the single factor that gathered your audience: it could be a market need, a social cause, or a revolutionary concept for today’s society. It has to be something with enough power to gather critiques – both good and bad.

That single factor has to be backed up by facts. Research that builds your hypothesis on how to solve that problem. A deep understanding of the target audience’s needs , concerns, and social position regarding the solution your means can offer. When those elements are in place, building a pitch becomes an easy task. 

Graphics can help you introduce information in a compelling format, lowering the need for lengthy presentations. Good presentation skills for persuasive presentations go by the hand of filtering relevant data and creating the visual cues that resonate with what your audience demands.

One powerful example of a persuasive presentation is the technique known as the elevator pitch . You must introduce your idea or product convincingly to the audience in a timeframe between 30 seconds and less than 2 minutes. You have to expose:

• What do you do 
• What’s the problem to solve
• Why is your solution different from others 
• Why should the audience care about your expertise

For that very purpose, using engaging graphics with contrasting colors elevates the potential power of your message. It speaks professionalism, care for details, and out-of-the-box thinking. Knowing how to end a presentation is also critical, as your CTAs should be placed with care.

Therefore, let’s resume the requirements of persuasive presentations in terms of good presentation skills:

• Identifying problems and needs
• Elaborating “the hook” (the element that grabs the audience’s attention)
• Knowing how to “tie” your audience (introducing a piece of information related to the hook that causes an emotional impact)
• Broad knowledge of body language and hand gestures to quickly convey your message
• Being prepared to argue a defense of your point of view
• Handling rejection
• Having a proactive attitude to convert opportunities into new projects
• Using humor, surprise, or personal anecdotes as elements to sympathize with the audience
• Having confidence
• Be able to summarize facts and information in visually appealing ways

You can learn more about persuasive presentation techniques by clicking here .

In the case of instructional presentations, we ought to differentiate two distinctive types:

• Lecture Presentations : Presentations being held at universities or any other educative institution. Those presentations cover, topic by topic, and the contents of a syllabus and are created by the team of teachers in charge of the course.
• Training Presentations : These presentations take place during in-company training sessions and usually comprise a good amount of content that is resumed into easy-to-take solutions. They are aimed to coach employees over certain topics relevant to their work performance. The 70-20-10 Model is frequently used to address these training situations.

Lecture presentations appeal to the gradual introduction of complex concepts, following a structure set in the course’s syllabus. These presentations often have a similar aesthetic as a group of professors or researchers created to share their knowledge about a topic. Personal experience does tell that course presentations often rely on factual data, adequately documented, and on the theoretical side.

An example of a presentation that lies under this concept is a Syllabus Presentation, used by the teaching team to introduce the subject to new students, evaluation methods, concepts to be learned, and expectations to pass the course.

On the other hand, training presentations are slide decks designed to meet an organization’s specific needs in the formal education of their personnel. Commonly known as “continuous education,” plenty of companies invest resources in coaching their employees to achieve higher performance results. These presentations have the trademark of being concise since their idea is to introduce the concepts that shall be applied in practice sessions. 

Ideally, the training presentations are introduced with little text and easy-to-recognize visual cues. Since the idea is to summarize as much as possible, these are visually appealing for the audience. They must be dynamic enough to allow the presenter to convey the message.

Those key takeaways remind employees when they revisit their learning resources and allow them to ruminate on questions that fellow workers raise. 

To sum up this point, building presentation skills for instructional presentations requires:

• Ability to put complex concepts into simpler words
• Patience and a constant learning mindset
• Voice training to deliver lengthy speeches without being too dense
• Ability to summarize points and note the key takeaways
• Empathizing with the audience to understand their challenges in the learning process

The informative presentations take place in business situations, such as when to present project reports from different departments to the management. Another potential usage of these presentations is in SCRUM or other Agile methodologies, when a sprint is completed, to discuss the advance of the project with the Product Owner.

As they are presentations heavily dependent on data insights, it’s common to see the usage of infographics and charts to express usually dense data in simpler terms and easy to remember. 

Informative presentations don’t just fall into the business category. Ph.D. Dissertation and Thesis presentations are topics that belong to the informative presentations category as they condense countless research hours into manageable reports for the academic jury. 

Since these informational presentations can be perceived as lengthy and data-filled, it is important to learn the following professional presentation skills:

• Attention to detail
• Be able to explain complex information in simpler terms
• Creative thinking
• Powerful diction
• Working on pauses and transitions
• Pacing the presentation, so not too much information is divulged per slide

The leading inspirational platform, TEDx, comes to mind when talking about inspirational presentations. This presentation format has the peculiarity of maximizing the engagement with the audience to divulge a message, and due to that, it has specific requirements any presenter must meet.

This presentation format usually involves a speaker on a stage, either sitting or better standing, in which the presenter engages with the audience with a storytelling format about a life experience, a job done that provided a remarkable improvement for society, etc.

Empathizing with the audience is the key ingredient for these inspirational presentations. Still, creativity is what shapes the outcome of your performance as people are constantly looking for different experiences – not the same recipe rephrased with personal touches. The human factor is what matters here, way above data and research. What has your experience to offer to others? How can it motivate another human being to pursue a similar path or discover their true calling?

To achieve success in terms of communication skills presentation, these inspirational presentations have the following requirements:

• Focus on the audience (engage, consider their interests, and make them a part of your story)
• Putting ego aside
• Creative communication skills
• Storytelling skills
• Body language knowledge to apply the correct gestures to accompany your story
• Voice training
• Using powerful words

After discussing the different kinds of presentations we can come across at any stage of our lives, a group of presentation skills is standard in any type of presentation. See below what makes a good presentation and which skills you must count on to succeed as a presenter.

Punctuality

Punctuality is a crucial aspect of giving an effective presentation. Nothing says more about respect for your audience and the organization you represent than delivering the presentation on time . Arriving last minute puts pressure on the tech team behind audiovisuals, as they don’t have enough preparation to test microphones, stage lights, and projector settings, which can lead to a less powerful presentation Even when discussing presentations hosted in small rooms for a reduced audience, testing the equipment becomes essential for an effective presentation.

A solution for this is to arrive at least 30 minutes early. Ideally, one hour is a sweet spot since the AV crew has time to check the gear and requirements for your presentation. Another benefit of this, for example, in inspirational presentations, is measuring the previous presenter’s impact on the audience. This gives insights about how to resonate with the public, and their interest, and how to accommodate your presentation for maximum impact.

Body Language

Our bodies can make emotions transparent for others, even when we are unaware of such a fact. Proper training for body language skills reduces performance anxiety, giving the audience a sense of expertise about the presented topic. 

Give your presentation and the audience the respect they deserve by watching over these potential mistakes:

• Turning your back to the audience for extended periods : It’s okay to do so when introducing an important piece of information or explaining a graph, but it is considered rude to give your back to the audience constantly.
• Fidgeting : We are all nervous in the presence of strangers, even more, if we are the center of attention for that moment. Instead of playing with your hair or making weird hand gestures, take a deep breath to center yourself before the presentation and remember that everything you could do to prepare is already done. Trust your instincts and give your best.
• Intense eye contact : Have you watched a video where the presenter stared at the camera the entire time? That’s the feeling you transmit to spectators through intense eye contact. It’s a practice often used by politicians to persuade.
• Swearing : This is a no-brainer. Even when you see influencers swearing on camera or in podcasts or live presentations, it is considered an informal and lousy practice for business and academic situations. If you have a habit to break when it comes to this point, find the humor in these situations and replace your swear words with funny alternatives (if the presentation allows for it). 

Voice Tone plays a crucial role in delivering effective presentations and knowing how to give a good presentation. Your voice is a powerful tool for exposing your ideas and feelings . Your voice can articulate the message you are telling, briefing the audience if you feel excited about what you are sharing or, in contrast, if you feel the presentation is a burden you ought to complete.

Remember, passion is a primary ingredient in convincing people. Therefore, transmitting such passion with a vibrant voice may help gather potential business partners’ interest.  

But what if you feel sick prior to the presentation? If, by chance, your throat is sore minutes before setting foot on the stage, try this: when introducing yourself, mention that you are feeling a bit under the weather. This resonates with the audience to pay more attention to your efforts. In case you don’t feel comfortable about that, ask the organizers for a cup of tea, as it will settle your throat and relax your nerves.

Tech Skills

Believe it or not, people still feel challenged by technology these days. Maybe that’s the reason why presentation giants like Tony Robbins opt not to use PowerPoint presentations . The reality is that there are plenty of elements involved in a presentation that can go wrong from the tech side:

• A PDF not opening
• Saving your presentation in a too-recent PowerPoint version
• A computer not booting up
• Mac laptops and their never-ending compatibility nightmare
• Not knowing how to change between slides
• Not knowing how to use a laser pointer
• Internet not working
• Audio not working

We can come up with a pretty long list of potential tech pitfalls, and yet more than half of them fall in presenters not being knowledgeable about technology.

If computers aren’t your thing, let the organization know about this beforehand. There is always a crew member available to help presenters switch between slides or configure the presentation for streaming. This takes the pressure off your shoulders, allowing you to concentrate on the content to present. Remember, even Bill Gates can get a BSOD during a presentation .

Presentations, while valuable for conveying information and ideas, can be daunting for many individuals. Here are some common difficulties people encounter when giving presentations:

Public Speaking Anxiety

Glossophobia, the fear of public speaking, affects a significant portion of the population. This anxiety can lead to nervousness, trembling, and forgetfulness during a presentation.

Lack of Confidence

Many presenters struggle with self-doubt, fearing that they may not be knowledgeable or skilled enough to engage their audience effectively.

Content Organization

Organizing information in a coherent and engaging manner can be challenging. Presenters often grapple with how to structure their content to make it easily digestible for the audience. Artificial Intelligence can help us significantly reduce the content arrangement time when you work with tools like our AI Presentation Maker (made for presenters by experts in presentation design). 

Audience Engagement

Keeping the audience’s attention and interest throughout the presentation can be difficult. Distractions, disengaged attendees, or lack of interaction can pose challenges.

Technical Issues

Technology glitches, such as malfunctioning equipment, incompatible file formats, or poor internet connectivity, can disrupt presentations and increase stress.

Time Management

Striking the right balance between providing enough information and staying within time limits is a common challenge. Going over or under the allotted time can affect the effectiveness of the presentation.

Handling Questions and Challenges

Responding to unexpected questions, criticism, or challenges from the audience can be difficult, especially when presenters are unprepared or lack confidence in their subject matter.

Visual Aids and Technology

Creating and effectively using visual aids like slides or multimedia can be a struggle for some presenters. Technical competence is essential in this aspect.

Language and Articulation

Poor language skills or unclear articulation can hinder effective communication. Presenters may worry about stumbling over words or failing to convey their message clearly.

Maintaining appropriate and confident body language can be challenging. Avoiding nervous habits, maintaining eye contact, and using gestures effectively requires practice.

Overcoming Impersonal Delivery

In virtual presentations, maintaining a personal connection with the audience can be difficult. The absence of face-to-face interaction can make it challenging to engage and read the audience.

Cultural and Diversity Awareness

Presenting to diverse audiences requires sensitivity to cultural differences and varying levels of familiarity with the topic.

In this section, we gathered some tips on how to improve presentation skills that can certainly make an impact if applied to your presentation skills. We believe these skills can be cultivated to transform into habits for your work routine.

Tip #1: Build a narrative

One memorable way to guarantee presentation success is by writing a story of all the points you desire to cover. This statement is based on the logic behind storytelling and its power to connect with people .

Don’t waste time memorizing slides or reading your presentation to the audience. It feels unnatural, and any question that diverts from the topic in discussion certainly puts you in jeopardy or, worse, exposes you as a fraud in the eyes of the audience. And before you ask, it is really evident when a presenter has a memorized speech. 

Build and rehearse the presentation as if telling a story to a group of interested people. Lower the language barrier by avoiding complex terms that maybe even you aren’t fully aware of their meaning. Consider the ramifications of that story, what it could lead to, and which are the opportunities to explore. Then, visualize yourself giving the presentation in a natural way.

Applying this technique makes the presentation feel like second nature to you. It broadens the spectrum in which you can show expertise over a topic or even build the basis for new interesting points of view about the project.

Tip #2: Don’t talk for more than 3 minutes per slide

It is a common practice of presenters to bombard the audience with facts and information whilst retaining the same slide on the screen. Why can this happen? It could be because the presenter condensed the talk into very few slides and preferred to talk. The reality is that your spectators won’t retain the information you are giving unless you give visual cues to help that process. 

Opt to prepare more slides and pace your speech to match the topics shown on each slide. Don’t spend more than 3 minutes per slide unless you have to introduce a complex piece of data. Use visual cues to direct the spectators about what you talk about, and summarize the principal concepts discussed at the end of each section.

Tip #3: Practice meditation daily

Anxiety is the number one enemy of professional presenters. It slowly builds without you being aware of your doubts and can hinder your performance in multiple ways: making you feel paralyzed, fidgeting, making you forget language skills or concepts, affecting your health, etc.

Meditation is an ancient practice taken from Buddhist teachings that train your mind to be here in the present. We often see the concepts of meditation and mindfulness as synonyms, whereas you should be aware that meditation is a practice that sets the blocks to reach a state of mindfulness. For presenters, being in the here and now is essential to retain focus, but meditation techniques also teach us to control our breathing and be in touch with our body signals when stress builds up. 

The customary practice of meditation has an impact on imagination and creativity but also helps to build patience – a skill much needed for connecting with your audience in instructional presentations.

Having the proper set of presentation skills can be quite subjective. It goes beyond presentation tips and deepens into how flexible we can be in our ability to communicate ideas.

Different presentations and different audiences shape the outcome of our efforts. Therefore, having a basic understanding of how to connect, raise awareness, and empathize with people can be key ingredients for your career as a presenter. A word of advice: success doesn’t happen overnight. It takes dedication and patience to build communication skills . Don’t condition your work to believe you will be ready “someday”; it’s best to practice and experience failure as part of the learning process.

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21 Ways To Improve Your Presentation Skills

Published: April 07, 2023

You know the feeling of sitting through a boring presentation. A text distracts you. A noise outside pulls your gaze. Your dog begs for attention. By the time the presentation ends, you question why you needed to sit and listen in the first place.

Effective presentation skills can stop you from boring an audience to oblivion. Delivering strong presentations can help you stand out as a leader, showcase your expertise, and build confidence.

Table of contents:

• Presentation skills definition
• Importance of presentation skills
• How to improve presentation skills
• Effective presentation skills
• Presentation skills for executives

Presentation Skills Definition

Presentation skills include anything you need to create and deliver clear, effective presentations to an audience. This includes creating a compelling set of slides , ensuring the information flows, and keeping your audience engaged.

Speakers with strong presentation skills can perform the following tasks:

• Bring together different sources of information to form a compelling narrative
• Hook audiences with a strong beginning and end
• Ensure audiences engage with their content through questions or surveys
• Understand what their audience wants and needs from their presentation

Importance of Presentation Skills

At some point in your career, you will present something. You might pitch a startup to a group of investors or show your research findings to your manager at work. Those in leading or executive roles often deliver presentations on a weekly or monthly basis.

Improving your presentation skills betters different aspects of your working life, including the following:

Communication: Improving your presentation skills can make you a better communicator with your co-workers and friends.

Confidence: 75% of people fear public speaking. By working on your presentation skills, you can gain confidence when speaking in front of a crowd.

Creativity: You learn to understand how to use imagery and examples to engage an audience.

Management: Presentations involve pulling together information to form a succinct summary, helping you build project and time management skills.

How To Improve Presentation Skills

1. create an outline.

Before designing slides and writing a script, outline your presentation. Start with your introduction, segue into key points you want to make, and finish with a conclusion.

2. Practice, Practice, Practice

Almost 8 in 10 professionals practice their presentations for at least an hour. So, practice your presentation in the mirror or to a close friend.

3. Start With a Hook

When presenting, grab your audience with a hook. Consider starting with a surprising statistic or a thoughtful question before diving into the core information.

4. Stay Focused on Your Topic

You might want to cover everything under the sun, but information overload can overwhelm your audience. Instead, stay focused on what you want to cover. Aim for key points and avoid including unnecessary details.

5. Remember To Introduce Yourself

At the beginning of the presentation, introduce yourself. Kill any tension in the room by mentioning your name, your role, and any other helpful details. You could even mention a fun fact about yourself, putting the audience at ease.

6. Work on Your Body Language

55% of people look to nonverbal communication when judging a presentation. Straighten your back, minimize unnecessary gestures, and keep your voice confident and calm. Remember to work on these aspects when practicing.

7. Memorize Structure, Not Words

You might feel better knowing exactly what you want to say. But skip the script and stick to memorizing the key points of your presentation. For example, consider picking three to four phrases or insights you want to mention for each part of your presentation rather than line-by-line memorization.

8. Learn Your Audience

Before crafting a killer outline and slide deck, research your audience. Find out what they likely already know, such as industry jargon, and where they might need additional information. Remember: You're presenting for them, not you.

9. Reframe Your Anxiety as Excitement

A study conducted byHarvard Business School demonstrates that reframing your anxiety as excitement can improve performance. For example, by saying simple phrases out loud, such as “I’m excited,” you then adopt an opportunity-oriented mentality.

10. Get Comfortable With the Setting

If you plan to present in person, explore the room. Find where you’re going to stand and deliver your presentation. Practice looking into the seats. By decreasing the number of unknowns, you can clear your head and focus on the job.

11. Get Familiar With Technology

Presenting online has unique challenges, such as microphone problems and background noise. Before a Zoom presentation, ensure your microphone works, clean up your background, test your slides, and consider any background noise.

12. Think Positively

Optimistic workers enjoy faster promotions and happier lives. By reminding yourself of the positives — for example, your manager found your last presentation impressive — you can shake off nerves and find joy in the process.

13. Tell a Story

To engage your audience, weave storytelling into your presentation — more than 5 in 10 people believe stories hold their focus during a presentation. Consider ways to connect different parts of your slides into a compelling narrative.

14. Prepare for Questions

At the end of your presentation, your audience will likely have questions. Brainstorm different questions and potential answers so you’re prepared.

15. Maintain Eye Contact

Eye contact signals honesty. When possible, maintain eye contact with your audience. For in-person presentations, pay attention to each audience member. For online ones, stare at your camera lens as you deliver.

16. Condense Your Presentation

After you finish the first draft of your outline, think about ways to condense it. Short and sweet often keeps people interested instead of checking their phones.

17. Use Videos

Keep your audience’s attention by incorporating video clips when relevant. For example, videos can help demonstrate examples or explain difficult concepts.

18. Engage With Your Audience

Almost 8 in 10 professionals view presentations as boring. Turn the tide by engaging with your audience. Encourage audience participation by asking questions or conducting a live survey.

19. Present Slowly and Pause Frequently

When you get nervous, you talk faster. To combat this, remember to slow yourself down when practicing. Place deep pauses throughout your presentation, especially when transitioning between slides, as it gives you time to breathe and your audience time to absorb.

20. Start and End With a Summary

A summary at the start of a presentation can pique your audience’s interest. One at the end brings everything together, highlighting key points your audience should take with them.

21. Ask for Feedback

You will never deliver the perfect presentation, so ask for feedback. Talk to your managers about where you could improve. Consider surveying your audience for an unbiased look into your presentation skills.

Effective Presentation Skills

Effective presentation skills include communicating clearly, presenting with structure, and engaging with the audience.

As an example, say a content manager is presenting a quarterly review to their team. They start off with a summary. Their introduction mentions an unprecedented 233% growth in organic traffic — numbers their team has not seen in years. Immediately, the presenter grabs their team’s attention. Now, everyone wants to know how they achieved that in one quarter.

Alternatively, think of an entrepreneur delivering their pitch to a group of investors. They start with a question: How many of you struggle to stay awake at work? They then segue into an exciting product designed to improve the sleep quality of working professionals. Their presentation includes videos demonstrating the science behind sleep and surprising statistics about the demand for their product.

Both examples demonstrate effective presentation skills. They incorporate strong attention grabbers, summaries, and attempts to engage the audience.

Think back to strong presentations you viewed as an audience member. Ask yourself: What made them so memorable, and how can I incorporate those elements into my presentations?

Presentation Skills for Executives

Presentations take up a significant portion of an executive’s workload. Executives regularly showcase key company initiatives, team changes, quarterly and annual reviews, and more. Improving your presentation skills as a leader can help with different parts of your job, such as:

Trust: Delivering great, effective presentations can build trust between you and your team.

Confidence: Most people dread presentations — so a strong presenter projects the confidence needed by a leader.

Emotional intelligence: A great presentation taps into the audience’s perspectives, helping executives improve their emotional intelligence .

Expertise: Presentations help executives display their subject-matter expertise, making employees safe in their hands.

Delegation: At times, executives might need to pull information from different sources for a presentation — improving their ability to delegate as managers.

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14 Practical Tips to Improve Your Presentation Skills

• The Speaker Lab
• May 11, 2024

Table of Contents

Ever felt complete dread and fear at the thought of stepping up to deliver a presentation? If so, you’re not alone. The fear of public speaking is more common than you might think, but with the right presentation skills , it’s a hurdle that can be overcome.

In this article, we’ll help you master basic confidence-building techniques and conquer advanced communication strategies for engaging presentations. We’ll explore how body language and eye contact can make or break your connection with your audience; delve into preparation techniques like dealing with filler words and nervous habits; discuss tailoring content for different audiences; and much more.

Whether you’re prepping for job interviews or gearing up for big presentations, being prepared is key. With adequate practice and the proper attitude, you can crush your speech or presentation!

Mastering the Basics of Presentation Skills

Presentation skills are not just about speaking in front of a crowd. It’s also about effective communication, audience engagement, and clarity. Mastering these skills can be transformative for everyone, from students to corporate trainers.

Building Confidence in Presentations

Becoming confident when presenting is no small feat. But fear not. Even those who feel jittery at the mere thought of public speaking can become masters with practice and patience. Just remember: stage fright is common and overcoming it is part of the process towards becoming an effective presenter.

Taking deep breaths before you start helps calm nerves while visualizing success aids in building confidence. Also, know that nobody minds if you take a moment to gather your thoughts during your presentation—everybody minds more if they cannot understand what you’re saying because you’re rushing.

The Role of Practice in Enhancing Presentation Skills

In line with old wisdom, practice indeed makes perfect, especially when improving presentation skills. Consistent rehearsals allow us to fine-tune our delivery methods like maintaining eye contact or controlling body language effectively.

You’ll learn better control over filler words through repeated drills. Plus, the extra practice can help you troubleshoot any technical glitches beforehand, saving you the sudden panic during your actual presentations.

Remember that great presenters were once beginners too. Continuous effort will get you there sooner rather than later.

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Body Language and Eye Contact in Presentations

The effectiveness of your presentation can hinge on more than just the words you say. Just as important is your body language .

Impact of Posture on Presentations

Your posture speaks volumes before you utter a word. Standing tall exudes confidence while slouching could signal nervousness or lack of preparation.

If there’s one lesson to take away from our YouTube channel , it’s this: good presenters know their message but great ones feel it through every fiber (or muscle) of their being. The audience can sense that energy when they see open body language rather than crossed arms.

Maintaining Eye Contact During Your Presentation

Eyes are often called windows to the soul for a reason. They’re communication powerhouses. Making eye contact helps build trust with your audience members and keeps them engaged throughout your speech.

Avoid staring at note cards or visual aids too much as this might give an impression that you’re unprepared or uncertain about your chosen topic. Instead, aim to maintain eye contact between 50% of the time during presentations. This commonly accepted “50/70 rule” will help you exhibit adequate confidence to your audience.

If stage fright has gotten a hold on you, take deep breaths before you start speaking in order to stay calm. Make sure that fear doesn’t disrupt your ability to maintain eye-contact during presentations.

If body language and eye contact still feel like a lot to manage during your big presentation, remember our golden rule: nobody minds small mistakes. It’s how you handle questions or mishaps that truly makes a difference—so stay positive and enthusiastic.

Preparation Techniques for Successful Presentations

Presentation skills are like a craft that requires meticulous preparation and practice. Aspects like visual aids and time management contribute to the overall effectiveness of your delivery.

The first step towards delivering an impactful presentation is research and organization. The content should be well-researched, structured logically, and presented in simple language. This will make sure you deliver clear messages without any room for misinterpretation.

Dealing with Filler Words and Nervous Habits

Nervous habits such as excessive use of filler words can distract from your message. Luckily, there are plenty of strategies that can address these issues. For instance, try taking deep breaths before speaking or using note cards until fluency is achieved. In addition, practice regularly to work on eliminating these verbal stumbling blocks.

Avoiding Distractions During Presentations

In a digital age where distractions abound, maintaining focus during presentations has become an even more crucial part of the preparation process. This video by motivational speaker Brain Tracy provides insights on how one could achieve this level of focus required for effective presentations.

Maintaining Confidence Throughout Your Presentation

Confidence comes from thorough understanding of the chosen topic combined with regular practice sessions before the big day arrives. Make use of note cards or cue cards as needed but avoid reading from them verbatim.

Taking control over stage fright starts by arriving early at the venue so that you familiarize yourself with the surroundings, which generally calms nerves down considerably. So next time you feel nervous before a big presentation, remember—thorough preparation can make all the difference.

Engaging Your Audience During Presentations

Connecting with your audience during presentations is an art, and mastering it can take your presentation skills to the next level. Making the message conveyed reach an emotional level is essential, not just conveying facts.

Understanding Your Target Audience

The first step towards engaging your audience is understanding them. Tailor the content of your presentation to their needs and interests. Speak in their language—whether that be professional jargon or everyday slang—to establish rapport and ensure comprehension.

An effective presenter understands who they’re speaking to, what those individuals care about, and how best to communicate complex ideas understandably.

Making Complex Information Understandable

Dense data or complicated concepts can lose even the most interested listener if presented ineffectively. Breaking your key points down into manageable chunks helps maintain attention while promoting retention. Analogies are especially useful for this purpose as they make unfamiliar topics more relatable.

Audience Participation & Questions: A Two-Way Street

Incorporating opportunities for audience participation encourages engagement at another level. It allows listeners to become active participants rather than passive receivers of knowledge.

Consider techniques like live polls or interactive Q&A sessions where you invite questions from attendees mid-presentation instead of saving all queries until the end.

This gives you a chance not only engage but also address any misunderstandings right on spot.

• Treat each question asked as an opportunity—it’s evidence someone has been paying attention. Even challenging questions should be welcomed as they demonstrate an engaged, thoughtful audience.
• Encourage participation. It can be as simple as a show of hands or the use of interactive technologies for live polling during your presentation. This keeps your audience active and invested in the content.

Remember, your presentation isn’t just about putting on a show—it’s about meaningful interaction.

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Presentation Skills in Specific Contexts

Whether you’re nailing your next job interview, presenting an exciting marketing campaign, or delivering insightful educational content, the context matters. Let’s take a look.

The Art of Job Interviews

A successful job interview often hinges on effective communication and confidence. Here, the target audience is usually small but holds significant influence over your future prospects. Body language plays a crucial role; maintain eye contact to show sincerity and interest while open body language communicates approachability.

Bullet points summarizing key experiences are also helpful for quick recall under pressure. This allows you to present your chosen topic with clarity and positive enthusiasm without relying heavily on note or cue cards.

Pitching in Public Relations & Marketing

In public relations (PR) and marketing contexts, presentations need to capture attention quickly yet hold it long enough to deliver key messages effectively. Visual aids are valuable tools here—they help emphasize points while keeping the audience engaged.

Your aim should be highlighting presentation benefits that resonate with potential clients or partners, making them feel as though ignoring such opportunities would mean missing out big time.

Educational Presentations

An educational setting demands its own unique set of presentation skills where deep understanding trumps flashy visuals. You must make complex information understandable without oversimplifying essential details—the use of analogies can be beneficial here.

Keeping the audience’s attention is critical. Encourage questions and participation to foster a more interactive environment, enhancing learning outcomes for all audience members.

Tips for Becoming a Great Presenter

No single method is suitable for everyone when it comes to speaking in public. However, incorporating continuous improvement and practice into your routine can make you an exceptional presenter.

Tailor Your Presentation to Your Audience

Becoming an excellent speaker isn’t just about delivering information; it’s also about making a connection with the audience. So make sure that you’re taking setting, audience, and topic into consideration when crafting your presentation. What works for one audience may not work for another, so be sure to adapt your presentation styles according to the occasion in order to be truly effective.

The Power of Practice

The art of mastering public speaking skills requires practice —and lots of it . To become a great presenter, focus on improving communication skills through practice and feedback from peers or mentors. Try to seek feedback on every speech delivered and incorporate those pointers in your future presentations. Over time, this cycle of delivery-feedback-improvement significantly enhances your ability to connect with audiences and convey ideas effectively.

If you’re looking for examples of good speakers, our speech breakdowns on YouTube provide excellent examples of experienced presenters who masterfully utilize speaking techniques. Analyzing their strategies could give you great ideas for enhancing your own style.

Finding Your Style

A crucial part of captivating any audience lies in how you deliver the message rather than the message itself. Developing a unique presentation style lets you stand out as an engaging speaker who commands attention throughout their talk. Through — you guessed it — practice, you can develop a personal presentation style that resonates with listeners while showcasing your expertise on the chosen topic.

Your body language plays a pivotal role here: open gestures communicate confidence and enthusiasm towards your subject matter, two qualities essential for keeping audiences hooked. Similarly, using vocal variety adds dynamism to speeches by emphasizing points when needed or creating suspense during storytelling parts of your talk.

Cultivating Passion & Enthusiasm

Showcasing genuine passion for the subject helps keep listeners engaged throughout even lengthy presentations. Sharing stories related to the topic or expressing excitement about sharing knowledge tends to draw people in more than mere data recitation ever could.

Recognize that everybody is distinctive; don’t expect identical results from every speaker. The path to becoming a great presenter involves recognizing your strengths and working tirelessly on areas that need improvement.

FAQs on Presentation Skills

What are good presentation skills.

Good presentation skills include a clear message, confident delivery, engaging body language, audience understanding, and interaction. They also involve effective preparation and practice.

What are the 5 steps of presentation skills?

The five steps of presenting include: planning your content, preparing visual aids if needed, practicing the delivery aloud, performing it with confidence, and finally post-presentation reflection for improvements.

What are the 5 P’s of presentation skills?

The five P’s stand for Preparation (researching your topic), Practice (rehearsing your talk), Performance (delivering with confidence), Posture (standing tall), and Projection (using a strong voice).

What are your presentation skills?

Your personal set of abilities to deliver information effectively is what we call your presentation skill. It can encompass public speaking ability, clarity in speech or writing as well as visual communication talent.

Mastering presentation skills isn’t an overnight process, but practice and perseverance will put you well on your way to becoming an effective speaker.

You’ve learned that confidence plays a crucial role in effective presentations, so take deep breaths, make eye contact, and keep your body language open. As always, preparation is key. Tackle filler words head-on and get comfortable with visual aids for impactful storytelling.

Remember the importance of audience engagement — it’s all about understanding their needs and tailoring your content accordingly. This way, complex information turns into digestible insights.

Above all else: practice! After all, nothing beats experience when it comes to improving public speaking abilities.

• Last Updated: May 9, 2024

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Ideas and insights from Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning

Powerful and Effective Presentation Skills: More in Demand Now Than Ever

When we talk with our L&D colleagues from around the globe, we often hear that presentation skills training is one of the top opportunities they’re looking to provide their learners. And this holds true whether their learners are individual contributors, people managers, or senior leaders. This is not surprising.

Effective communications skills are a powerful career activator, and most of us are called upon to communicate in some type of formal presentation mode at some point along the way.

For instance, you might be asked to brief management on market research results, walk your team through a new process, lay out the new budget, or explain a new product to a client or prospect. Or you may want to build support for a new idea, bring a new employee into the fold, or even just present your achievements to your manager during your performance review.

And now, with so many employees working from home or in hybrid mode, and business travel in decline, there’s a growing need to find new ways to make effective presentations when the audience may be fully virtual or a combination of in person and remote attendees.

Whether you’re making a standup presentation to a large live audience, or a sit-down one-on-one, whether you’re delivering your presentation face to face or virtually, solid presentation skills matter.

Even the most seasoned and accomplished presenters may need to fine-tune or update their skills. Expectations have changed over the last decade or so. Yesterday’s PowerPoint which primarily relied on bulleted points, broken up by the occasional clip-art image, won’t cut it with today’s audience.

The digital revolution has revolutionized the way people want to receive information. People expect presentations that are more visually interesting. They expect to see data, metrics that support assertions. And now, with so many previously in-person meetings occurring virtually, there’s an entirely new level of technical preparedness required.

The leadership development tools and the individual learning opportunities you’re providing should include presentation skills training that covers both the evergreen fundamentals and the up-to-date capabilities that can make or break a presentation.

So, just what should be included in solid presentation skills training? Here’s what I think.

The fundamentals will always apply When it comes to making a powerful and effective presentation, the fundamentals will always apply. You need to understand your objective. Is it strictly to convey information, so that your audience’s knowledge is increased? Is it to persuade your audience to take some action? Is it to convince people to support your idea? Once you understand what your objective is, you need to define your central message. There may be a lot of things you want to share with your audience during your presentation, but find – and stick with – the core, the most important point you want them to walk away with. And make sure that your message is clear and compelling.

You also need to tailor your presentation to your audience. Who are they and what might they be expecting? Say you’re giving a product pitch to a client. A technical team may be interested in a lot of nitty-gritty product detail. The business side will no doubt be more interested in what returns they can expect on their investment.

Another consideration is the setting: is this a formal presentation to a large audience with questions reserved for the end, or a presentation in a smaller setting where there’s the possibility for conversation throughout? Is your presentation virtual or in-person? To be delivered individually or as a group? What time of the day will you be speaking? Will there be others speaking before you and might that impact how your message will be received?

Once these fundamentals are established, you’re in building mode. What are the specific points you want to share that will help you best meet your objective and get across your core message? Now figure out how to convey those points in the clearest, most straightforward, and succinct way. This doesn’t mean that your presentation has to be a series of clipped bullet points. No one wants to sit through a presentation in which the presenter reads through what’s on the slide. You can get your points across using stories, fact, diagrams, videos, props, and other types of media.

Visual design matters While you don’t want to clutter up your presentation with too many visual elements that don’t serve your objective and can be distracting, using a variety of visual formats to convey your core message will make your presentation more memorable than slides filled with text. A couple of tips: avoid images that are cliched and overdone. Be careful not to mix up too many different types of images. If you’re using photos, stick with photos. If you’re using drawn images, keep the style consistent. When data are presented, stay consistent with colors and fonts from one type of chart to the next. Keep things clear and simple, using data to support key points without overwhelming your audience with too much information. And don’t assume that your audience is composed of statisticians (unless, of course, it is).

When presenting qualitative data, brief videos provide a way to engage your audience and create emotional connection and impact. Word clouds are another way to get qualitative data across.

Practice makes perfect You’ve pulled together a perfect presentation. But it likely won’t be perfect unless it’s well delivered. So don’t forget to practice your presentation ahead of time. Pro tip: record yourself as you practice out loud. This will force you to think through what you’re going to say for each element of your presentation. And watching your recording will help you identify your mistakes—such as fidgeting, using too many fillers (such as “umm,” or “like”), or speaking too fast.

A key element of your preparation should involve anticipating any technical difficulties. If you’ve embedded videos, make sure they work. If you’re presenting virtually, make sure that the lighting is good, and that your speaker and camera are working. Whether presenting in person or virtually, get there early enough to work out any technical glitches before your presentation is scheduled to begin. Few things are a bigger audience turn-off than sitting there watching the presenter struggle with the delivery mechanisms!

Finally, be kind to yourself. Despite thorough preparation and practice, sometimes, things go wrong, and you need to recover in the moment, adapt, and carry on. It’s unlikely that you’ll have caused any lasting damage and the important thing is to learn from your experience, so your next presentation is stronger.

How are you providing presentation skills training for your learners?

Manika Gandhi is Senior Learning Design Manager at Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning. Email her at [email protected] .

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6 presentation skills and how to improve them

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What are presentation skills?

The importance of presentation skills, 6 presentation skills examples, how to improve presentation skills.

Tips for dealing with presentation anxiety

Learn how to captivate an audience with ease

Capturing an audience’s attention takes practice. 

Over time, great presenters learn how to organize their speeches and captivate an audience from start to finish. They spark curiosity, know how to read a room , and understand what their audience needs to walk away feeling like they learned something valuable.

Regardless of your profession, you most likely use presentation skills on a monthly or even weekly basis. Maybe you lead brainstorming sessions or host client calls. 

Developing effective presentation skills makes it easier to contribute ideas with confidence and show others you’re someone to trust. Although speaking in front of a crowd sometimes brings nerves and anxiety , it also sparks new opportunities.

Presentation skills are the qualities and abilities you need to communicate ideas effectively and deliver a compelling speech. They influence how you structure a presentation and how an audience receives it. Understanding body language , creating impactful visual aids, and projecting your voice all fall under this umbrella.

A great presentation depends on more than what you say. It’s about how you say it. Storytelling , stage presence, and voice projection all shape how well you express your ideas and connect with the audience. These skills do take practice, but they’re worth developing — especially if public speaking makes you nervous. 

Engaging a crowd isn’t easy. You may feel anxious to step in front of an audience and have all eyes and ears on you.

But feeling that anxiety doesn’t mean your ideas aren’t worth sharing. Whether you’re giving an inspiring speech or delivering a monthly recap at work, your audience is there to listen to you. Harness that nervous energy and turn it into progress.

Strong presentation skills make it easier to convey your thoughts to audiences of all sizes. They can help you tell a compelling story, convince people of a pitch , or teach a group something entirely new to them. And when it comes to the workplace, the strength of your presentation skills could play a part in getting a promotion or contributing to a new initiative.

To fully understand the impact these skills have on creating a successful presentation, it’s helpful to look at each one individually. Here are six valuable skills you can develop:

1. Active listening

Active listening is an excellent communication skill for any professional to hone. When you have strong active listening skills, you can listen to others effectively and observe their nonverbal cues . This helps you assess whether or not your audience members are engaged in and understand what you’re sharing. 

Great public speakers use active listening to assess the audience’s reactions and adjust their speech if they find it lacks impact. Signs like slouching, negative facial expressions, and roaming eye contact are all signs to watch out for when giving a presentation.

2. Body language

If you’re researching presentation skills, chances are you’ve already watched a few notable speeches like TED Talks or industry seminars. And one thing you probably noticed is that speakers can capture attention with their body language. 

A mixture of eye contact, hand gestures , and purposeful pacing makes a presentation more interesting and engaging. If you stand in one spot and don’t move your body, the audience might zone out.

3. Stage presence

A great stage presence looks different for everyone. A comedian might aim for more movement and excitement, and a conference speaker might focus their energy on the content of their speech. Although neither is better than the other, both understand their strengths and their audience’s needs. 

Developing a stage presence involves finding your own unique communication style . Lean into your strengths, whether that’s adding an injection of humor or asking questions to make it interactive . To give a great presentation, you might even incorporate relevant props or presentation slides.

4. Storytelling

According to Forbes, audiences typically pay attention for about 10 minutes before tuning out . But you can lengthen their attention span by offering a presentation that interests them for longer. Include a narrative they’ll want to listen to, and tell a story as you go along. 

Shaping your content to follow a clear narrative can spark your audience’s curiosity and entice them to pay careful attention. You can use anecdotes from your personal or professional life that take your audience along through relevant moments. If you’re pitching a product, you can start with a problem and lead your audience through the stages of how your product provides a solution.

5. Voice projection

Although this skill may be obvious, you need your audience to hear what you’re saying. This can be challenging if you’re naturally soft-spoken and struggle to project your voice.

Remember to straighten your posture and take deep breaths before speaking, which will help you speak louder and fill the room. If you’re talking into a microphone or participating in a virtual meeting, you can use your regular conversational voice, but you still want to sound confident and self-assured with a strong tone.

If you’re unsure whether everyone can hear you, you can always ask the audience at the beginning of your speech and wait for confirmation. That way, they won’t have to potentially interrupt you later.

Ensuring everyone can hear you also includes your speed and annunciation. It’s easy to speak quickly when nervous, but try to slow down and pronounce every word. Mumbling can make your presentation difficult to understand and pay attention to.

6. Verbal communication 

Although verbal communication involves your projection and tone, it also covers the language and pacing you use to get your point across. This includes where you choose to place pauses in your speech or the tone you use to emphasize important ideas.

If you’re giving a presentation on collaboration in the workplace , you might start your speech by saying, “There’s something every workplace needs to succeed: teamwork.” By placing emphasis on the word “ teamwork ,” you give your audience a hint on what ideas will follow.

To further connect with your audience through diction, pay careful attention to who you’re speaking to. The way you talk to your colleagues might be different from how you speak to a group of superiors, even if you’re discussing the same subject. You might use more humor and a conversational tone for the former and more serious, formal diction for the latter.

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses when it comes to presenting. Maybe you’re confident in your use of body language, but your voice projection needs work. Maybe you’re a great storyteller in small group settings, but need to work on your stage presence in front of larger crowds. 

The first step to improving presentation skills is pinpointing your gaps and determining which qualities to build upon first. Here are four tips for enhancing your presentation skills:

1. Build self-confidence

Confident people know how to speak with authority and share their ideas. Although feeling good about your presentation skills is easier said than done, building confidence is key to helping your audience believe in what you’re saying. Try practicing positive self-talk and continuously researching your topic's ins and outs.

If you don’t feel confident on the inside, fake it until you make it. Stand up straight, project your voice, and try your best to appear engaged and excited. Chances are, the audience doesn’t know you’re unsure of your skills — and they don’t need to.

Another tip is to lean into your slideshow, if you’re using one. Create something colorful and interesting so the audience’s eyes fall there instead of on you. And when you feel proud of your slideshow, you’ll be more eager to share it with others, bringing more energy to your presentation.

2. Watch other presentations

Developing the soft skills necessary for a good presentation can be challenging without seeing them in action. Watch as many as possible to become more familiar with public speaking skills and what makes a great presentation. You could attend events with keynote speakers or view past speeches on similar topics online.

Take a close look at how those presenters use verbal communication and body language to engage their audiences. Grab a notebook and jot down what you enjoyed and your main takeaways. Try to recall the techniques they used to emphasize their main points, whether they used pauses effectively, had interesting visual aids, or told a fascinating story.

3. Get in front of a crowd

You don’t need a large auditorium to practice public speaking. There are dozens of other ways to feel confident and develop good presentation skills.

If you’re a natural comedian, consider joining a small stand-up comedy club. If you’re an avid writer, participate in a public poetry reading. Even music and acting can help you feel more comfortable in front of a crowd.

If you’d rather keep it professional, you can still work on your presentation skills in the office. Challenge yourself to participate at least once in every team meeting, or plan and present a project to become more comfortable vocalizing your ideas. You could also speak to your manager about opportunities that flex your public speaking abilities.

4. Overcome fear

Many people experience feelings of fear before presenting in front of an audience, whether those feelings appear as a few butterflies or more severe anxiety. Try grounding yourself to shift your focus to the present moment. If you’re stuck dwelling on previous experiences that didn’t go well, use those mistakes as learning experiences and focus on what you can improve to do better in the future.

Tips for dealing with presentation anxiety 

It’s normal to feel nervous when sharing your ideas. In fact, according to a report from the Journal of Graduate Medical Education, public speaking anxiety is prevalent in 15–30% of the general population .

Even though having a fear of public speaking is common, it doesn’t make it easier. You might feel overwhelmed, become stiff, and forget what you were going to say. But although the moment might scare you, there are ways to overcome the fear and put mind over matter.

Use these tactics to reduce your stress when you have to make a presentation:

1. Practice breathing techniques

If you experience anxiety often, you’re probably familiar with breathing techniques for stress relief . Incorporating these exercises into your daily routine can help you stop worrying and regulate anxious feelings. 

Before a big presentation, take a moment alone to practice breathing techniques, ground yourself, and reduce tension. It’s also a good idea to take breaths throughout the presentation to speak slower and calm yourself down .

2. Get organized

The more organized you are, the more prepared you’ll feel. Carefully outline all of the critical information you want to use in your presentation, including your main talking points and visual aids, so you don’t forget anything. Use bullet points and visuals on each slide to remind you of what you want to talk about, and create handheld notes to help you stay on track.

3. Embrace moments of silence

It’s okay to lose your train of thought. It happens to even the most experienced public speakers once in a while. If your mind goes blank, don’t panic. Take a moment to breathe, gather your thoughts, and refer to your notes to see where you left off. You can drink some water or make a quick joke to ease the silence or regain your footing. And it’s okay to say, “Give me a moment while I find my notes.” Chances are, people understand the position you’re in.

4. Practice makes progress

Before presenting, rehearse in front of friends and family members you trust. This gives you the chance to work out any weak spots in your speech and become comfortable communicating out loud. If you want to go the extra mile, ask your makeshift audience to ask a surprise question. This tests your on-the-spot thinking and will prove that you can keep cool when things come up.

Whether you’re new to public speaking or are a seasoned presenter, you’re bound to make a few slip-ups. It happens to everyone. The most important thing is that you try your best, brush things off, and work on improving your skills to do better in your next presentation.

Although your job may require a different level of public speaking than your favorite TED Talk , developing presentation skills is handy in any profession. You can use presentation skills in a wide range of tasks in the workplace, whether you’re sharing your ideas with colleagues, expressing concerns to higher-ups, or pitching strategies to potential clients.

Remember to use active listening to read the room and engage your audience with an interesting narrative. Don’t forget to step outside your comfort zone once in a while and put your skills to practice in front of a crowd. After facing your fears, you’ll feel confident enough to put presentation skills on your resume.

If you’re trying to build your skills and become a better employee overall, try a communications coach with BetterUp. 

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Elizabeth Perry is a Coach Community Manager at BetterUp. She uses strategic engagement strategies to cultivate a learning community across a global network of Coaches through in-person and virtual experiences, technology-enabled platforms, and strategic coaching industry partnerships. With over 3 years of coaching experience and a certification in transformative leadership and life coaching from Sofia University, Elizabeth leverages transpersonal psychology expertise to help coaches and clients gain awareness of their behavioral and thought patterns, discover their purpose and passions, and elevate their potential. She is a lifelong student of psychology, personal growth, and human potential as well as an ICF-certified ACC transpersonal life and leadership Coach.

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How to Create an Effective Marketing Presentation (+5 Expert Tips)

June 13, 2019

by Tim Ferguson

Traditional marketing professionals were expected to be a natural at creating and delivering great marketing presentations.

With the advent of digital marketing, however, the importance of old-school presentation skills are often overlooked or given little significance in a marketer’s skill set.

Modern marketers aren’t required to go door-to-door handing out pamphlets and flyers. The level of face-to-face interaction in marketing has been reduced to occasional networking events or marketing conferences.

However, the ability to create an effective marketing presentation is still a prized skill in modern digital marketing. There are several use cases where this prowess will come in handy, such as:

• When proposing a new marketing campaign or initiative, you may need to pitch your ideas to your superiors or clients by giving a presentation at a meeting.
• When conducting a teleseminar or webinar for training purposes, addressing user needs, or launching a new product.
• When creating marketing content for platforms such as SlideShare as a part of your overall content marketing strategy .
• When you finally decide to take up the challenge of becoming a speaker at one of the networking events or marketing conferences.

Create an effective marketing presentation: the tips and tricks 

Apart from being comfortable speaking in front of a group and using slideshow presentation software such as PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides, or Prezi, there are some general guidelines which can be applied to any marketing presentation ideas that will ensure efficacy in terms of engaging your audience, creating sales interest, and ultimately driving the message home. 

The following five guidelines will help you create a marketing presentation that is both effective and engaging. 

5 tips on how to create an effective marketing presentation

• Seize your audience’s attention
• Promise something and deliver it
• Tell an engaging story backed by data
• Have less slide content rather than more 
• Use humor wisely

1. Seize your audience’s attention

Start your social media and marketing presentation with a bang by asking a dramatic question tailored to your audience’s most pressing pain points.

For example, if your topic is something on the lines of how to improve your content marketing ROI, you can start with a provoking remark such as “B2B organizations waste almost $1 billion annually in incompetent and ineffective content marketing, are you contributing to that?” or maybe something like “60-70% of B2B content created is never used because the topic is irrelevant to the buyer audience. So, is your content actually useful or junk?”

Igniting your audience’s emotions and painting a vivid picture of their problems will force them to pay attention to your presentation. Oli Gardner , who is well-known for his inspiring presentations on conversion rate optimization, has a striking approach to his presentations. He starts off by presenting a few gloomy, despairing slides, and once the audience is amply dejected, he swoops in with good news.

The purpose of all this is to get them hooked right off the bat, to seize their attention and get them focused on what you have to say.

2. Promise something and deliver it

Once you’ve got them interested in what you have to present, it is time to make some legit promises, just as you do in your everyday digital marketing activities. For instance, while creating a pay-per-click ad, you write a persuasive copy that promises to solve the reader’s problems, getting them to click through to your landing page. Similarly, if you are writing a blog post, you use the power of storytelling to convince them to take some action such as click a call to action (CTA).

Have you ever seen a tutorial on YouTube? The next time you do, note how all the finest quality videos are the ones in which the presenter makes it crystal clear what you’ll achieve within the first 30 seconds if you watch the entire video. They show you the end-result as proof that they know what they’re doing, and you’ll get what you came for.

So, in the case of the aforementioned remarks on content marketing ROI, you can promise your audience that you’ll show them the exact strategies you used to achieve your goals (rankings, traffic, conversions, etc.).

The point is, the start of your presentation should be all about answering the famous copywriting question: “What’s in it for me?” Make it apparent within the first five minutes that your presentation is going to solve their problems and will provide them with actionable takeaways.

Of course, making these explicit promises means you also have to fulfill them. In fact, go above and beyond in delivering what you promised by following the wise adage “underpromise and overdeliver.” 

3. Tell an engaging story backed by data

The one thing common among all effective presentations is how they leverage storytelling and real-life examples to drive the point home.

There are some truly amazing marketing quotes , but the best, most succinct one is: “At its very core, marketing is storytelling.” by Melinda Partin. The same applies to your presentations. Essentially, your audience is more likely to engage with your content if they find it highly relatable and personal. A story offers that sense of connection by introducing a character (fictional or otherwise) who has a problem you can solve. It creates a scenario that cannot be ignored by the audience.

So, as you go through your slides, use practical, real-life examples to bind the presentation together cogently. It's as simple as telling how you or someone else implemented what you are trying to convey.

That said, ensure all your examples and illustrations are backed by data-driven marketing from reliable sources. Your slides should clearly specify the information source. The last thing you want to hear is “get your facts straight” while giving a presentation.

4. Have less slide content rather than more

How many times have you sat through a presentation where the slides are so brimming with text that it makes the whole presentation ineffective?

Don’t do that. As you may have heard, the average human’s attention span today is pitifully low. And when it comes to paying attention to elaborate presentations in conference settings, or remote presentations using a screen sharing tool , it could be even worse. Your audience likely has far better and more urgent things to do than listen to you and your wordy slides.

So, what do you do? Work to simplify your slides and include only the key points as written text instead of cramming them with the text you’re supposed to speak (and explain). Use slides to support speech, not replace it. And just like with stories and examples, include as many visuals (images, GIFs, videos) as possible to aid understanding. 

Besides, the more slides, the better. Instead of speaking to one slide for several minutes, spread your content around multiple slides. Use numerous images to illustrate your point, and keep the slides moving. This will help tackle the issue of dwindling attention spans.

Furthermore, make sure you use high-quality images. They may look fine on your computer, but images often become blurry after projection on a bigger screen. So be sure to check that. There are plenty of great websites that offer first-rate stock photos and illustrations for free, such as Unsplash, Pixabay, and unDraw.

Also, if you don’t have a graphic designer and there’s a dire need to whip up some good-looking graphics or remove/edit the background of some image you wish to include in your slides, consider using intuitive online tools such as Canva and AutoClipping , respectively. 

5. Use humor wisely

Just because you are presenting in a serious context, doesn’t mean your presentation has to be boring or bland. Including some jokes here and there will increase audience engagement and retention of your content. 

So, give your slides a facelift by enriching them with relevant humor. This can take the form of witty wordplay, GIFs, and even memes. However, make sure the humor is, in fact, relevant to the content you’re presenting and not a distraction. Don’t make it seem forced but natural.

Most memes available on the internet are of low-quality and resolution, you’ll have to take some time to create your own original memes. Don’t worry, though. Creating memes is a fun little activity and doesn’t take a lot of time. Use online tools like Imgflip or Meme Creator which allow you to upload your own image and overlay meme-style text with ease. As for GIFs, you can use GIPHY has a huge library of GIFs and refined search functionality, so you’ll be able to find all the GIFs you need there.

Don’t leave your audience hanging at the end of your presentation. Tell them exactly what to do next: is this the part where they can ask questions and clarify their doubts? How should they use the information you’ve just presented to solve their problems?

Reiterate all of the most important points explained in the presentation and make sure the value you promised at the start of the presentation is actually delivered. If your presentation lacked two-way communication and audience participation, now is the time to have a proper exchange of ideas and casual debates. Lastly, as it was a marketing presentation, it makes sense to end it with a definite CTA that conveys the exact action you want your audience to take. 

Want to read more related content? Check out our guide on the 4 main types of marketing segmentation ! 

Tim Ferguson is a writer and editor of Right Mix Marketing blog. He enjoys writing about SEO, content marketing, online reputation management, social media, AI and Big Data. When he is not writing and editing for Right Mix Marketing, he spends time on learning more about content marketing and getting better at it. You can follow him on Twitter at @RightMixMktg

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Top strategies and tips for creating awesome marketing presentations

Curious about how to make an engaging marketing presentation? Whether you’re new to slide design and need to present a marketing strategy or just looking for ways to make your deck more effective, you’ve come to the right place.

Designing an effective marketing presentation doesn’t have to be a challenge. If you have the proper strategies and know what makes content both visually appealing and engaging, you can easily nail your next presentation.

In this article, we’ll discuss what a marketing presentation should include and give tips on how to do a marketing presentation that actually work.

So let’s get into it!

What is marketing presentation?

A marketing presentation is a set of slides in PowerPoint, Keynote, or any other software accompanied by a presenter’s speech. They aim to introduce new products, drive sales, and get the audience acquainted with a new product or service.

Marketing presentations can also help you solve problems related to spending every marketing penny wisely and stir interest in the offered product or service. All that’s required from you is understanding current design trends, knowing your audience, and using helpful tips for marketing presentations in PowerPoint from this article.

What to include in the marketing strategy presentation?

A marketing presentation has to include information about the new product or service, how it differs from that of the competitors, what channels you intend to utilize to sell it, etc.

Let’s examine the seven components of a good marketing presentation.

1. Marketing objectives

The first step in creating a marketing presentation is recognizing and defining the gap between the target audience’s problem and the solution (your product or service). There are several ways to go about it, but one method used most frequently by seasoned marketers is customer surveys, which help find out what the target audience thinks the market lacks.

Alternatively, you can identify the gap by researching and closely observing industry trends.

Keep in mind: your marketing goal is to eliminate this gap.

2. Value proposition

Value proposition means the strategy you’ll use to attract clients to your product or service. What are its price and quality, unique selling points, etc.? You can use this information to explain to your target audience why they should choose your product over that of your competitors.

3. Market segmentation

You cannot sell your product in the same manner in the US and the Mideast. Both markets are unique in terms of culture and habits. That’s why your marketing presentation should discuss the cultural similarities and differences and your strategy for distributing localized promotional content. It also should include information about your target audience and their purchasing habits.

Here’s a good marketing segmentation example:

4. Brand positioning

Brand positioning is all about the target audience’s perception of your product or service. It will influence everything — from the funds you have to set aside to the marketing channels you have to use.

What should a client associate your brand with? For instance, when someone mentions Versace, we automatically picture richness and style.

5. Customer journey map

How do your customers shop? Before shopping at a physical store, do they see ads on mobile phones or TV commercials? Or do they shop online? You can better understand how to lead them toward the purchase by simply defining their purchasing path. This should be stated in your marketing plan ppt.

Here’s what an online shopping customer journey map looks like:

6. Marketing mix

Your marketing presentation has to cover strategies using which you are going to promote your product or service, including the 4 Ps of marketing:

• Product: What are you going to sell?
• Place: Where will you sell it (online or in a physical store)?
• Price: How much your product or service will cost?
• Promotion: How will you create awareness of your product or service (ads, social media campaigns, etc.)

Any marketing plan or social media strategy requires an effective marketing funnel to be created and proper channels to be promoted. To follow expected campaign success and ROI, make sure to define what channels work best within the invented funnel.

7. Market analysis and measurements

How do you intend to assess your marketing efforts?

Tracking the effectiveness of digital marketing campaigns is rather simple: you can rely on SEO, social media metrics, and other tools. But how can you create a comprehensive analysis and measurement strategy when your overall revenue originates from many sources, such as cross-device sales and physical purchases? Your marketing presentation should also include a detailed answer to these questions.

Now that you know what components are necessary for creating a clear marketing plan, let’s look more closely at how to make your marketing presentation one that your target audience will remember.

Tips on creating effective marketing campaign slides

1. Make your marketing presentation about your audience

Understanding your audience, environment, interests, and preferences is the first step to developing stunning marketing presentations that sparkle the audience’s interest.

• Is your audience C-suite executives, seasoned marketers, or entry-level employees?
• What are their core emotional and physical needs?
• What are their pain points and motivations?

Answers to these questions will help you put yourself in the audience’s shoes and determine how to cater to their needs.

2. Built empathy

Don’t just focus on your desires and say what you want. Instead, focus on the audience’s side of the story and create empathy with your target audience.

• Here are three ways to do just that:
• Speak directly about what you’ll do for the audience.
• Give them a plausible vision of a better life.
• Ask if they have any fascinating marketing stories, or share yours with them.

It all will help set the relaxed tone for your presentation.

3. Start your presentation with a hook

We know. It’s not easy to start a marketing plan presentation. You are nervous, and the audience might be surfing the web or talking among themselves. Getting its attention is a tough task. But there is an effective way to go about it: start with a hook. It might be a quote, question, or reference to the good or service you’re about to introduce. The idea is to sparkle the interest of your audience in what is to come.

Here’s a great example:

4. Create more slides with little content

People working for corporations, especially senior managers or C-suite executives, can view dozens of presentations daily. It can be very challenging to hold their interest for an extended time.

One of the biggest mistakes most presenters make is putting too much information into one slide to conclude the presentation faster. In a marketing PowerPoint presentation, you should absolutely avoid doing this. Remember, it’s better to have 200 slides will little content than 50 heavily loaded with information.

5. Simplify as much as possible in marketing presentation ppt slides

As you create each slide, ask the question, “What is its purpose?” in the context of the company’s business goals. This question is pertinent to the whole slide and its specific elements.

Don’t be afraid of white spaces; fill your presentation with meaningful pictures and legible text.

Highlight only one concept on each slide. Make more essential elements large and bright and the less important ones small and close to the background color.

Always strive to have numerous slides that contain not only walls of content but also pictures, animated GIFs, and other interactive elements, and follow the rule of three.

6. Keep a story flow to create the best marketing presentation

Any information needs to be structured. A few are interested in countless numbers, data, and statements telling little. Your audience is still people who prefer organized facts, representing a logical sequence and a connection.

At the storytelling stage, highlight information that will help convey your message and combine it into a single canvas.

Focus on the story. Contrast the story. Unite the story.

Answers to these questions will help you formulate the general presentation goal and choose the most appropriate structure:

• What do I want the audience to do?
• What do I want them to remember?
• Do I evoke emotions, intrigue, or conflict between real people or views (conflict of values, ideas)?
• How do I want them to react?
• Do I have an introduction, problem, solution, and conclusion?

7. Provide real-life examples and insights

Nothing beats having relevant information and insights to back your content. Your audience could be more interested in learning what you concluded from the data and how you arrived at that conclusion than just wanting to see random numbers on the slides.

Additionally, make sure to give a clear explanation of how you intend to use this information to your benefit.

8. Follow the latest trends in marketing presentations

Try to keep up with the times and design your slides so that they don’t feel like a relic of the past. After all, the level of the audience’s confidence in you as a presenter will depend on how well you design your presentation.

Some great examples to follow:

9. Pay attention to the visual hierarchy

It’s crucial to think about how the audience will interpret the information you’re presenting when creating a presentation. Most people instinctively move to the top of a slide before moving from left to right to evaluate the remaining information. Depending on how your content and visuals are organized, your audience will process visual data either in a Z or F pattern.

People that use a Z pattern scan information from top left to right before moving diagonally to the bottom of the page. Then the human eye processes the visual information from left to right. This viewing pattern is perfect for marketing presentation slides with many graphs or still pictures but few text blocks.

People frequently go from the top left of a slide to the right in an F pattern when slides contain a lot of written content. They follow this pattern until they reach the bottom of the page. This arrangement makes the material easy to follow and helps keep the audience’s focus.

10. Choose legit fonts

The fonts we use significantly affect the presentation’s tone, feel, and appearance, so choose wisely and stick with 2-3 fonts at most.

We recommend you go for fonts like Verdana, Georgia, Montserrat, etc. They are easy to read and contrast well with each other.

11. Make sure your presentation is uniform

When designing a marketing presentation, most presenters frequently concentrate more on the content and neglect the visual appeal, which is a bad practice.

We recommend choosing a solid theme or using brand colors and typography in your marketing presentation design. This way, you’ll not only get efficient and effective slides but also will help your audience get acquainted with your brand.

12. Keep color psychology in mind

It’s unquestionably true that specific colors can affect consumers’ purchasing decisions, making them a critical design choice for any marketing presentation.

There are numerous distinct ways that color can affect the audience’s emotions. It may draw their attention to particular sections of the marketing strategy slides or even create positive memories.

Here’s what colors work well together:

13. Use five colors at most

It’s common practice to use no more than 2-3 colors on one slide, taking into account the primary background color. And up to five colors are advised throughout the entire presentation. The reason is simple: a large number of colors interferes with reading and information processing.

14. Strive for harmony

Visuals can make or break your presentation, so ensure all images and icons used are high-resolution and consistent with all other design elements. More to it, every image should be accompanied by text in the appropriate font and suitable background.

Remember, the presentation design aims to set the general tone and evoke certain emotions and associations among the audience, not just to please the eye.

15. Create sharable moments

We live in times when everyone wants to tell their friends about what they’ve been doing or learning. People appreciate having a “natural” opportunity to discuss details or memorable moments during a conference or marketing presentation.

One of the ideal ways to do this is to have quotable moments or catchphrases in your PowerPoint marketing presentation that the audience can share verbatim or as a photo or video.

These may include fresh market tendencies, particular benefits of your product or service, or other intriguing information that other people would find helpful.

Remember to add your social media hashtag for the target audience to tag your company.

16. Joke and be sincere

Practice how to laugh at yourself even during presentations. There are many TEDx talks about investigating this skill. Take a look. Conclude. Smile. The audience will appreciate your ease of communication and ease of speech.

Creating a marketing presentation ppt doesn’t have to be a daunting, nerve-wracking process. If you need assistance creating a professional marketing presentation, don’t hesitate to contact our custom presentation design agency. We’d love to help you take your marketing presentation to the next level!

#ezw_tco-2 .ez-toc-widget-container ul.ez-toc-list li.active::before { background-color: #ededed; } Table of contents

• Presenting techniques
• 50 tips on how to improve PowerPoint presentations in 2022-2023 [Updated]
• Present financial information visually in PowerPoint to drive results
• Keynote VS PowerPoint
• Types of presentations

How to make a presentation interactive

Introduce a new product idea in a presentation

Delivering a successful event presentation

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Blog Beginner Guides 9 Tips for Improving Your Presentation Skills For Your Next Meeting

9 Tips for Improving Your Presentation Skills For Your Next Meeting

Written by: Hannah Tow Feb 03, 2020

Presenting to an audience is one thing, but presenting ideas in a persuasive manner to the key stakeholders of your business is a whole other ball game.

The fact of the matter is that successfully presenting to a room full of people is a skill that’s mastered by very few. It takes practice, practice, and even more practice to start feeling comfortable with everyone’s eyes focused on you so you can effectively get your point across. 

The reality of presenting is that you can’t escape it. Especially as you start to move up in your career. If you’re yearning to improve, this article will walk you through the top nine tips to use to enhance your presentation skills for your next big meeting as well as throughout your life. Let’s get started.

9 top tips for improving your presentation skills:

• Practice speaking in front of others
• Use less text and more visuals in your presentation
• Leverage your personality
• Welcome questions and comments during
• Be passionate and engaging
• Maintain eye contact with your audience
• Obsess over your listeners
• Focus on confident body language
• Keep it as short as possible

Constantly practicing, refining and improving upon your presentation skills will not only make you a more confident individual, but you will find that you rise quicker to success in your career. However, having great presentation skills does not just affect your work-life. Great presentation skills are truly life skills that you should integrate into more areas than just the conference room.

1. Practice speaking in front of others 

Practice always makes perfect. 

It doesn’t matter how well you know what you’re talking about, the moment you have to persuade, engage, or teach in front of an audience, you will probably stumble a bit. This is a natural reaction that affects pretty much everyone when all eyes are pointed in one direction and the anxiety sets in. 

It’s important to remember that the overwhelming feeling of stress you probably feel is the result of your unfamiliarity with the situation, not from your lack of preparedness. The more comfortable you are with taking the stage and having everyone’s attention on you, the less nervous you’ll get. 

The greater confidence you have in your presentation skills will allow you to focus on what actually matters–which is the material that you’re presenting. 

The best way to implement this practice is by starting off small. Prepare a presentation to give to your friends, family, or closest co-workers. This sounds easy, but you will learn that it’s not necessarily who is listening to you that causes nerves, but it’s the fact that all of the attention is on you. 

You’ll become more comfortable with the attention when you begin practicing in front of others more often, which will allow you to effectively present your ideas next time it’s your turn to speak in the conference room.

RELATED: Learn the top ten public speaking tips to better prepare you for your practice sessions. 

2. Use less text and more visuals in your presentation

We’ve all been there before: sitting at the conference table trying our very best to stay interested and engaged with the presentation before us. The presentation lacks color, images, and all sense of creativity while containing an over-abundance of text and long-form paragraphs. 

These types of presentations are horrible for two reasons: 

The first reason being that the minute you have words on the screen, your audience will direct their attention away from you to begin reading and completely tune you out. 

The second reason is if your presentation skills are poor, not only will your presentation be dull to listen to, but it will be unbelievably boring to look at as well. You’ll quickly find out how easy it is to lose most of the room’s attention when you create a lackluster presentation. 

If you feel lost attempting to design your slides into an exciting work of art, try using creative presentation templates . PowerPoint templates make it simple to produce something beautiful, and they can also make you feel like an accomplished designer after seeing the outcome, such as this business presentation example . 

In addition to nicely designed slides, you should always try to use infographics and charts to help you better summarize the complex information you’re relaying to your audience. It will be much easier for your listeners to understand what you’re explaining when they have something to visualize it with. Plus, there are plenty of resources out there to help you craft these visuals.

Learn how to make an infographic in five easy steps or produce an impressive graph .

If you feel worried that your presentation doesn’t hold enough content, you must remember the main reason for visual aids: 

They are to enhance what you’re speaking about, not lead it! 

If you’ve done enough practicing, you should feel confident in your presentation skills to thoroughly explain your main ideas and you won’t need to rely on the screen anyhow.

TIP: If you’re looking for even more ways to engage your audience with your visuals, check out 120+ presentation ideas that are sure to wow and delight! 

3. Leverage your personality

As cliche as it sounds, you should always be true to who you are, especially if when you’re presenting. 

It’s incredibly easy to tell if someone is faking it for the sake of their audience, so you should never pretend to act in a way that you don’t typically do. Not only will you feel unnatural and uncomfortable doing it, but you can also risk embarrassment when you try to tell a forced joke and no one laughs or your new-found trait of sarcasm doesn’t sit well with your boss. 

It should bring you comfort knowing that most everyone in your meeting knows who you are. Use this to your advantage and start the presentation by playing up your best personality traits. Use your humor if you’re known to crack jokes or throw in your typical mannerisms.

These little additions will make your presentation feel much more relaxed for everyone involved. In addition to your own unique quirks, you should also bring a level of personability to your meeting.

Be empathetic, smile more, and look around the room.  Doing so will improve your presentation skills, make you more likable, and allow your audience to be more receptive to you. 

In many cases, you may be presenting virtually, rather than in person. You can still allow your personality to shine through and energize your virtual presentation. Lisa Schneider, Chief Growth Officer at Merriam-Webster, wrote for Venngage on how to adapt an in-person presentation into a virtual presentation . Check it out.

4. Welcome questions and comments during your presentation

Be flexible throughout your presentation. Answer questions and respond to any comments your audience may have either through hand raising or an audience response tool . Don’t worry if it veers you off your script. Chances are if one person has a question or comment, the others in the room are thinking it too. 

Use this as an opportunity to prove how well you understand the material you’re presenting–your audience will take notice.

Also, take some time out at the start or your presentation to ask your audience some icebreaker questions and slowly transition into the more important stuff. 

Taking this minute to talk through anything that your audience is thinking of is a good thing because it means they are engaged with you and really paying attention to the words coming out of your mouth. Doing so will also relax the format of your presentation, allowing you to feel more confident and relaxed as well.

5. Be passionate and engaging 

When creating your presentation, craft it in such a way that makes your audience curious and makes them have questions for you. A persuasive presentation is the best way to get the positive reactions you are looking for, so be as passionate as you can be about your subject matter to seal the deal. 

Remember that questions and comments during your presentation are a good thing, especially if you’re the one prompting them! 

The more excited you are to present your ideas and show off your expertise, the more excited and engaged your audience will be. Own your subject matter and know what you’re talking about, it’s one of the most important presentation skills to have.

6. Maintain eye contact with your audience

This is a very obvious tip that will go a long way with your audience. 

When the people you’re speaking to feel like you’re taking notice of them, they are much more likely to take notice of you and pay better attention to everything that you’re saying. 

It’s important to remember that losing eye contact and looking everywhere but at the people that you’re presenting to is a common nervous behavior. Pay extra close attention to whether or not you’re guilty of that, and work to ensure you have your eyes on at least one person.

7. Obsess over your listeners 

Be receptive to your listeners. You can’t forget that what you’re presenting is for the audience, and it has nothing to do about you! 

Focus on the value you can provide to the people in the room. The more serving you are to them, the greater chance you have at driving your point home and nailing your presentation. 

It’s also important not to forget about those listening to you remotely over video conferencing . Make sure they know you’re aware of them and engage them as well! 

8. Focus on confident body language 

Smiling, hand gestures, eye contact, and a powerful stance all exude confidence. 

If you don’t have strong body language and are showing physical signs of nervousness (ie. tapping, bouncing, shaking, darting eyes, and more) your audience will have a hard time focusing on the material you’re presenting and hone in on the fact that you’re nervous and probably don’t know what you’re talking about as much as you say you do.

No matter how nervous you are, take a deep breath and pretend otherwise. You might actually start to believe it!

9. Keep it as short as possible

Every single person’s time is valuable ( especially at work), so don’t waste precious meeting time. If you can say everything you need to in half of the time that is allotted, you should do so. 

Ensure that you’re only sharing the most important information. All of the extra fluff will bore your audience and you will lose their attention very quickly.

It’s a great idea to wrap up your presentation with key takeaways and action items. Doing so will ensure that no matter how quickly your meeting ended, your team understands their next steps. You can send out a quick, summarizing slide deck or an easy to read one-pager for their reference later. These visuals will make sure all of your bases are covered and that everyone is on the same page upon leaving the meeting.

A good presentation makes all the difference. Check out the top qualities of awesome presentations and learn all about how to make a good presentation to help you nail that captivating delivery.

Never stop refining your presentation skills 

Possessing great presentation skills doesn’t come naturally to most people–it’s something that’s learned and practiced over time. As with most things in life, you must continuously work on refining your skills to get better and better. 

Use these nine proven presentation tips that we covered in this article to improve your presentation skills and ace different presentation styles . By doing so, you will find that presenting at your key meetings becomes easier and easier and you’ll begin to nail it every single time.

More presentation guides:

How to Make a Persuasive Presentation

120+ Best Presentation Ideas, Design Tips & Examples

33 Presentation Templates and Design Tips to Hold Your Audience’s Attention

Presentation Design Guide: How to Summarize Information for Presentations

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The Importance of Presentation Skills: That You Must Know About

Presentation Skills are essential for effectively conveying ideas and engaging an audience. This blog explores the Importance of Presentation Skills, highlighting how they boost confidence, enhance communication, and improve professional success. Master these skills to leave a lasting impression and achieve your goals.

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Table of Contents  

1) A Brief Introduction to Presentation Skills 

2) Importance of Presentation Skills in Personal Life 

3) Importance of Presentation Skills in Professional Life 

4) Tips to Improve Your Presentation Skills 

5) Conclusion 

A Brief Introduction to Presentation Skills  

Presentation Skills can be defined as the ability to deliver information confidently and persuasively to engage and influence the audience. Be it in personal or professional settings; mastering Presentation Skills empowers individuals to convey their ideas with clarity, build confidence, and leave a lasting impression. From public speaking to business pitches, honing these skills can lead to greater success in diverse spheres of life.  You can also refer to various presentation skills interview questions and Answers  to build you confidence! 

Importance of Presentation Skills in Personal Life  

Effective Presentation Skills are not limited to professional settings alone; they play a significant role in personal life as well. Let us now explore  the Importance of Presentation Skills in one’s personal life:    

Expressing Ideas Clearly   

In day-to-day conversations with family, friends, or acquaintances, having good Presentation Skills enables you to articulate your thoughts and ideas clearly. Whether you're discussing plans for the weekend or sharing your opinions on a particular topic, being an effective communicator encourages better understanding and engagement. 

Enhancing Social Confidence  

Many individuals struggle with social anxiety or nervousness in social gatherings. Mastering Presentation Skills helps boost self-confidence, making it easier to navigate social situations with ease. The ability to present yourself confidently and engage others in conversation enhances your social life and opens doors to new relationships. 

Creating Memories on Special Occasions  

There are moments in life that call for public speaking, such as proposing a toast at a wedding, delivering a speech at a family gathering, or giving a presentation during special events. Having polished Presentation Skills enables you to leave a positive impression on the audience, making these occasions even more memorable. 

Handling Challenging Conversations  

Life often presents challenging situations that require delicate communication, such as expressing condolences or resolving conflicts. Strong Presentation Skills help you convey your feelings and thoughts sensitively, encouraging effective and empathetic communication during difficult times. 

Building Stronger Relationships  

Being a skilled presenter means being a good listener as well. Active listening is a fundamental aspect of effective Presentations, and when applied in personal relationships, it strengthens bonds and builds trust. Empathising with others and showing genuine interest in their stories and opinions enhances the quality of your relationships. 

Advocating for Personal Goals  

Whether you're pursuing personal projects or seeking support for a cause you're passionate about, the ability to present your ideas persuasively helps garner support and enthusiasm from others. This can be beneficial in achieving personal goals and making a positive impact on your community. 

Inspiring and Motivating Others  

In one’s personal life, Presentation Skills are not just about delivering formal speeches; they also involve inspiring and motivating others through your actions and words. Whether you're sharing your experiences, mentoring someone, or encouraging loved ones during tough times, your Presentation skills can be a source of inspiration for others. 

Exuding leadership traits  

Effective Presentation Skills go hand in hand with leadership qualities. Being able to communicate clearly and influence others' perspectives positions you as a leader within your family, social circles, or community. Leadership in personal life involves guiding and supporting others towards positive outcomes. 

Unlock your full potential as a presenter with our Presentation Skills Training Course. Join now!  

Importance of Presentation Skills in Professional Life  

Effective Presentation skills are a vital asset for career growth and success in professional life. Let us now explore the Importance of Presentation skills for students and workers:  

Impressing Employers and Clients  

During job interviews or business meetings, a well-delivered Presentation showcases your knowledge, confidence, and ability to communicate ideas effectively. It impresses employers, clients, and potential investors, leaving a positive and memorable impression that can tilt the scales in your favour. 

Advancing in Your Career  

In the corporate world, promotions and career advancements often involve presenting your achievements, ideas, and future plans to decision-makers. Strong Presentation Skills demonstrate your leadership potential and readiness for higher responsibilities, opening doors to new opportunities. 

Effective Team Collaboration  

As a professional, you often need to present projects, strategies, or updates to your team or colleagues. A compelling Presentation facilitates better understanding and association among team members, leading to more productive and successful projects. 

Persuasive Selling Techniques  

For sales and marketing professionals, Presentation skills are instrumental in persuading potential customers to choose your products or services. An engaging sales pitch can sway buying decisions, leading to increased revenue and business growth. 

Creating Impactful Proposals  

In the corporate world, proposals are crucial for securing new partnerships or business deals. A well-structured and compelling Presentation can make your proposal stand out and increase the chances of successful negotiations. 

Gaining and Retaining Clients  

Whether you are a freelancer, consultant, or business owner, Presentation Skills play a key role in winning and retaining clients. A captivating Presentation not only convinces clients of your capabilities but also builds trust and promotes long-term relationships. 

Enhancing Public Speaking Engagements  

Professional life often involves speaking at conferences, seminars, or industry events. Being a confident and engaging speaker allows you to deliver your message effectively, position yourself as an expert, and expand your professional network. 

Influencing Stakeholders and Decision-makers  

As you climb the corporate ladder, you may find yourself presenting to senior management or board members. Effective Presentations are essential for gaining support for your ideas, projects, or initiatives from key stakeholders. 

Handling Meetings and Discussions  

In meetings, being able to present your thoughts clearly and concisely contributes to productive discussions and efficient decision-making. It ensures that your ideas are understood and considered by colleagues and superiors. 

Professional Development  

Investing time in honing Presentation Skills is a form of professional development. As you become a more effective presenter, you become a more valuable asset to your organisation and industry. 

Building a Personal Brand  

A strong personal brand is vital for professional success. Impressive Presentations contribute to building a positive reputation and positioning yourself as a thought leader or industry expert. 

Career Transitions and Interviews  

When seeking new opportunities or transitioning to a different industry, Presentation Skills are essential for communicating your transferable skills and showcasing your adaptability to potential employers. 

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Tips to Improve Your Presentation Skills 

Now that you know about the Importance of Presentation Skills in your personal and professional life, we will provide you with tips on how to  Improve Your Presentation Skills .

1) Know Your Audience: Understand the demographics and interests of your audience to tailor your Presentation accordingly. 

2) Practice Regularly: Rehearse your speech multiple times to refine content and delivery. 

3) Seek Feedback: Gather feedback from peers or mentors to identify areas for improvement. 

4) Manage Nervousness: Use relaxation techniques to overcome nervousness before presenting. 

5) Engage with Eye Contact: Maintain eye contact with the audience to establish a connection. 

6) Use Clear Visuals: Utilise impactful visuals to complement your spoken words. 

7) Emphasise Key Points: Highlight important information to enhance audience retention. 

8) Employ body language: Use confident and purposeful gestures to convey your message. 

9) Handle Q&A Confidently: Prepare for potential questions and answer them with clarity. 

10) Add Personal Stories: Include relevant anecdotes to make your Presentation more relatable. 

Learn different methods of delivering presentations with our Presenting with Impact Training – Join today!

Presentation Skills are a valuable asset, impacting both personal and professional realms of life. By mastering these skills, you can become a more effective communicator, a confident professional, and a persuasive influencer. Continuous improvement and adaptation to technological advancements will ensure you stay ahead in this competitive world. 

Learn about presentation styles with our Presentation Skills Training   – Join today! 

Frequently Asked Questions

Visual aids can make your presentation engaging and easier to understand. They help illustrate key points and keep the audience’s attention. Using visuals like charts, images, and videos can make your message clearer and more memorable.

Common mistakes include reading directly from slides, overloading slides with text, and not practising enough. To avoid them, practice thoroughly, use bullet points, and keep your slides simple.

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Alongside our diverse Online Course Catalogue, encompassing 17 major categories, we go the extra mile by providing a plethora of free educational Online Resources like News updates, Blogs , videos, webinars, and interview questions. Tailoring learning experiences further, professionals can maximise value with customisable Course Bundles of TKA .  

The Knowledge Academy’s Knowledge Pass , a prepaid voucher, adds another layer of flexibility, allowing course bookings over a 12-month period. Join us on a journey where education knows no bounds.

The Knowledge Academy offers various Presentation Skills Courses , including Presentation Skills Training, Presenting with Impact Training, and Data Analysis Skills Course. These courses cater to different skill levels, providing comprehensive insights into Types of Communication .  

Our Business Skills Blogs cover a range of topics related to Presentation Skills, offering valuable resources, best practices, and industry insights. Whether you are a beginner or looking to advance your Presentation Skills, The Knowledge Academy's diverse courses and informative blogs have got you covered.  

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Mastering Presentation Skills for Marketing Professionals: Techniques for Impactful Communication

Whats Inside?

Understanding the importance of presentation skills, crafting your narrative: the story behind the strategy, harnessing the power of visual aids, mastering the art of delivery, embracing feedback for continuous improvement, know your audience: the first rule of effective communication, active listening: a two-way communication street, embrace technology: tools for a digital age, learning from the best: observing the masters.

In the arena of marketing, the landscape is continually shifting, presenting an onslaught of new challenges, opportunities, and strategies. It’s a world in which the ability to captivate an audience and convey a message powerfully, is a make-or-break skill. Whether you're promoting a new product, laying out a revamped business strategy, or holding an internal team meeting, the way you present your ideas can be the difference between compelling communication and a missed opportunity. One particularly potent tool in any marketing professional's arsenal is the power of effective presentation skills, and in this article, we are going to explore ways you can master them. One such strategy we will touch upon is using slide templates by McKinsey experts, a tool renowned for its sophistication and professional allure.

Before we delve into the nitty-gritty of mastering presentation skills, it's imperative to understand their significance in the world of marketing. Strong presentation skills enhance the ability to inform, persuade, and motivate, fostering business relationships and facilitating the decision-making process. According to Harvard Business Review, effective presentations are a blend of engaging storytelling, convincing data, and captivating visuals.

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Every successful presentation is, at its core, a story. As a marketing professional, your job isn't just to recite numbers and strategies—it's to weave a narrative that frames these elements in a compelling context. Storytelling fosters an emotional connection with your audience, which, according to Psychology Today , plays a significant role in decision-making processes. Construct your presentation as you would a captivating tale, with a clear beginning, middle, and end.

Even the most eloquent of speakers can lose their audience's attention without the right visual aids. This is where tools like slide templates by McKinsey experts come in handy. Visuals aid in comprehension, retention, and engagement. A study by the Social Science Research Network found that 65% of people are visual learners. Thus, effectively using visual aids can make your presentation more memorable and impactful.

A message is only as compelling as its delivery. Regardless of the quality of your content, poor delivery can undermine the effectiveness of your presentation. As a marketing professional, mastering your voice inflections, body language, and pacing can significantly enhance your presentations. Renowned speaker and communication expert Julian Treasure suggests in his TED Talk that the foundation of powerful speaking is "HAIL" — Honesty, Authenticity, Integrity, and Love.

The journey to mastering presentation skills doesn't end with a single successful presentation—it's an ongoing process. Consistent feedback, both from yourself and others, is critical in honing your skills. Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, once said, "We all need people who will give us feedback. That's how we improve." Make it a habit to request feedback after every presentation, and use that feedback to continue refining your skills.

Up to this point, we have highlighted the importance of presentation skills, the art of crafting a narrative, the use of visual aids like slide templates, the mastery of delivery, and the embracing of feedback for continuous improvement.

Understanding your audience is a foundational element of successful marketing presentations. The more you know about your audience's needs, wants, pain points, and preferences, the better you can tailor your message to resonate with them. Remember, what engages one audience may not necessarily work with another. According to Forbes, creating more targeted marketing campaigns starts with knowing your audience. Try to grasp their perspectives and anticipate their questions. This understanding will shape your content, delivery style, and even your choice of visual aids.

Active listening is an underrated, yet crucial aspect of presentation skills. While a presentation might seem like a one-way street, the best presenters know the value of fostering a dialogue, rather than delivering a monologue. They understand that a presentation is an opportunity to engage in two-way communication. Active listening fosters engagement, builds trust, and creates an environment conducive to open discussion. As noted in an article on Harvard Business Review , great listeners foster a cooperative conversation where both parties are equally involved.

Technology has revolutionized the way we present. Tools like Prezi, Google Slides, and McKinsey expert slide templates have broadened the horizons of what's possible in a presentation. For example, dynamic presentations can engage the audience in ways traditional slide decks can't. Don't shy away from utilizing these tools to their fullest potential, but always ensure they serve to enhance your message, not distract from it. For more on this, check out this Forbes article on how technology trends are impacting businesses.

Studying the methods of skilled presenters can offer valuable insights to apply to your presentations. Steve Jobs, for example, was known for his minimalist slide designs and charismatic delivery. TED Talks, filled with engaging speakers discussing diverse topics, provide a wealth of examples of excellent presentation techniques. By observing these masters, you can identify successful strategies and adapt them to your style. Inc.com features a fascinating article on how Steve Jobs used presentation skills to engage audiences.

Mastering presentation skills is an art, and like any art, it requires practice, patience, and a dedicated approach. From understanding the significance of these skills, crafting a compelling narrative, harnessing the power of visual aids such as McKinsey expert slide templates, mastering the art of delivery, embracing feedback, understanding your audience, practicing active listening, embracing technology, and learning from the masters - every step takes you closer to becoming a more impactful communicator.

Remember, the journey of mastering presentation skills is ongoing. The more you learn, the more you'll realize there's more to discover. Keep honing your skills, keep learning, and remember - the most compelling presentations don't just share information, they tell stories, they engage audiences, and they leave a lasting impact. Embrace the art of presentation, and watch as it transforms your marketing career.

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11 Tips for Improving Your Presentation Skills (& Free Training)

Written by: Heleana Tiburca

Are you looking for ways to completely level up your presentation skills? We’ve rounded up a list of the 10 best tips to help you deliver and create an effective presentation .

Here’s a sneak peek at some of the tips you’ll find inside:

• Create an audience journey roadmap
• Use proper and confident body language
• Meet your audience before presenting to better connect with them
• Focus on your presentation design to engage your audience

... and a whole lot more!

So, if you want to take your presentation skills to the next level, then this list will show you exactly how to do so.

Let’s get into it.

Table of Contents

Tip #1: define the purpose of your presentation., tip #2: create an audience journey map., tip #3: keep your slides short and sweet., tip #4: focus on your presentation design., tip #5: visualize boring numbers and data., tip #6: practice in front of a live audience., tip #7: meet your audience before presenting., tip #8: channel nervous energy into enthusiastic energy., tip #9: use proper and confident body language., tip #10: allow your personality to shine through., tip #11: take courses to improve your presentation skills., free presentation skills training.

Behind every successful presentation, there was carefully crafted planning that went into it beforehand. To ensure that you’ll have a powerful presentation, you need to consider your message.

The very first step to any good presentation is to define its purpose. This goes on in the very beginning during the planning process where you consider your message.

Your presentation’s end goal can be any of the following:

• To entertain
• To persuade

Your presentation’s end goal might even be a combination of the four purposes above. Consider the fact that you may need to inform buyers of your product and what problem it solves for them, but you also need to persuade them into buying it.

This is where engaging storytelling and proper visual aids will come into play to help you achieve your goal, and will either make or break your presentation.

Once you pinpoint the purpose of your presentation, you can then begin to work on the subject matter and your audience journey map.

An audience journey map is a visual representation of all the steps you need to take your audience members through, from first to last and everything in between, to achieve the goal of your presentation.

There are a few steps to creating your audience journey map.

First, you need to start your explanation at a low point — the current state of an issue. Maybe there’s a problem that you are able to solve. Describe the current situation before you lay out the undertaking ahead.

Once you lay out the problem, you can then start showing your audience the process of solving this problem. To not overwhelm your crowd, give them an actionable roadmap to follow.

With great verbal communication skills, you can tell them how you plan to take the first step.

This is many times the hardest part of the presentation, but once you have the foundation for your first step, you can easily lay out the next stepping stones and take them to your end goal with ease.

Creating an audience journey map will be a major success factor in a compelling presentation and needs to be done before writing and creating your slides.

Having a clear audience journey map will also help ensure you take your audience on a smooth journey with all your main points in line and achieve your end goal with no bumps in the road.

When giving a presentation, make sure that you keep it short, sweet and as informationally-condensed as possible. All of your slides should be easy to digest and understandable at a glance.

Let's take a look at an example. The slide below is part of Visme's simple presentation theme , which is designed to have maximum impact with minimal text.

You can customize this slide and others like it in Visme's presentation software . Or, you can apply the same concept of minimalism to any other presentation tool, such as PowerPoint.

To make sure that you stay on topic and won’t overwhelm your crowd with too much information, you need to have a plan. When you have a solid plan to go by, you won’t go off track and begin rambling about things unrelated to your presentation.

Another practical way you can stay on topic and not overwhelm your audience with too much information is to have your main points written in bold somewhere on your slides.

Here's another example of a Visme slide template that does that well:

As you can see above, you don’t need to write out all the information surrounding the main points, as this will cause your audience too much confusion.

An experienced presenter will be able to quickly glance over at their own presentation slides, see the main points and continue on with their presentation, engaging their audience without going off course.

This, of course, comes with a lot of rehearsing out loud, which we will cover more in tip number six .

Another great way to keep your presentation short is to set a specific time for asking questions.

By reserving a few minutes during your presentation for your audience to ask questions, you can present your main points and achieve your goals, without going into too much detail.

Your audience can then ask for clarity on anything that interests them and you can answer their questions in however much detail you need.

Picture this: you’re gathered around the conference table with all your colleagues early Monday morning and your manager pulls up a lifeless, colorless, text-filled Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.

You’re trying your best to pay attention and understand what he’s trying to convey, but staring deep into your coffee cup seems much more interesting at this point.

Sound familiar?

This is why it’s so crucial to understand how your presentation design will affect the outcome.

By having a messy and overloaded presentation, you’ll lose your audience almost immediately. On the flip side, if it’s so mundane and boring, you will also lose their attention.

One design presentation tip that we suggest you implement is to make sure you don’t overcrowd your slides with too much text.

This is a risky thing to do because the moment you flip to the next slide, your audience’s attention goes from what you’re saying, to your slide.

They’ll begin to read everything presented on the slide and completely tune you out. This is why a minimal text approach with a maximum of 2-3 different yet complementary fonts on your slides will be ideal, like in the example below.

You can use visual aids like images, animated graphic design elements, videos and more to convey the same message that boring text would.

It’s not everyone’s cup of tea to design a presentation from scratch, and that’s why it can be incredibly helpful to use a tool that offers presentation templates to help you get started.

Visme has hundreds of handcrafted presentation templates for public speakers to use for any occasion. Each presentation template is fully customizable and you’ll be able to add your branded content to your slides to make it your own.

Presenting your data can be an incredibly tricky and difficult task.

Instead of adding a bunch of tables and numbers to your slides, try switching things up by using charts, graphs and other data visualization types .

When creating a chart for your presentation, you need to be mindful of several things.

First, you need to choose the right chart to begin with. Not every type of graph is suitable for all data sets. The chart you choose will depend on the nature of your data and your unique purpose of using that chart.

Here's an infographic to help you understand what type of chart to use depending on your unique needs and nature of data.

Image Source

For example, if you're drawing a comparison between two or more items, a bar graph might be suitable. But if you're breaking down composition, a pie chart might be a better idea.

Also, make sure that you can fit all of your information into a chart without overcrowding the visual and also have your audience understand that information at a glance, like in the example below.

Other data visualization tips to keep in mind include choosing a pleasant, cohesive color scheme, sticking to max 2-3 fonts, incorporating a legend, and keeping your data as simple as possible.

Learn more about data visualization best practices to help you create engaging charts for your presentations and reports.

If you're using Visme, you can also import your data directly from Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, Survey Monkey, Google Analytics and more.

Practice, practice and practice again.

Some would argue that writing up and designing a presentation from scratch is the easiest part. Delivering the presentation in a way that it engages your audience — that's the tricky part.

When it comes to public speaking, it’s only natural that one would get a little nervous and stumble upon their words.

That’s why practicing your public speaking skills in front of others will be vital to how well you present and connect with your crowd during your actual presentation.

It’s one thing to practice in front of the mirror, but it’s something completely different when people are waiting for you to deliver information that will improve their business or life.

So gather up some friends, family members or even your pets, and present your presentation from start to finish as many times as you need.

By presenting your slides out loud, you might even catch some mistakes in your presentation or find you need to add in some missing information.

By shaking your attendee’s hand before a meeting, you’ll begin to make connections and become more approachable and likable by your audience.

Meeting your audience will help break the ice and make them more likely to listen to what you have to say. They will also feel more comfortable asking you questions later, which will increase the value they get out of your presentation.

Plus, you’ll also feel more relaxed speaking to your audience if you've met them already. When you can put a name to a face, you’ll automatically feel a sense of comfort when you make eye contact with them while presenting.

Even the most famous movie stars and popular public speakers will still get nervous before a public presentation.

It’s human nature to get butterflies and perspire a bit before having tons of eyes on you, critiquing every word you have to say.

So, if you’re feeling nervous before a presentation, instead of emotionally shutting down, take that nervous energy and transform it into enthusiastic energy.

Before getting up on stage, listen to your favorite hype music, maybe have a coffee (if it won’t make you jittery) or get a pep talk from a friend.

By being confident and using your enthusiasm to your advantage, you’ll have your crowd on the edge of their seats, completely engaged, following every word you say.

Enthusiastic presentations will much better received by listeners, rather than monotone informational presentations. So, as important as your presentation design is, the way you present it will determine a big part of the outcome.

According to Allan Pease , an Honorary Professor of Psychology at ULIM International University, you can convince almost anyone to do anything for you if you use proper body language.

He has an entire Ted Talk dedicated to the subject, which you can watch below.

The proper use of hand gestures, a power stance, a confident smile and an authoritative yet kind voice are all techniques that you can leverage to get your crowd listening to and agreeing with what you’re saying.

According to Allan Pease, when using hand gestures, you’ll want to make sure that you’re using open palm gestures. This makes you look like a great leader that is right there with the team, ready to lead and take charge.

By using open palm gestures, people will automatically be inclined to listen to you.

The moment you turn your hand over and start using your pointer finger, you will lose your audience. They won’t accept any information from you and they will believe you have an authoritative and hostile attitude.

Body language is everything, so make sure to use open hand gestures, smile, take a deep breath and believe that you’re not nervous, even if you are.

As soon as you believe that you’re not nervous, your brain and body will follow suit and you’ll feel more confident on stage with your presentation, which will make your audience trust you more.

We’re convinced that with the right tone of voice and allowing your personality to shine through, you can take any boring presentation, and turn it into an entertaining and engaging one for your audience.

While it is good to meet your audience where they are, it’s never good to fake your personality for the sake of a presentation.

Everyone can tell when someone isn’t genuine, and if you’re trying to suppress your personality, you’re only hurting yourself and your presentation by doing so, as what you’re saying can then begin to sound disingenuous.

So, don’t be afraid to use your personality to your advantage. Let a joke out and entertain your audience. By making your audience laugh, you’ll have them more in tune with what you’re saying.

Chances are if you’re giving a business presentation, many of your peers will be there and they'd want you to let your personality show. So, be yourself and use that to your advantage!

Finally, our best tip that we can offer you in all areas of life is to never stop learning.

The only way to improve is to continue learning and practicing. That’s why we recommend you take presentation courses that will help improve your communication skills and presentation skills.

You can brush up on your presentation, communication and public speaking tips by taking online courses on Udemy or Coursera . Look for specific courses on storytelling, body language and more to focus on your problem areas.

Or, if you're looking for a free course that packs all the good stuff at zero cost, our team at Visme has put together an incredible presentation course that will help you smash your next presentation!

When it comes to creating and giving presentations, many times it seems like it’s just something that’s expected of us to do, without receiving any type of proper training or qualifications.

Here at Visme, we want to see everyone succeed.

That’s why we combined our years of knowledge and experience to create a free course to give everyone the tools and confidence they need in order to create effective and successful presentations.

There are dozens of benefits and skills you’ll gain in these training sessions. You'll learn how to:

• Effectively brainstorm and create audience personas and audience journey maps
• Use visual communication to inform, engage, inspire and persuade your audience
• Design your presentation as a professional designer would in minutes
• Use colors, fonts, pictures and videos to increase the impact of your speech
• Present your data through compelling charts and graphs that tell a story

You’ll also receive a Visme Versity certificate of completion once you complete the online course — you can add this to your LinkedIn profile to set yourself up for success.

If any of these benefits sound like something you want to add to your tool belt, then you can take our free presentation skills course for professional development right now.

This course is broken down into easily digestible sections, yet it’s jam-packed full of readily applicable information. The best part is you can take the course and complete it at your own pace.

There are engaging educational videos for you to watch and learn from, informational content for you to read and at the end of each session, there is a quiz for you to take to assess your progress.

By the end of this course, you’ll have an abundance of skills that will help you succeed in all types of presentations.

Sign up today and learn how to become a great presenter in no time!

Level Up Your Presentation Skills

You’ve now learned 11 amazing tips on how to improve your presentation skills, but there’s still so much more to uncover and learn in the realm of presentations skills.

If you want to overcome your fear of public speaking, improve on your business presentations, become a better communicator and transform good presentations into great presentations, then this free presentation course by Visme is for you.

Want to create stunning presentations of your own? Sign up for our presentation software and start using hundreds of pre-made slides, animated effects, free graphics, charts and more.

Create beautiful presentations faster with Visme.

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About the Author

I’m Heleana and I’m a content creator here at Visme. My passion is to help people find the information they’re looking for in the most fun and enjoyable way possible. Let’s make information beautiful.

Why Marketing Presentations Are Essential To Business Growth [With Examples]

Table of contents.

In many different industries and job sectors, presentations are part of the job . The ability to create an effective and clear presentation or marketing deck that gets your point across and engages your audience takes time, energy, practice and experience. In this article we explore the importance of presentations in marketing your brand and how that ultimately leads to business growth.

So, What is a Marketing Presentation?

A marketing presentation is a summary of your business and marketing strategies. In the marketing industry, presentations are that much more important. Often, you or someone on your team will be pitching ideas to clients and execs in the form of a presentation.

Creating an engaging and effective marketing presentation is important to sealing the deal or updating senior employees on your work.

A marketing presentation often includes key pieces of information such as:

• The product/brand/organization
• The marketing campaign title
• The campaign objectives
• Target audience/target market
• A marketing strategy with a unique selling point
• Key takeaways and next steps
• A timeline for rolling out the campaign

Each of these items will help you to effectively communicate your ideas and plan to the client in an engaging and logical way.

5 Reasons Why Presentations Are Important in Marketing

Effective marketing presentations can have a huge impact on your career as a marketing professional. They will help grow your business and build your agency’s reputation among other clients. Here are 5 reasons why presentations are important in marketing and why you should work on creating awesome marketing presentations.

1. Your Presentation is Your Brand’s Value

Marketing presentations are essentially sales pitches. You are trying to convince a company or client to work with you or buy your product. If your presentation is sloppy, unclear, and boring, clients or customers will likely view your brand in the same way .

Having Good Presentation Skills Drive Trust in Your Brand

Being able to create a strong and engaging presentation shows potential clients that you believe in what you are selling and are willing to invest in it. That in turn makes your brand that much more attractive. Presenting with conviction is key, confidently presenting your product/services is an art and can make a huge difference when making the right impression.

If your presentation is full of low quality images, incorrect data, boring slides, and the presenter doesn’t engage the audience, you likely will not gain too many new clients. When presenting your slides, include high quality images, real life examples, and accurate data.

Get PowerPoint Presentation Help

If creating Powerpoint or Google Slides presentations is not in your skill set, don’t stress! There are tons of free presentation templates that can act as a first step in your creation process. At Presentation Geeks, we work with clients to create engaging and effective presentation templates. Hiring someone to help with creating your slides can make a huge difference and mean more time for you to put the information together.

Today, the business environment, vision, and outlook is changing faster than ever before. This was especially true for BP who wanted to share their investment in renewable energy. With a focus on imagery and minimalistic design, we were able to create a presentation that supported their vision.

British Petroleum Presentation Sample

Your presentation template can either start with something very simple or can be a bit more complex. Choose a template that makes sense for your business and presentation style. You should also think about the environment you are presenting in. While conference settings can call for more engaging and exciting slides, a client meeting may mean dialing it in.

2. Use the Right Design Principles in Your Marketing Presentations

As many marketing professionals will tell you, a great design goes a long way. This also extends to your marketing presentation. Whether it’s at networking events, marketing conferences, client meetings, or just internal presentations, a strong presentation created with a great design will stick with the viewers even after the presentation is complete.

Visual Hierarchy

A basic design concept that you can use to create great marketing presentations is the visual hierarchy. This is a design principle that involves identifying design elements and organizing them in order of importance.

For a marketing presentation, this could include keeping the key information as the most eye catching elements on a slide. You will want to think about what you want your audience to take away from one slide and keep the key message and the most important points the biggest or at the top to drive the point home.

Color Psychology

Another design element to consider is colour psychology. This will also have to coincide with your brand’s colours, but aesthetic is a huge part of creating a pleasing and engaging presentation.

There have been studies done that state that specific colours can have an impact on a viewer’s decision making. Colour can be used to draw the eye to important information or elements of the presentation that you want the viewer to remember.

Font Pairing

One last design element you should consider when creating your slides is to pair your fonts. While there are many creative font styles out there, the vast majority will not be used in professional marketing presentations.

You will want to find fonts that match or pair well your brand’s. For example, you don’t necessarily want two more flowery fonts paired together as this can take away from the information and data that is being presented.

Tell an Engaging Story With Your Marketing Presentation

A compelling brand story can be the reason a customer decides to purchase your product or use your services. This story should be evident throughout the whole presentation: from the titles and layout to the images and colours.

3. It Helps in Conversion of Followers into Customers

One of the main purposes for a marketing presentation is to convert a viewer into a customer or client. The information and knowledge you deliver and who you present it can be a motivating force to turn an audience member into one of your customers. Integrating tips and strategies for engaging your customers will help you convert followers into customers.

Use Your Presentation Skills to Drive Sales

Sales happen when client needs are met with a service or product. But, if your potential clients or customers don’t know about your company, you won’t increase your sales.

This is where your marketing presentation has a huge and important role. While a strong marketing plan can help you reach your goals, an engaging and professional presentation can turn audience members from strangers to customers.

Make Your Marketing Presentation About Your Audience

When you run a Google Slides or Powerpoint marketing presentation, you need to remember to make it about the audience . Especially if you are trying to boost sales or gain a client, make them the central focus.

To reach them, you should cultivate empathy. You can do this by understanding the problem from their perspective. Understand their needs and questions and then work towards answering them. You’ll find that customers that feel understood or heard by an organization will be more likely to continue in the buying journey.

Create Journey Maps

In many types of content marketing, you have to consider the types of buyers or customers you are trying to reach. As well, you have to think about the buying journey they will take to move from potential customers to actual customers. It is information that can help you understand the customer and understand their thought process.

While this should all be brainstormed in your marketing plan, it can also be defined and explored in your marketing presentation and on your slides.

Digging into the “why’s” behind a customer’s decisions will help you create marketing and advertising components that will get their attention and answer their questions. Then, answering these questions in your Google Slides or Powerpoint presentation will reach your target audience that much more.

4. It Creates Brand Awareness

Strong brand awareness can make or break a company. Think about brands like Band-Aid or Kleenex who has such strong brand awareness that their brand names have become synonymous with the name of the product.

In order to grow your business, you have to make potential clients and customers aware of your brand. This is where digital marketing come into play.

A presentation can often be the means by which you introduce your company to a group of potential customers.

Focus On Your Central Idea

One of the most important tips to remember when you are presenting to potential customers is to focus on the most important idea and key pieces of information you want them to leave with.

If you present an enormous amount of information with tons of images that aren’t related to your organization your brand image gets lost in the shuffle. Deliver the most important ideas on your slides and you’ll see how engaged your audience is.

5. Good Presentations Generate Trust and Invite Opportunities

As marketers know well, trust is a huge part of running a business. As a presentation strategy, you want to generate trust through the information your provide and the stories that are told.

As one of Canada’s most recognized asset management firms, Dynamic Funds offers top-tier solutions. In creating this presentation, our focus was on integrating an easy to read, accessible PowerPoint presentation that translated big concepts in an audience friendly way to build trust with them.

We encourage you to watch the example video.

Making a good first impression

Right from the start, you want to come across as a trustworthy and intelligent brand. Customers don’t want to hear from an organization that doesn’t seem trustworthy or worth their time. There are some tactics you can use to help present yourself well to your viewers.

For example, when you’re speaking, make eye contact. Be conformable and positive in your tone. Tell a related story to keep them engaged. All of these tips can make a huge difference on your presentation.

Understand How to Help and transform Your Audience

As we stated above, understanding a customer’s needs and wants can transform your audience. If your product isn’t presented as a solution to their problem, customers will lose interest and stay as potential followers. Telling them that your product or service will meet their needs in your presentation will go a long way and will likely convert them from followers to actual customers.

Need A Marketing Presentation Created For Your Company?

Make an impression that lasts with your next presentation. Use our presentation design service that will not only save you time and money, but create powerful sales tool that will make the right impression, first time around.

If you’re ready to begin working with award winning designers that have an established reputation, contact Presentation Geeks today by clicking the button below.

Author:  Content Team

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• Presentation Skills
• Skills & Tools

Presentation skills can be defined as a set of abilities that enable an individual to: interact with the audience; transmit the messages with clarity; engage the audience in the presentation; and interpret and understand the mindsets of the listeners. These skills refine the way you put forward your messages and enhance your persuasive powers.

The present era places great emphasis on good presentation skills. This is because they play an important role in convincing the clients and customers. Internally, management with good presentation skills is better able to communicate the mission and vision of the organization to the employees.

Importance of Presentation Skills

Interaction with others is a routine job of businesses in today’s world. The importance of good presentation skills is established on the basis of following points:

• They help an individual in enhancing his own growth opportunities. In addition, it also grooms the personality of the presenter and elevates his levels of confidence.
• In case of striking deals and gaining clients, it is essential for the business professionals to understand the audience. Good presentation skills enable an individual to mold his message according to the traits of the audience. This increases the probability of successful transmission of messages.
• Lastly, business professionals have to arrange seminars and give presentations almost every day. Having good presentation skills not only increases an individual’s chances of success, but also enable him to add greatly to the organization.

How to Improve Presentation Skills

Development of good presentation skills requires efforts and hard work. To improve your presentation skills, you must:

• Research the Audience before Presenting: This will enable you to better understand the traits of the audience. You can then develop messages that can be better understood by your target audience. For instance, in case of an analytical audience, you can add more facts and figures in your presentation.
• Structure your Presentation Effectively: The best way to do this is to start with telling the audience, in the introduction, what you are going to present. Follow this by presenting the idea, and finish off the presentation by repeating the main points.
• Do a lot of Practice: Rehearse but do not go for memorizing the presentation. Rehearsals reduce your anxiety and enable you to look confident on the presentation day. Make sure you practice out loud, as it enables you to identify and eliminate errors more efficiently. Do not memorize anything as it will make your presentation look mechanical. This can reduce the degree of audience engagement.
• Take a Workshop: Most medium and large businesses allow their employees to take employee development courses and workshops, as well-trained employees are essential to the success of any company. You can use that opportunity to take a workshop on professional presentation skills such as those offered by Langevin Learning Services , which are useful for all business professionals, from employees to business trainers and managers.

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The Importance of Presentation Skills in hybrid or In-Person Events and How to Improve Them

August 26, 2022

Views: 9590

The complete platform for all your events

Posted on august 26, 2022.

Presentation skills is what gives value to your insights, instead it is useless if you aren’t able to communicate them properly.

Communication is a soft skill that many organizations recognize but fail to look for when recruiting fresh talent. Yet, in marketing, communicating with presentations is something that will happen quarterly, monthly, and sometimes even more regularly. 

A good presentation requires planning, research, and practice to perfect. Done right, they can be the difference between you winning that budget for your future campaigns or not.  

In this article, we’ll explore the importance of your presentation skills in hybrid or in-person events, what they can do for you and your business, and how to improve them. Let’s go. 

Table of Contents

What are presentation skills?  

Presentation skills are a marketer’s ability to interact with their audience, clearly convey messages, and engage the audience in the content of what they have to say. 

Presentation skills help event professionals and marketers adequately communicate their offerings and value to a specific audience and are quintessential to the role’s success. 

How do presentation skills help marketing roles? 

Presentation skills allow marketers to deliver messages to a target audience concisely and clearly. Excellent presentation skills are valuable in marketing when you’re trying to land a new client, pitching a campaign idea to stakeholders, or reporting on success analytics.

It’s fair to say presentation skills significantly impact job performance as well as workplace and team engagement. For example, a presentation writer at an event is responsible for creating engaging and informative presentations that will be used to educate and inform the audience.

As a marketing specialist or manager, it’s your job to organize marketing reports and analytics and present them in a way that engages your team. You’re responsible for curating, creating, and presenting content to help better your brand. Every great content marketing campaign started with a presentation.

Before we get into the skills you’ll need to improve your marketing presentations, let’s consider the tools to make your job easier. Let’s explore the top marketing templates the pros use to improve their workplace presentations.  

5 Top templates to lift your marketing presentations   

 As a marketer, you’re likely to be tasked with:

• Regularly submitting campaign proposals
• Spearheading go-to-market strategies
• Conducting market research and analysis
• Producing KPI reports 

One of these templates , from Pitch, will help you deliver better presentations while saving you time to work on your marketing skills. 

1. Project proposal template

A great project proposal template can help you save time and energy and give you a framework to introduce to your organization. If you need to identify a problem, present a compelling solution, and incorporate social proof to win over stakeholders on a regular basis, this is the proposal template for you.

2. Market analysis template

A market analysis provides information on markets, buyers, competitors, and other market factors that can help your business stay on top. A well-designed template is key for presenting your research with confidence and communicating the potential of a market to your team. 

A market analysis template is great when you want to confidently present your research. With slides for market size, buyer personas, customer demographics, market trends, and more, it comes with everything you need to effortlessly communicate and structure your analysis.    

3. Marketing strategy template   

A marketing strategy consists of tactics you’ve determined your business needs to implement to hit its organizational goals. It’s a comprehensive plan hitting those quarterly and yearly benchmarks through consumer insights and the creation of a distinct and evergreen competitive advantage. 

A marketing strategy digs into the characteristics of customer segments and identifies how to target them better.

A thorough marketing strategy template containing the company’s value proposition, key brand messaging, and data on target customer demographics can help you clearly communicate with key stakeholders and get that strategy ball rolling. 

4. Marketing plan template  

Once you’ve got the green light on your marketing strategy presentation, the next step is to create a marketing plan. This should provide specifics on how you’ll achieve your marketing objectives and support the strategy. 

By using a detailed marketing plan template , you can organize your promotional efforts, lay out the content you need to build, finalize your marketing objectives, and assign roles and responsibilities to everyone on your team.

5. KPI report template  

A KPI report offers a measurable way to evaluate the impact of your marketing activities. It helps you monitor the success of different marketing channels to determine where your marketing budget should and shouldn’t go. 

With this free KPI report template , you can easily identify trending data to see what’s working and what’s not and showcase this visually. From here, you’ll be able to make and communicate strategic tweaks to better reach your targets and business goals. 

How to improve your presentation skills and become a better marketer 

Aside from using marketing templates to offer your presentation structure and aesthetic flair, it’s also crucial to consider how your speech, tone, and body language can help you deliver a stellar presentation.

Let’s look at some practical ways to evolve your presentation skills and win over internal and external stakeholders.

1. Stick to a script 

A presentation script is the secret behind a winning presentation, and scriptwriting is a skill well worth honing. Done well, you’ll be able to better structure your thoughts and ensure that your information is packed with a punch—saving the drama until last. 

There are a few common speech writing tactics you can use in your script writing to help you deliver a more persuasive presentation. Consider things like: 

• Lists of three 
• Rhetorical questions
• Hyperboles 
• Rhymes and half rhymes

2. Kiss your audience: keep it simple, stupid 

There’s nothing more powerful in conveying a message than keeping it simple. When you keep things simple, you keep them memorable. You’re able to deliver the point you’re trying to make in bitesize chunks that your audience can digest—no matter how complicated the topic. 

One of these courses , from Udemy, can run you through how to technically deliver presentations clearly and memorably, using common public speaking tactics .  

3. Tell a story   

According to a Stanford University study , facts that are built around a story are seven times more memorable than those that are not. When you create a story around your presentation, you can create a compelling beginning, middle, and end, that becomes more of a journey for your audience. 

In doing so, your audience will retain more information, and you’ll be able to confidently deliver your presentation with the knowledge your audience is wholeheartedly engaged and interested in where you’re taking them. 

4. Use body language to your advantage  

As a marketer, it’s important to consider how your body language affects the overall reception of your presentation. Non-verbal communication is just as important as verbal communication.

Confident body language can help you establish credibility, connect with your audience, and make your audience feel at ease. 

There are multiple aspects of this non-verbal communication tactic. You want to control the room with a combination of different facial expressions, eye contact, hand movements, and other whole body gestures.    

Consider the following when giving your next big presentation:

• Face your audience as much as possible and avoid turning your back on them  
• Establish eye contact with individual members of your audience  
• Smile! It’s been proven to be infectious and boost moods 
• Mimic some of your audience’s actions to feel more relatable 
• Keep hand gestures up and constant to be engaging 
• Avoid crossing your arms or legs, keep everything open to appear welcoming 
• Own the floor: move around the room to keep your audience engaged 
• Avoid clapping or making sound with your body movements as they can be distracting to what you’re trying to say  

5. Let your personality shine   

Incorporating aspects of your personality into your presentation will help your audience feel at ease, while adding a personal touch that will make your presentations more memorable. 

Of course, keep things as professional as they should be, but there’s absolutely no harm in using personal anecdotes, telling jokes, sharing your personal experience, or ad libbing from the script to keep listeners engaged.     

6. Record your presentation and self-edit 

A smart way to improve your presentation is to record yourself going through it. This will allow you to analyze and pinpoint problem areas, such as body language, voice clarity, and your pace—making sure you keep things on time. 

You can then focus on improving those areas before the big day. When self-editing your presentation, pay attention to: 

• Tone of voice 
• Body language and facial expressions
• Sound and lighting 
• Your digital aid 

7. Take things online

Given today’s world, there’s a high chance you’re presenting online, however, if you’re not, then don’t rule out your online audience as well—ensure your presentation is accessible as possible to your team and those that need to hear it.  

If you are presenting online, virtual audiences can easily get distracted or struggle to engage. Ensure you’re fighting both of these factors as efficiently as possible. 

Linkedin learning instructor Cassandra Worthy says the three most important components to engaging your virtual audience are energy, connection, and content; and she’s not wrong. However, there is more you can do to keep that digital audience engaged: 

• Ask people to mute their notifications before the presentation starts
• Encouraging questions 
• Invite a facilitator to help manage the chat 
• Encourage chat reactions: with emojis 
• Frequently ask questions to keep them on their toes
• Use visual and sound assets 
• Ensure you’re got a solid wifi connection
• Ensure you’re using a good quality microphone
• Present in a quiet place, without any distractions in your background 

You’re ready to nail that presentation

Now that you have the necessary tools, templates, courses, and knowledge to improve your presentation, the only thing left to do is to jump straight in. Start learning and improving your presentation skills today, and deliver better presentations tomorrow.

About the Author / Akeem Okunola

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Competition Information

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• Marketing Plan Prompt

2024 High School Business Language Competition

2024 hsblc competition guidelines.

The High School Business Language Competition hosted by the Whitmore Global Business Center at BYU consists of two parts: a marketing plan development and a marketing plan presentation . Participants are required to complete both parts to participate in the competition.

Each team must consist of three (3) High School students who are currently enrolled in the sponsoring high school. Each high school may sponsor a maximum of TWO teams per language (Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, German). No native speakers* are permitted to participate in the competition, and only one heritage speaker** is permitted per team.

*Native Speaker= Where one language was the main source throughout primary and secondary schooling and education, as well as all other settings.

**Heritage Speaker= Where one language is spoken in the home, but another language is predominant in a work, social, or school setting.

If you have any questions regarding the language status of a student, please contact us.

Marketing Plan Development

Teams will have until December 7, 2024 to complete their presentations and email their two-page marketing summary to Adeline Parker - [email protected] or Camille Grant - [email protected] by 12:00 Noon (MST)

The following steps are recommended to create an effective marketing plan:

• Learn about the company. Understand the basic details of the business. Learn about the products they sell, understand the way they market and sell their products, and find out the type of consumer they target. Analyze the key trends of the industry to which they belong and identify key competitors.
• Learn about the products. Understand what the products are used for, their unique qualities, benefits and cost.
• Learn about the target consumer. Teams should learn about the behavior and attitudes of the target consumer, where and how they shop, and what influences them in making a purchase decision, as well as the accessibility of the target consumer.
• Understand the basic principles of marketing. Understand the basic marketing fundamentals (price, product, place, and promotion). Learn about the industry’s channel of distributions and marketing tools.

Teams can refer to the company’s website, government agencies, books, and other publications. Please do not contact the company directly.

Marketing Plan Presentation

Each team will send its marketing plan presentations to [email protected] on December 7, 2024 by 12:00 Noon (MST). The presentation should contain all items listed below:

• A one-two page summary with the proposed marketing plan. The report should be written in appropriate business style and should include information about the company, the product, the consumer, and the team’s marketing plan. 
• A copy of the presentation. You may use Google Slides or PowerPoint within the presentation. It should include:
• Company and industry background
• Profile of target consumer
• Marketing plan and communication strategy (using at least two marketing tools)
• Marketing plan financial analysis

All presentations and written materials must be in the team’s competition language.

Competition Day Presentations

All members of the team must participate in the oral presentation of the plan. Each team will have ten minutes to present its plan in their presentation in front of a panel of judges . There will be 2 rounds of presenting , once in the morning and once after lunch. 

Teams will be scored on language ability, written and oral presentation skills, and the content of their original marketing plan represented in their written summary and presentation .

Teams are responsible for bringing their own laptop and USB with your presentation as well as printed copies of your marketing plan for the judges. 

Coach Participation

Students, NOT THE COACH, must prepare the marketing plan. The coach can help the team by teaching the students business and marketing principles and providing guidelines on how to write a marketing plan. However, the coach should not give specific suggestions for the development of the marketing plan. Coaches do not have to be native language speakers. They may direct team members in grammar and business terms as needed. 

Judges will not, and should not, know which school the presenting team represents! Teams cannot infer this information verbally or through colors or graphics (on clothing or in presentations). For competition logistical purposes, teams will use a fictitious name assigned to them the day of the competition.

Winners are determined based on a cumulative score from their presentations. The GBC Staff will compile scores to determine 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place teams to be announced in the award ceremony at 4:00 pm on December 8, 2024.

Contact Information

For questions or concerns, please contact:

Adeline Parker [email protected]

Veronica Stoltz [email protected]  

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Free WordPress AI Writing Assistant By Jetpack

Jetpack’s free AI writing assistant for WordPress improves content conciseness and readability while maintaining authenticity

Jetpack announced a free WordPress writing tool called Write Brief With AI that improves the clarity and conciseness of content. The AI writing assistant is based on an internal tool used at Automattic and is now available without limitations regardless of whether a user is subscribed to Jetpack AI Assistant or not.

Write Brief With AI Is Free

The new AI tool started as an internal writing tool used at Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, Jetpack, WooCommerce, and other companies. They are now integrating as part of the Jetpack AI plugin. Although Jetpack AI is a premium plugin (with a limited free trial), the functionality and usage of Write Brief with AI is available to all users both free and paid.

What It Does

The new Jetpack AI writing tool does three important things that can improve engagement and the overall quality of the content.

• It measures the readability of the text.
• Flags long-winded sentences.
• Highlights words that convey uncertainty.

Importance Of Readability

Readability and a direct writing style are important for clearly expressing the content’s topic, which can indirectly benefit SEO, conversions, and engagement. This is because clarity and conciseness make the topic more evident and easily understood by search algorithms.

Why Removing Uncertainty Is Important

Regarding flagging words that sound uncertain, that has the effect of encouraging the writer to consider revisions that make the content more definitive and confident.

Here are examples of how confident writing improves content:

This sentence expresses uncertainty:

I think we should consider expanding our marketing efforts.

This improved version of the same sentence is more confident:

We should expand our marketing efforts.

This sentence is unconfident:

Maybe we should review the budget before making a decision.

This sentence is direct and definitive:

We should review the budget before making a decision.

The above examples show how improving directness and making sentences more decisive removes a level of ambiguity and makes them more understandable.

Will that help a web page rank better? Communicating without ambiguity makes it easy for search-related algorithms to understand content which in turn makes it easier to rank for the respective topic.

See also: The 10 Best AI Writers & Content Generators Compared

Embedded Within The WordPress Editor

The editor is located within the WordPress editor. Blocks must be enabled because it won’t work within the Classic Editor. Additionally, the functionality is turned off by default and has to be activated by toggling on within the AI Assistant Settings sidebar.

Should You Try Write Brief With AI?

If your site is already using blocks then it may be convenient to give the new writing assistant a try. The tool is focused on improving content according to best practices but not actually doing the writing itself. That’s a good use of AI because it preserves the authenticity of human authored content .

Download Jetpack and activate the free trial of the AI Assistant. Write Brief With AI is switched off by default, so toggle it on in the AI Assistant settings.  While AI Assistant is limited in how many times it can be used, Write Brief With AI is in Beta and can be used without limitations.

Download Jetpack here:

Jetpack by Automattic

Learn More About Write Brief With AI

Read more at the official WordPress.com announcement:

Clearer Writing at Your Fingertips: Introducing Write Brief with AI (Beta)

Read the documentation on requirements, activation instructions and how to use it:

Create Better Content with Jetpack AI

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Velishchuk Yevhen

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A CIO canceled a Microsoft AI deal. The reason should worry the entire tech industry.

• A pharma company stopped using Microsoft's Copilot AI tool, with an exec citing high cost and low value.
• The company used Office 365 Copilot for 500 staff and compared it to middle-school presentations.
• Microsoft is mulling repackaging 365 licenses to better monetize AI features amid record spending.

AI models and tools look great when researchers measure success with their own wonky benchmarks. When paying customers try this technology in the real world, things can get ugly.

That's what happened when an IT executive at a pharmaceutical company tried out Microsoft's Copilot AI features, according to a recent research note from Morgan Stanley.

The chief information officer of this pharma company paid extra to have 500 employees use Office 365 Copilot in the fourth quarter of 2023 and first quarter of 2024. This is Microsoft 's much-heralded AI upgrade to its popular suite of productivity software.

After six months, the exec canceled the upgrade because the AI tools weren't good enough to be worth the extra money.

In fact, he compared the slide-generation capability of Microsoft's AI tools to "middle school presentations," according to a transcript of a call with the Morgan Stanley analysts that was included in their research note.

"The price is double," the executive, identified only as Greg, said. "And we really just do not see the value we're getting out of those tools worth double."

The E3 version of Microsoft's 365 software suite costs about $34 per user a month. Adding Copilot AI features costs another $30 per user a month. For 500 employees, that would roughly add an extra $180,000 a year.

These new Microsoft tools are considered some of the premier examples of powerful artificial intelligence in action in the real world. Investors have bid up Microsoft and other big tech shares massively, betting that this product and similar offerings will catch on with paying customers.

If a large pharma company can't see $180,000 of value in these tools, that's a problem that should worry the entire tech industry.

Legal issues with AI meeting summaries

The 365 Copilot AI feature that the IT executive found more compelling was the ability to archive and summarize video meetings on Microsoft's Teams app. But he said his legal team was wary of retaining meeting transcripts, so the pharma company didn't use that feature.

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"What you're left with are tools that are along the lines of building ChatGPT instead of Word, which I think is marginally useful at best," the exec said. "Building a generative AI slide capability, which really is at the quality of middle school presentations at this point. And then Excel, which is, again, not really something that most people who use spreadsheets would think of using it."

He added that the company would consider adopting Office 365 Copilot for a subset of employees if it cost a fraction of its current price.

Microsoft must recoup big AI investments

The comments follow internal concerns at Microsoft about whether its AI services will create enough value to persuade corporate customers to pay more.

Wall Street is also wondering how Microsoft will recoup its massive AI spending. The company is amassing 1.8 million graphics processing units to build and run AI models and related products. It also has a plan to triple data-center capacity, mainly to handle AI workloads. Its capital expenditure hit a record $14 billion in the most recent quarter. A company spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Microsoft is considering revamping the way it packages 365 software licenses like E3 to try to make more money from AI. The outcomes could include repackaging AI features into existing licenses or creating a more expensive bundle with Copilot AI capabilities, a person with direct knowledge of the plan said.

Do you work at Microsoft or have insight to share?

Contact Ashley Stewart via the encrypted messaging app Signal (+1-425-344-8242) or email ( [email protected] ). Use a nonwork device.

Watch: Volkswagen is using AI to speed up and scale marketing, while also integrating ChatGPT into its vehicles, says CMO Susanne Franz

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