Visuals are Key to Presentation Success

We have all heard before that visuals are an extremely effective way to grab and hold someone’s attention, but have you ever realized just how much of an effect visuals have on your audience?

Visual marketing experts, Pamela Wilson and Kelly Kingman state, “Humans process visual information 60,000 times faster than text. Furthermore, text accompanied by an image has been found to increase our retention by 40 percent.”

With that, it is evident that visuals play a crucial role in grabbing an audience’s attention in a presentation while maintaining their focus throughout.

So how can you effectively use visuals in your presentation?

Make smart decisions. Be sure to choose visuals that make sense & enhance your overall message. Think about how a photo or graph will add to your presentation and support what you are discussing. Don’t place a photo in a PowerPoint where it does not make sense or enhance the point you are making (hint: think about visuals that relate to slide headings… not sub-bullets or tertiary points). If you make good decisions with your visuals, you will notice positive results with the attention you get from your audience.

Go big. It is crucial that everyone in your audience can see your visuals. Guy Kawasaki recommends PowerPoint decks keep font size at least 30 points. You will quickly lose the attention of your audience if only half of them can make out what your visual is portraying. Know your audience, and know the venue. Make graphics decisions from there. Your visuals may be different for a conference with 20 people versus a convention filled with 100,000 people. Your visuals will only be effective if they can be seen and understood.

Use professional imagery. Don’t be tempted to use low quality/free clip art in your presentation – it instantly lowers your credibility by making your content appear unprofessional. There are many excellent stock photography websites such as istockphoto or shutterstock which offer on demand access to professional looking photos and graphics. These sites are easy to use and have such large libraries of imagery that almost anything a presenter needs can be found there.

Work with a specialist. A professional designer, like eSlide, can transform your PowerPoint so that visuals are used effectively to enhance your presentation. Hand your PowerPoint over to us and we will polish and makeover your slides as necessary to ensure your audience is engaged. We will turn mass amounts of text into effective slides that get your point across, and appeal to your audience. The slides we create will leave your audience engaged throughout the entire presentation.

After evaluating your presentation, consider how can you update your slides to include visuals effectively. Grab your audience’s attention, be confident in your slides, and get results from your presentations.