How to Make a Clear Slide Deck That Will Keep Your Audience Engaged

Up until a couple of months ago, I made slide decks for daily training purposes each and every day of the work week. I then presented them to my audience with the expectation that it was my job to keep things relevant, engaging, and comprehensible. Not an easy task to say the least, but I sure did learn some things from performing these two tasks nearly every day for five years. I learned through trial and error what works and doesn’t work. With that said, here are the takeaways that will help anyone about to create a slide deck for a presentation.

Use minimal text

Keep the text on your individual slides to 2-3 sentences in length. Yes, you will need to create more slides overall and that’s okay. Your audience will thank you for not overwhelming them with a wall of text. In fact, if they see that much text, they will likely tune out or give up on reading it all. Worse than that, they may ignore everything you are saying to try and read all the text jammed on your slide, and so will miss out on the key takeaways you are conveying while speaking. Save your audience and yourself some heartache by condensing your message to just the major takeaways. 2-3 sentences per slide is all that is needed.

Use relevant photos and graphics

Skip the off-topic embedded gifs. They may draw in some initial laughs. However, you made your slide deck to get a message across. Focus on that goal. Any and all photos and graphics should relate to the intended message on each slide. If you’re adding an element of any kind, make sure that it adds value. Your audience will thank you for adding an image that helps them better understand the intended message on your individual slides. Think of your curation of images as an opportunity to help your audience better understand what you’re talking about AND as an opportunity to give them a visual representation of your message to hold on to in their minds. Images are often more powerful than words.

Make your keywords stand out

Let’s say you’re presenting on the importance of blogging to increase traffic to your client’s website. What keywords in that sentence would you want your client to pay attention to? If it were me, it would be “increase trafiic” and “website.” I would bold these words if they were on a slide. Why? Your audience is capable of reading every word on your slides. That’s true. However, a slide deck isn’t exactly meant to be read. It’s meant to be seen, skimmed, and looked at for a moment while your audience turns their attention back to you and your prepared speech. So, bold underline, or change the color of the keywords you want your audience to skim on your slides.

Pause every 10-15 minutes for audience engagement.

The average attention span is about 10-15 minutes. Meaning, there is no point in stretching your presentation past this length. Your audience will likely tune out before you get to your call-to-action at the end of your slide deck. If your presentation is longer than 10-15 minutes, then PAUSE. Consider asking your audience pointed questions to get them engaged in what you’re talking about. Pose them a hypothetical situation and ask them how they would react in that situation. Get their input on what they have learned so far during you’re presentation. Get creative, but take a brief pause to help retain their attention for longer overall.

Don’t just read off your slides verbatim

Rest assured, your audience knows how to read on their own. So why are you reading off your slides for them? Your goal is primarily to help your audience understand a key message. Your slides are visual representations of your message. YOU, however, are the one who makes the slides valuable. You know the takeaway message better than anyone. You can explain it in detail. So, use your slides but provide personalized examples while speaking to further explain the value of each slide you are presenting. You have value to add. You are the expert. You can further explain things for your audience in your own words using examples and, better yet, metaphors that your audience can latch on to.

Open the floor for questions in a new way.

Ask them, “What are your questions?” rather than “Do you have any questions?” You’ll get more engagement this way. You’ll get the opportunity to show that you are the expert in your topic that you’re presenting on and that you care about being helpful to your audience.

Now that you have read through these 6 strategies to make your next slide deck your best, I have full confidence that you can knock your next presentation out of the park. If you’d like to collaborate further, let me know! I would be happy to talk more about presentation tips, the perfect slide deck, or even how to create new trainings or revamp old ones.