PGi Blog Virtual Event Insights and Industry Trends
Have you voted on your biggest presentation nightmare yet? All week long we’re highlighting the fear of presenting and how to triumph over it.
When planning your next presentation, you probably spend days if not weeks putting your slides together, planning logistics, etc. But did you know there are some easy, psychological tricks you can incorporate into your presentation to keep your audience engaged?
Rather than losing sleep poring over hours of preparation, the next time you’re putting together a presentation try one of these quick and dirty tips from “The Little Black Book of Presentation Ideas” to breathe new life into your preso:
1) Change the font size
Like a sneaky college student trying to hit the minimum page requirement on an essay, sometimes a simple font size change is all you need. When adding elements to slides—images, fonts, charts, graphs, logos—do the 3-foot test. If anything is blurry when you step three feet away from your computer monitor, your audience definitely won’t see it clearly, even on the slide projector. Enlarge and repeat.Depending on the font style, point sizes of 14–22 are typically the best for presentations that will be shown to midsize and large audiences.
2) Color Me Impressed
What’s life without a little color? Studies have shown that a product’s color influences 60% to 80% of a customer’s purchasing decision. Utilizing this color psychology within your slides is a prime opportunity for extracting the ideal emotional reaction in your audience so that they “buy” your message. When creating your presentation—slides, videos or even physical collateral such as handouts—use colors strategically to foster the desired emotional reaction within your audience.
3) Tug at the Heartstrings
Puppies, kittens and babies are the most viewed images in social media and advertising for a very good reason: in the 2012 study “The Power of Kawaii,” researchers proved that using kawaii (a Japanese word meaning “cute”) images during work performance actually increases the subject’s cognitive skills, promoting careful behavior, narrowing focus and enhancing motivation.
4) Stand Up!
Get on your feet! There’s a reason so many great minds throughout the ages use the phrase “stand up” to motivate and inspire. You can encourage these responses in your presentations by doing just that: standing up. The stand-up meeting is a tried and true method for keeping presentations on task and everyone on their toes—literally. Schedule the presentation for a maximum of 30 minutes, remove all the chairs and ask everyone to gather ’round.
All of these tips were taken from “The Little Black Book of Presentation Ideas” – download your copy for free today!
