Meredith from HubSpot walks through building a PowerPoint that works: start with your main takeaways and audience, structure it like a story, use clean visuals and minimal text, and nail the opening and closing slides.
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Hi, I'm Meredith from HubSpot, and today I'm going to show you how to design a good PowerPoint presentation. If you enjoy this video, don't forget to like it and subscribe to our channel. Post any questions or suggestions you have in the comments below. Let's get started have a presentation coming up that involves PowerPoint slides creating the content and design for a new presentation can be a tough task. Between outlining, designing and finalizing the details, it's not uncommon for a few questions to pop up. Where's the best place to start? Are some steps better to take before others? How can you make sure you aren't missing anything? And how on earth do you master those essential design tricks that can take a presentation from good to great? We're here to make the process a little easier for you. With the following tips, you'll be able to navigate PowerPoint like a pro. The first step is outlining your content. First, decide on a working title and the main takeaways. A working title is more specific than a topic. Think how the right nutrition can strengthen your kids bones instead of raising healthy kids. Once you've got your working title, make a list of the main takeaways of your presentation to begin giving it some structure while you outline. It's important to keep your specific audience in mind. Ask yourself, what do your audience members already know? What new information can you teach them? What are they expecting from your presentation? What's going to be interesting to them? What will keep them focused and engaged? Next, formulate your content as a narrative, if possible. This may not apply for more formal presentations that have rigid structures like performance reports, but for presentations that have more flexibility, presenting your content as a narrative can be much more compelling. Stories appeal to people's emotional side in ways that information, facts and figures can't. They help you relate to your audience, and in turn, they'll make you and your message far more interesting for your audience. Next, collect relevant data and examples to boost your content's credibility. While big statements can help you set the stage, supporting those statements with evidence will make your argument more interesting and credible. But don't just slap random stats on your slide and expect to wow your audience. Be sure your data comes from a reputable source and that you're presenting it in a way that's easy to understand, like through accurate charts and graphs. Now it's time to focus on outlining your PowerPoint design. Pick a color scheme Whether you decide to use two, three or four different colors in your presentation is up to you, but Certain color combinations go together better than others. Pick colors that support the tone of your content, solve for legibility, and don't distract from what you have to say. Next, design your slide backgrounds in PowerPoint less is more. You don't ever want to let the design distract from your message, but at the same time you want to get more creative than a plain white background. Even if you're going for a very simple design, PowerPoint has pre designed templates available that you can use as a starting point. To browse these templates on a Mac, click on the slide or slides you want to add the template to. Then click the Design tab at the top of the screen. To browse these templates on a PC, click on the slide or slides you want to add the template to. Then click the Design tab at the top of the screen. In the background group, click the arrow next to the background styles to open up the theme gallery. You can use one of these pre made templates as a base to customize and add your own creative spin. Next, it's time to format your content for maximum impact, most basic design work is done and it's time to start filling in the information on your slides based on the text outline you created earlier. First, create a skeleton of how your slides will flow by adding a title slide, all your header slides, and maybe a few supporting slides in between. These slides shouldn't be complex, just titles and headers, a few tidbits of information, some details you want to remember down the road, and only the one or two images you're positive you want to use. You'll add more slides and fill in the rest of the information and images later, I promise. You should start with a strong opening. Whether you like it or not, your audience is going to make value judgments about you, your organization, and your message within the first minute of your presentation. Want to ensure you start your presentation with a bang? The folks at the London Speaking Bureau suggest beginning with a dramatic, sharp opening like a challenging question or poll. For example, you might say, everybody close your eyes. Now raise your hand if you've ever been rude to someone. You might also use a powerful statistic or a personal story that your specific audience can relate to. However you choose to begin, be sure it engages your audience immediately, both intellectually and emotionally. Now fill in the text on your slides using concise language. Your slides are there to support the speaking components of your presentation, not replace it. If your slides contain too much information, like full sentences or paragraphs, then your audience members won't be able to help. But read the slides instead of listening to you. Plus, that's boring. Instead, use slides to enhance keywords and show visuals while you stand up there and do the real work, telling a story and describing your data. When it comes to your slide text, focus on the main phrases of a bullet point and cover the details verbally. Finally, you should end with a strong take home message. A lot of people get lazy with the end of their presentations, but you want to end with a bang, just like you started with one. Leave your audience with something they'll remember, something that'll make them think and maybe even mobilize. Want to make your presentations even stronger? Click the link in the description below. Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this video, be sure to like it and subscribe. Let me know how you're doing in the comments below.
