Tips For Effective Business Presentations in 2022

Why is an effective business presentation so important? The quality of your presentation represents your quality as a professional, so what type of impression do you want to leave on colleagues? Keep in mind, your presentation represents not only your personal professionalism but also the reputation of your organization and brand. In essence, the presentation represents the caliber of the business and its functions.

In 2022, effective presentations are more vital than ever for a thriving business. After nearly two years of pandemic-related concerns, the world has moved toward a more virtual environment. 

Virtual meetings and virtual events continue to gain prominence in the business communications sector. They are more convenient for attendees, they bring together people from around the world, and they typically cost less to produce than their traditional counterparts. And when it comes to virtual presentations, the quality of both your content and your design couldn’t be more important.

Want to ensure you engage your audience with powerful business reports? Check out the following six essential tips for effective business presentations in 2022: 

1. Organize your structure

Without a clear plan, the organization of your presentation quickly can go awry. Audiences will not only be unengaged, but they’ll also have trouble following your message. 

Before designing your slide deck, create an outline of the information you plan to present and be sure the business presentation template is organized and easy to understand. Imagine each heading as its own slide, and think of the subheadings as the content you’ll include to illustrate it.

When you start creating your slide deck, use the outline to determine what content to include on each slide and what order to present the information.

2. Know your audience

Who are you speaking to when you deliver your business report? It’s vital to recognize and speak to the appropriate audience when creating an effective presentation. After all, you wouldn’t speak to a room of kindergartners the same as you would speak to a conference of seasoned professionals.

Keep this audience in mind when determining how to present the information and what content to include in your business presentation. A knock-knock joke might be a good opener for a group of kids, for example, but an intriguing quotation might better capture the attention of business associates.

3. Tell a visual story

People are naturally attracted to visual stories. Not only is storytelling one of the earliest and most powerful forms of human communication, but visual stories are some of the most effective ways of engaging an audience. 

Did you know that while people tend to remember about 10 percent of what they heard 3 days earlier, they generally remember about 65 percent of a visual presentation after 72 hours have passed? It’s hard to argue with that data when determining the importance of visual storytelling in 2022.

Fortunately, visual presentations are ideally suited for elements of visual storytelling. Not only is the information already presented visually, but elements like infographics help tell data’s story and bring to life otherwise dull and boring facts and figures.

4. Design simple slides

With so much virtual information constantly coming at them, audiences’ attention spans are shorter than ever. Plus, remote audience members might be encountering all sorts of unknown distractions in the background. Therefore, it’s vital to design simple slides in 2022 and not overload viewers with too much information.

Limit slides to one or two main points each, and try and keep the presentation to 15 or fewer minutes. Remember, not every piece of information you present has to be included in the slide deck.

5. Illustrate your data

No matter how respected you might be in your business community, your audience doesn’t want to just take your word for it. In 2022, audiences want presenters to support their declarations with plenty of data, yet data isn’t always the most exciting content.

Who wants to spend even 10 or 15 minutes staring at pages of lifeless numbers? Instead, use plenty of infographics and other data visualizations to deliver your message and engage your audience. Options like bar graphs, scattergraphs and pie charts will help you get your point across quickly and effectively while offering audiences colorful eye candy to hold their interest.

6. Make it beautiful

In 2022, nobody wants to spend their valuable time looking at yet another lifeless frankendeck, full of boring text that was obviously designed with a copy of PowerPoint and zero creativity. Your slide deck has to catch the eyes of your audience from the start and hold its attention with attractive visualizations. 

Be sure to infuse your presentation with vivid photos and engaging infographics. Likewise, pay close attention to your design and employ principles of good design in your slides.

Don’t worry if you’re not a skilled designer, Beautiful.ai’s cloud-based PowerPoint-alternative software can help you ensure every slide you design looks like it came from a pro. Our special flavor of artificial intelligence automatically adjusts the design of your slides each time you add new content, promising that every element sticks with those important design principles.