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How to Structure your Presentation, with Examples

August 3, 2018 - Dom Barnard

For many people the thought of delivering a presentation is a daunting task and brings about a  great deal of nerves . However, if you take some time to understand how effective presentations are structured and then apply this structure to your own presentation, you’ll appear much more confident and relaxed.

Here is our complete guide for structuring your presentation, with examples at the end of the article to demonstrate these points.

Why is structuring a presentation so important?

If you’ve ever sat through a great presentation, you’ll have left feeling either inspired or informed on a given topic. This isn’t because the speaker was the most knowledgeable or motivating person in the world. Instead, it’s because they know how to structure presentations – they have crafted their message in a logical and simple way that has allowed the audience can keep up with them and take away key messages.

Research has supported this, with studies showing that audiences retain structured information  40% more accurately  than unstructured information.

In fact, not only is structuring a presentation important for the benefit of the audience’s understanding, it’s also important for you as the speaker. A good structure helps you remain calm, stay on topic, and avoid any awkward silences.

What will affect your presentation structure?

Generally speaking, there is a natural flow that any decent presentation will follow which we will go into shortly. However, you should be aware that all presentation structures will be different in their own unique way and this will be due to a number of factors, including:

• Whether you need to deliver any demonstrations
• How  knowledgeable the audience  already is on the given subject
• How much interaction you want from the audience
• Any time constraints there are for your talk
• What setting you are in
• Your ability to use any kinds of visual assistance

Before choosing the presentation’s structure answer these questions first:

• What is your presentation’s aim?
• Who are the audience?
• What are the main points your audience should remember afterwards?

When reading the points below, think critically about what things may cause your presentation structure to be slightly different. You can add in certain elements and add more focus to certain moments if that works better for your speech.

What is the typical presentation structure?

This is the usual flow of a presentation, which covers all the vital sections and is a good starting point for yours. It allows your audience to easily follow along and sets out a solid structure you can add your content to.

1. Greet the audience and introduce yourself

Before you start delivering your talk, introduce yourself to the audience and clarify who you are and your relevant expertise. This does not need to be long or incredibly detailed, but will help build an immediate relationship between you and the audience. It gives you the chance to briefly clarify your expertise and why you are worth listening to. This will help establish your ethos so the audience will trust you more and think you’re credible.

Read our tips on  How to Start a Presentation Effectively

2. Introduction

In the introduction you need to explain the subject and purpose of your presentation whilst gaining the audience’s interest and confidence. It’s sometimes helpful to think of your introduction as funnel-shaped to help filter down your topic:

• Introduce your general topic
• Explain your topic area
• State the issues/challenges in this area you will be exploring
• State your presentation’s purpose – this is the basis of your presentation so ensure that you provide a statement explaining how the topic will be treated, for example, “I will argue that…” or maybe you will “compare”, “analyse”, “evaluate”, “describe” etc.
• Provide a statement of what you’re hoping the outcome of the presentation will be, for example, “I’m hoping this will be provide you with…”
• Show a preview of the organisation of your presentation

In this section also explain:

• The length of the talk.
• Signal whether you want audience interaction – some presenters prefer the audience to ask questions throughout whereas others allocate a specific section for this.
• If it applies, inform the audience whether to take notes or whether you will be providing handouts.

The way you structure your introduction can depend on the amount of time you have been given to present: a  sales pitch  may consist of a quick presentation so you may begin with your conclusion and then provide the evidence. Conversely, a speaker presenting their idea for change in the world would be better suited to start with the evidence and then conclude what this means for the audience.

Keep in mind that the main aim of the introduction is to grab the audience’s attention and connect with them.

3. The main body of your talk

The main body of your talk needs to meet the promises you made in the introduction. Depending on the nature of your presentation, clearly segment the different topics you will be discussing, and then work your way through them one at a time – it’s important for everything to be organised logically for the audience to fully understand. There are many different ways to organise your main points, such as, by priority, theme, chronologically etc.

• Main points should be addressed one by one with supporting evidence and examples.
• Before moving on to the next point you should provide a mini-summary.
• Links should be clearly stated between ideas and you must make it clear when you’re moving onto the next point.
• Allow time for people to take relevant notes and stick to the topics you have prepared beforehand rather than straying too far off topic.

When planning your presentation write a list of main points you want to make and ask yourself “What I am telling the audience? What should they understand from this?” refining your answers this way will help you produce clear messages.

4. Conclusion

In presentations the conclusion is frequently underdeveloped and lacks purpose which is a shame as it’s the best place to reinforce your messages. Typically, your presentation has a specific goal – that could be to convert a number of the audience members into customers, lead to a certain number of enquiries to make people knowledgeable on specific key points, or to motivate them towards a shared goal.

Regardless of what that goal is, be sure to summarise your main points and their implications. This clarifies the overall purpose of your talk and reinforces your reason for being there.

Follow these steps:

• Signal that it’s nearly the end of your presentation, for example, “As we wrap up/as we wind down the talk…”
• Restate the topic and purpose of your presentation – “In this speech I wanted to compare…”
• Summarise the main points, including their implications and conclusions
• Indicate what is next/a call to action/a thought-provoking takeaway
• Move on to the last section

5. Thank the audience and invite questions

Conclude your talk by thanking the audience for their time and invite them to  ask any questions  they may have. As mentioned earlier, personal circumstances will affect the structure of your presentation.

Many presenters prefer to make the Q&A session the key part of their talk and try to speed through the main body of the presentation. This is totally fine, but it is still best to focus on delivering some sort of initial presentation to set the tone and topics for discussion in the Q&A.

Other common presentation structures

The above was a description of a basic presentation, here are some more specific presentation layouts:

Demonstration

Use the demonstration structure when you have something useful to show. This is usually used when you want to show how a product works. Steve Jobs frequently used this technique in his presentations.

• Explain why the product is valuable.
• Describe why the product is necessary.
• Explain what problems it can solve for the audience.
• Demonstrate the product  to support what you’ve been saying.
• Make suggestions of other things it can do to make the audience curious.

Problem-solution

This structure is particularly useful in persuading the audience.

• Briefly frame the issue.
• Go into the issue in detail showing why it ‘s such a problem. Use logos and pathos for this – the logical and emotional appeals.
• Provide the solution and explain why this would also help the audience.
• Call to action – something you want the audience to do which is straightforward and pertinent to the solution.

Storytelling

As well as incorporating  stories in your presentation , you can organise your whole presentation as a story. There are lots of different type of story structures you can use – a popular choice is the monomyth – the hero’s journey. In a monomyth, a hero goes on a difficult journey or takes on a challenge – they move from the familiar into the unknown. After facing obstacles and ultimately succeeding the hero returns home, transformed and with newfound wisdom.

Storytelling for Business Success  webinar , where well-know storyteller Javier Bernad shares strategies for crafting compelling narratives.

Another popular choice for using a story to structure your presentation is in media ras (in the middle of thing). In this type of story you launch right into the action by providing a snippet/teaser of what’s happening and then you start explaining the events that led to that event. This is engaging because you’re starting your story at the most exciting part which will make the audience curious – they’ll want to know how you got there.

• Great storytelling: Examples from Alibaba Founder, Jack Ma

Remaining method

The remaining method structure is good for situations where you’re presenting your perspective on a controversial topic which has split people’s opinions.

• Go into the issue in detail showing why it’s such a problem – use logos and pathos.
• Rebut your opponents’ solutions  – explain why their solutions could be useful because the audience will see this as fair and will therefore think you’re trustworthy, and then explain why you think these solutions are not valid.
• After you’ve presented all the alternatives provide your solution, the remaining solution. This is very persuasive because it looks like the winning idea, especially with the audience believing that you’re fair and trustworthy.

Transitions

When delivering presentations it’s important for your words and ideas to flow so your audience can understand how everything links together and why it’s all relevant. This can be done  using speech transitions  which are words and phrases that allow you to smoothly move from one point to another so that your speech flows and your presentation is unified.

Transitions can be one word, a phrase or a full sentence – there are many different forms, here are some examples:

Moving from the introduction to the first point

Signify to the audience that you will now begin discussing the first main point:

• Now that you’re aware of the overview, let’s begin with…
• First, let’s begin with…
• I will first cover…
• My first point covers…
• To get started, let’s look at…

Shifting between similar points

Move from one point to a similar one:

• In the same way…
• Likewise…
• Equally…
• This is similar to…
• Similarly…

Internal summaries

Internal summarising consists of summarising before moving on to the next point. You must inform the audience:

• What part of the presentation you covered – “In the first part of this speech we’ve covered…”
• What the key points were – “Precisely how…”
• How this links in with the overall presentation – “So that’s the context…”
• What you’re moving on to – “Now I’d like to move on to the second part of presentation which looks at…”

Physical movement

You can move your body and your standing location when you transition to another point. The audience find it easier to follow your presentation and movement will increase their interest.

A common technique for incorporating movement into your presentation is to:

• Start your introduction by standing in the centre of the stage.
• For your first point you stand on the left side of the stage.
• You discuss your second point from the centre again.
• You stand on the right side of the stage for your third point.
• The conclusion occurs in the centre.

Key slides for your presentation

Slides are a useful tool for most presentations: they can greatly assist in the delivery of your message and help the audience follow along with what you are saying. Key slides include:

• An intro slide outlining your ideas
• A  summary slide  with core points to remember
• High quality image slides to supplement what you are saying

There are some presenters who choose not to use slides at all, though this is more of a rarity. Slides can be a powerful tool if used properly, but the problem is that many fail to do just that. Here are some golden rules to follow when using slides in a presentation:

• Don’t over fill them  – your slides are there to assist your speech, rather than be the focal point. They should have as little information as possible, to avoid distracting people from your talk.
• A picture says a thousand words  – instead of filling a slide with text, instead, focus on one or two images or diagrams to help support and explain the point you are discussing at that time.
• Make them readable  – depending on the size of your audience, some may not be able to see small text or images, so make everything large enough to fill the space.
• Don’t rush through slides  – give the audience enough time to digest each slide.

Guy Kawasaki, an entrepreneur and author, suggests that slideshows should follow a  10-20-30 rule :

• There should be a maximum of 10 slides – people rarely remember more than one concept afterwards so there’s no point overwhelming them with unnecessary information.
• The presentation should last no longer than 20 minutes as this will leave time for questions and discussion.
• The font size should be a minimum of 30pt because the audience reads faster than you talk so less information on the slides means that there is less chance of the audience being distracted.

Here are some additional resources for slide design:

• 7 design tips for effective, beautiful PowerPoint presentations
• 11 design tips for beautiful presentations
• 10 tips on how to make slides that communicate your idea

Group Presentations

Group presentations are structured in the same way as presentations with one speaker but usually require more rehearsal and practices.  Clean transitioning between speakers  is very important in producing a presentation that flows well. One way of doing this consists of:

• Briefly recap on what you covered in your section: “So that was a brief introduction on what health anxiety is and how it can affect somebody”
• Introduce the next speaker in the team and explain what they will discuss: “Now Elnaz will talk about the prevalence of health anxiety.”
• Then end by looking at the next speaker, gesturing towards them and saying their name: “Elnaz”.
• The next speaker should acknowledge this with a quick: “Thank you Joe.”

From this example you can see how the different sections of the presentations link which makes it easier for the audience to follow and remain engaged.

Example of great presentation structure and delivery

Having examples of great presentations will help inspire your own structures, here are a few such examples, each unique and inspiring in their own way.

How Google Works – by Eric Schmidt

This presentation by ex-Google CEO  Eric Schmidt  demonstrates some of the most important lessons he and his team have learnt with regards to working with some of the most talented individuals they hired. The simplistic yet cohesive style of all of the slides is something to be appreciated. They are relatively straightforward, yet add power and clarity to the narrative of the presentation.

Start with why – by Simon Sinek

Since being released in 2009, this presentation has been viewed almost four million times all around the world. The message itself is very powerful, however, it’s not an idea that hasn’t been heard before. What makes this presentation so powerful is the simple message he is getting across, and the straightforward and understandable manner in which he delivers it. Also note that he doesn’t use any slides, just a whiteboard where he creates a simple diagram of his opinion.

The Wisdom of a Third Grade Dropout – by Rick Rigsby

Here’s an example of a presentation given by a relatively unknown individual looking to inspire the next generation of graduates. Rick’s presentation is unique in many ways compared to the two above. Notably, he uses no visual prompts and includes a great deal of humour.

However, what is similar is the structure he uses. He first introduces his message that the wisest man he knew was a third-grade dropout. He then proceeds to deliver his main body of argument, and in the end, concludes with his message. This powerful speech keeps the viewer engaged throughout, through a mixture of heart-warming sentiment, powerful life advice and engaging humour.

As you can see from the examples above, and as it has been expressed throughout, a great presentation structure means analysing the core message of your presentation. Decide on a key message you want to impart the audience with, and then craft an engaging way of delivering it.

By preparing a solid structure, and  practising your talk  beforehand, you can walk into the presentation with confidence and deliver a meaningful message to an interested audience.

It’s important for a presentation to be well-structured so it can have the most impact on your audience. An unstructured presentation can be difficult to follow and even frustrating to listen to. The heart of your speech are your main points supported by evidence and your transitions should assist the movement between points and clarify how everything is linked.

Research suggests that the audience remember the first and last things you say so your introduction and conclusion are vital for reinforcing your points. Essentially, ensure you spend the time structuring your presentation and addressing all of the sections.

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Blog Beginner Guides How To Make a Good Presentation [A Complete Guide]

How To Make a Good Presentation [A Complete Guide]

Written by: Krystle Wong Jul 20, 2023

A top-notch presentation possesses the power to drive action. From winning stakeholders over and conveying a powerful message to securing funding — your secret weapon lies within the realm of creating an effective presentation .  

Being an excellent presenter isn’t confined to the boardroom. Whether you’re delivering a presentation at work, pursuing an academic career, involved in a non-profit organization or even a student, nailing the presentation game is a game-changer.

In this article, I’ll cover the top qualities of compelling presentations and walk you through a step-by-step guide on how to give a good presentation. Here’s a little tip to kick things off: for a headstart, check out Venngage’s collection of free presentation templates . They are fully customizable, and the best part is you don’t need professional design skills to make them shine!

These valuable presentation tips cater to individuals from diverse professional backgrounds, encompassing business professionals, sales and marketing teams, educators, trainers, students, researchers, non-profit organizations, public speakers and presenters. 

No matter your field or role, these tips for presenting will equip you with the skills to deliver effective presentations that leave a lasting impression on any audience.

Click to jump ahead:

What are the 10 qualities of a good presentation?

Step-by-step guide on how to prepare an effective presentation, 9 effective techniques to deliver a memorable presentation, faqs on making a good presentation, how to create a presentation with venngage in 5 steps.

When it comes to giving an engaging presentation that leaves a lasting impression, it’s not just about the content — it’s also about how you deliver it. Wondering what makes a good presentation? Well, the best presentations I’ve seen consistently exhibit these 10 qualities:

1. Clear structure

No one likes to get lost in a maze of information. Organize your thoughts into a logical flow, complete with an introduction, main points and a solid conclusion. A structured presentation helps your audience follow along effortlessly, leaving them with a sense of satisfaction at the end.

Regardless of your presentation style , a quality presentation starts with a clear roadmap. Browse through Venngage’s template library and select a presentation template that aligns with your content and presentation goals. Here’s a good presentation example template with a logical layout that includes sections for the introduction, main points, supporting information and a conclusion: 

2. Engaging opening

Hook your audience right from the start with an attention-grabbing statement, a fascinating question or maybe even a captivating anecdote. Set the stage for a killer presentation!

The opening moments of your presentation hold immense power – check out these 15 ways to start a presentation to set the stage and captivate your audience.

3. Relevant content

Make sure your content aligns with their interests and needs. Your audience is there for a reason, and that’s to get valuable insights. Avoid fluff and get straight to the point, your audience will be genuinely excited.

4. Effective visual aids

Picture this: a slide with walls of text and tiny charts, yawn! Visual aids should be just that—aiding your presentation. Opt for clear and visually appealing slides, engaging images and informative charts that add value and help reinforce your message.

With Venngage, visualizing data takes no effort at all. You can import data from CSV or Google Sheets seamlessly and create stunning charts, graphs and icon stories effortlessly to showcase your data in a captivating and impactful way.

5. Clear and concise communication

Keep your language simple, and avoid jargon or complicated terms. Communicate your ideas clearly, so your audience can easily grasp and retain the information being conveyed. This can prevent confusion and enhance the overall effectiveness of the message. 

6. Engaging delivery

Spice up your presentation with a sprinkle of enthusiasm! Maintain eye contact, use expressive gestures and vary your tone of voice to keep your audience glued to the edge of their seats. A touch of charisma goes a long way!

7. Interaction and audience engagement

Turn your presentation into an interactive experience — encourage questions, foster discussions and maybe even throw in a fun activity. Engaged audiences are more likely to remember and embrace your message.

Transform your slides into an interactive presentation with Venngage’s dynamic features like pop-ups, clickable icons and animated elements. Engage your audience with interactive content that lets them explore and interact with your presentation for a truly immersive experience.

8. Effective storytelling

Who doesn’t love a good story? Weaving relevant anecdotes, case studies or even a personal story into your presentation can captivate your audience and create a lasting impact. Stories build connections and make your message memorable.

A great presentation background is also essential as it sets the tone, creates visual interest and reinforces your message. Enhance the overall aesthetics of your presentation with these 15 presentation background examples and captivate your audience’s attention.

9. Well-timed pacing

Pace your presentation thoughtfully with well-designed presentation slides, neither rushing through nor dragging it out. Respect your audience’s time and ensure you cover all the essential points without losing their interest.

10. Strong conclusion

Last impressions linger! Summarize your main points and leave your audience with a clear takeaway. End your presentation with a bang , a call to action or an inspiring thought that resonates long after the conclusion.

In-person presentations aside, acing a virtual presentation is of paramount importance in today’s digital world. Check out this guide to learn how you can adapt your in-person presentations into virtual presentations . 

Preparing an effective presentation starts with laying a strong foundation that goes beyond just creating slides and notes. One of the quickest and best ways to make a presentation would be with the help of a good presentation software . 

Otherwise, let me walk you to how to prepare for a presentation step by step and unlock the secrets of crafting a professional presentation that sets you apart.

1. Understand the audience and their needs

Before you dive into preparing your masterpiece, take a moment to get to know your target audience. Tailor your presentation to meet their needs and expectations , and you’ll have them hooked from the start!

2. Conduct thorough research on the topic

Time to hit the books (or the internet)! Don’t skimp on the research with your presentation materials — dive deep into the subject matter and gather valuable insights . The more you know, the more confident you’ll feel in delivering your presentation.

3. Organize the content with a clear structure

No one wants to stumble through a chaotic mess of information. Outline your presentation with a clear and logical flow. Start with a captivating introduction, follow up with main points that build on each other and wrap it up with a powerful conclusion that leaves a lasting impression.

Delivering an effective business presentation hinges on captivating your audience, and Venngage’s professionally designed business presentation templates are tailor-made for this purpose. With thoughtfully structured layouts, these templates enhance your message’s clarity and coherence, ensuring a memorable and engaging experience for your audience members.

Don’t want to build your presentation layout from scratch? pick from these 5 foolproof presentation layout ideas that won’t go wrong. 

4. Develop visually appealing and supportive visual aids

Spice up your presentation with eye-catching visuals! Create slides that complement your message, not overshadow it. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words, but that doesn’t mean you need to overload your slides with text.

Well-chosen designs create a cohesive and professional look, capturing your audience’s attention and enhancing the overall effectiveness of your message. Here’s a list of carefully curated PowerPoint presentation templates and great background graphics that will significantly influence the visual appeal and engagement of your presentation.

5. Practice, practice and practice

Practice makes perfect — rehearse your presentation and arrive early to your presentation to help overcome stage fright. Familiarity with your material will boost your presentation skills and help you handle curveballs with ease.

6. Seek feedback and make necessary adjustments

Don’t be afraid to ask for help and seek feedback from friends and colleagues. Constructive criticism can help you identify blind spots and fine-tune your presentation to perfection.

With Venngage’s real-time collaboration feature , receiving feedback and editing your presentation is a seamless process. Group members can access and work on the presentation simultaneously and edit content side by side in real-time. Changes will be reflected immediately to the entire team, promoting seamless teamwork.

7. Prepare for potential technical or logistical issues

Prepare for the unexpected by checking your equipment, internet connection and any other potential hiccups. If you’re worried that you’ll miss out on any important points, you could always have note cards prepared. Remember to remain focused and rehearse potential answers to anticipated questions.

8. Fine-tune and polish your presentation

As the big day approaches, give your presentation one last shine. Review your talking points, practice how to present a presentation and make any final tweaks. Deep breaths — you’re on the brink of delivering a successful presentation!

In competitive environments, persuasive presentations set individuals and organizations apart. To brush up on your presentation skills, read these guides on how to make a persuasive presentation and tips to presenting effectively . 

Whether you’re an experienced presenter or a novice, the right techniques will let your presentation skills soar to new heights!

From public speaking hacks to interactive elements and storytelling prowess, these 9 effective presentation techniques will empower you to leave a lasting impression on your audience and make your presentations unforgettable.

1. Confidence and positive body language

Positive body language instantly captivates your audience, making them believe in your message as much as you do. Strengthen your stage presence and own that stage like it’s your second home! Stand tall, shoulders back and exude confidence. 

2. Eye contact with the audience

Break down that invisible barrier and connect with your audience through their eyes. Maintaining eye contact when giving a presentation builds trust and shows that you’re present and engaged with them.

3. Effective use of hand gestures and movement

A little movement goes a long way! Emphasize key points with purposeful gestures and don’t be afraid to walk around the stage. Your energy will be contagious!

4. Utilize storytelling techniques

Weave the magic of storytelling into your presentation. Share relatable anecdotes, inspiring success stories or even personal experiences that tug at the heartstrings of your audience. Adjust your pitch, pace and volume to match the emotions and intensity of the story. Varying your speaking voice adds depth and enhances your stage presence.

5. Incorporate multimedia elements

Spice up your presentation with a dash of visual pizzazz! Use slides, images and video clips to add depth and clarity to your message. Just remember, less is more—don’t overwhelm them with information overload. 

Turn your presentations into an interactive party! Involve your audience with questions, polls or group activities. When they actively participate, they become invested in your presentation’s success. Bring your design to life with animated elements. Venngage allows you to apply animations to icons, images and text to create dynamic and engaging visual content.

6. Utilize humor strategically

Laughter is the best medicine—and a fantastic presentation enhancer! A well-placed joke or lighthearted moment can break the ice and create a warm atmosphere , making your audience more receptive to your message.

7. Practice active listening and respond to feedback

Be attentive to your audience’s reactions and feedback. If they have questions or concerns, address them with genuine interest and respect. Your responsiveness builds rapport and shows that you genuinely care about their experience.

8. Apply the 10-20-30 rule

Apply the 10-20-30 presentation rule and keep it short, sweet and impactful! Stick to ten slides, deliver your presentation within 20 minutes and use a 30-point font to ensure clarity and focus. Less is more, and your audience will thank you for it!

9. Implement the 5-5-5 rule

Simplicity is key. Limit each slide to five bullet points, with only five words per bullet point and allow each slide to remain visible for about five seconds. This rule keeps your presentation concise and prevents information overload.

Simple presentations are more engaging because they are easier to follow. Summarize your presentations and keep them simple with Venngage’s gallery of simple presentation templates and ensure that your message is delivered effectively across your audience.

1. How to start a presentation?

To kick off your presentation effectively, begin with an attention-grabbing statement or a powerful quote. Introduce yourself, establish credibility and clearly state the purpose and relevance of your presentation.

2. How to end a presentation?

For a strong conclusion, summarize your talking points and key takeaways. End with a compelling call to action or a thought-provoking question and remember to thank your audience and invite any final questions or interactions.

3. How to make a presentation interactive?

To make your presentation interactive, encourage questions and discussion throughout your talk. Utilize multimedia elements like videos or images and consider including polls, quizzes or group activities to actively involve your audience.

In need of inspiration for your next presentation? I’ve got your back! Pick from these 120+ presentation ideas, topics and examples to get started. 

Creating a stunning presentation with Venngage is a breeze with our user-friendly drag-and-drop editor and professionally designed templates for all your communication needs. 

Here’s how to make a presentation in just 5 simple steps with the help of Venngage:

Step 1: Sign up for Venngage for free using your email, Gmail or Facebook account or simply log in to access your account. 

Step 2: Pick a design from our selection of free presentation templates (they’re all created by our expert in-house designers).

Step 3: Make the template your own by customizing it to fit your content and branding. With Venngage’s intuitive drag-and-drop editor, you can easily modify text, change colors and adjust the layout to create a unique and eye-catching design.

Step 4: Elevate your presentation by incorporating captivating visuals. You can upload your images or choose from Venngage’s vast library of high-quality photos, icons and illustrations. 

Step 5: Upgrade to a premium or business account to export your presentation in PDF and print it for in-person presentations or share it digitally for free!

By following these five simple steps, you’ll have a professionally designed and visually engaging presentation ready in no time. With Venngage’s user-friendly platform, your presentation is sure to make a lasting impression. So, let your creativity flow and get ready to shine in your next presentation!

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7 Ways to Structure Your Presentation to Keep Your Audience Wanting More

Written by: Orana Velarde

The most successful and memorable presentations have one thing in common.

They all tell a story.

No matter how many facts or charts need to be presented, incorporating stories into a presentation will keep your audience focused and intrigued.

Using stories to support data is a well-known technique in all aspects of public speaking, from motivational talks to in-company sales pitches.

Here’s a short selection of 8 easy-to-edit modern presentation templates you can edit, share and download with Visme. View more templates below:

In this guide, we will look at 7 ways to structure your presentations using storytelling techniques to keep your audience engaged until the very end.

Look closely at each one to see which fits your presentation’s purpose best!

Planning Your Presentation Structure: Like Building a Lego Model

Is it easier to separate the correct pieces before you start building?  Or is it better to search in a big bucket with mixed parts for every new piece you need?

We’re pretty sure you will pick the first option.  In the beginning, it might seem like this option would take longer, but the opposite is true.

The first step to a successful presentation structure is to brainstorm your ideas and combine them into a rough draft. But first, consider the message you want to relay to your audience.

RELATED: A Non-Designer's Guide to Creating Memorable Visual Presentations

The Message

What is the message you want to convey with your presentation?

A good starting point is to decide if it will be informative, entertaining, inspiring or persuasive.

In a business setting, you might want your presentation to do two of these things: inform and persuade. If you are a mindset coach for companies, then you might want to entertain and inspire.

The main message should be easy to grasp from the title on your first slide. Think of an appropriate way to word what you want to give your audience in one or two sentences. This can of course be changed later, but having a preliminary title will help get your ideas in order for what comes next.

RELATED: 150+ Presentation Topic Ideas for Students [Plus Templates]

Once you know which direction your presentation will take, it’s time to jot all your ideas down on paper to create a presentation outline and rough draft of all the points you will cover.

7 Ways to Structure Your Presentation

Now that the brainstorming and rough draft are out of the way, it’s time to start structuring your presentation. This is when we introduce the storytelling aspect into the equation.

All the information you have gathered and organized in your rough draft now needs some attitude to really get your message across.

We are going to look at 7 different styles of storytelling structures that work great for presentations. They all have a different style of delivery and cadence. Choosing one for your presentation will depend on your message and who your audience is.

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Fact and Story

The first structure we will look at is Fact and Story . The premise is that the presentation moves back and forth between facts and stories.

Presentation guru Nancy Duarte wrote about this presentation structure in her book " Resonate ." She suggests that mixing storytelling with the relay of facts can help your audience stay interested until the end of your presentation.

According to Duarte, this type of structure should start off with an initial setting of the present reality: the “what is.” From there, an invitation to adventure is presented and the first instance of “what could be” is told as a story to illustrate how the initials facts can be improved.

This comparison of presenting the facts as what they are at the present moment with stories that show how things could be improved is what keeps your audience interested and waiting for more.

The conclusion should end at a high point, considerably higher than where it began. The audience should feel like they learned something and, at the same time, inspired to change.

This structure maintains a level of suspense and excitement, perfect for presentations that need to inspire AND inform.

This TED talk by David McCandless about the The Beauty of Data Visualization is a perfect example of the Fact and Story structure. He presents a collection of data visualizations which he created himself, along with a story of why he chose each particular set of data.

The topics he chose were extremely relevant to our present day and the audience related to all of them. The personal stories added to the intrigue and the audience left feeling like data visualizations are not only beautiful but also quite important.

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The Explanation

According to Gavin McMahon, co-founder of fassforward Consulting Group , the presentation structured labeled as The Explanation is meant to teach new insights and abilities.

Its main purpose is to inform about a process or plan to either fix a problem or learn something new. A good way to incorporate storytelling into the structure is to show the progression of the facts along with the progression of a story.

The presentation progresses in an upward motion following these steps:

• The Lay of the Land shows how things stand right now, what the destination is and how you plan to get there. The point is to get the audience excited and on board as quickly as possible by showing them the entire process straight up. Tell a story that relates directly to the introduction. Better yet, start with a story.
• The Roadmap is a visual map of how you will get to the final destination and reach the resolution. Set the audience on the right track.
• The First Step begins the adventure to get where you want to go.
• T he Next Steps is the middle section of the presentation, where all the steps are laid out one by one.
• Almost there is the catharsis where you look back at how much has changed and progressed since the first step.
• The Arrival is the celebration of the end of the journey. The audience should feel like they have learned something new and gained new knowledge.

The Explanation structure can be used for presentations by consultants that want to teach new ways of doing things inside a company or department. It could also perfectly fit in a sales meeting where a presenter can explain their process of a masterful sales plan.

This TED talk by Amy Cuddy about how your body language shapes who you are is a great example of an Explanation structure. She tells us about her experiment on power poses and how they can affect the outcome of a difficult situation.

The presentation starts off with a discussion on the natural animal and human condition of power and ends with a personal invitation to change your life with a 2-minute practice of power posing.

If you are a lover of the show "Grey’s Anatomy," this is the idea behind the power pose that the neurosurgeons do before a big procedure.

As you know, a pitch in the business sense is when a presenter uses the power of a presentation or speech to convince the audience of something he/she believes will improve a system or solve a problem, according to Gavin McMahon, co-founder of fassforward Consulting Group .

The Pitch presentation structure is like a climb uphill that takes you over a hurdle and on to a positive resolution.

It shows how the presenter’s idea can really improve a situation. By using a real and relatable story, the pitch makes more sense and feels more important.

• The Wind Up is a quick summary of what’s going on right now to presents the facts in a way that is easy to grasp and relatable to the audience.
• The Hurdle presents the problem that needs to be solved . Relay the problem with a story so that the emphasis is doubled.
• The Vision presents a glimpse into the main idea on how the problem can be solved.
• The Options is the moment when two different options are laid out as possibilities to solve the initial problem. The idea is to give an average option first, followed by a great option second. If there have already been tests and experiments to prove these facts, then these are the story.
• The Close is the point where the ideal option is presented as the best and only option.
• The Fine Print tells the audience exactly how the problem will be solved, the steps that need to be taken and the tasks to be resolved.
• The Hook is the uplifting conclusion to the presentation which relays an added bonus to the solution of the problem.

Use The Pitch presentation structure when you want to convince someone that your idea is the best for their problem. This structure also works when a new startup is looking for new funding or sponsorship opportunities.

This TED talk by Enric Sala about how to turn the high seas into the world’s largest natural reserve is a great example of a Pitch structure. He starts off with a story of how a group of fishermen revived an area of the ocean by stopping all the fishing there and turning it into a natural reserve.

Ten years later, that piece of ocean makes more money from scuba diving tourism than it ever did from fishing. He continues to talk about the same problem at a larger scale, the diminishing supply of fish and the destruction of the oceans.

His pitch to solve the impending problem is to turn the high seas into a natural reserve. He finishes by telling the audience that the plan is being pitched to the UN and that every individual can help their country abide by the new agreement if it goes through.

There is a well-known structure in literature called “The Hero’s Journey” which follows the plight of a main character from the beginning of a story to the end and leaves the reader feeling like they've learned a lesson they will never forget.

This type of presentation structure, The Drama , has a strong storytelling aspect. This is often used to tell the story of an influential company from founding days, through trials and tribulations, and then finishes with an inspiring show of success.

Another perfect presentation for The Drama structure is an inspiring personal story.

These are the steps of a Drama style presentation structure:

• One Fine Day . The introduction sets the stage with a situation where things are not perfect but just average. Imagine as if it were the first page of a book, where the setting is laid out and the audience gets an idea of a time and place.
• The Challenge. Suddenly a problem appears that can’t be ignored. The things that need to be solved are presented as a challenge.
• Descending Crisis . At this point, the problem is attacked head on but things gets worse until it hits rock bottom.
• Rock Bottom. When all seems lost and everything is at its worst, the story arrives at a standstill. As an added bonus, the presenter can pause for effect.
• The Discovery . This is the moment when a glimmer of light shows up and there is a discovery, a new way of resolving the problem.
• The Rise . By discovering new abilities, the problem can be tackled in a positive way.
• The Return . Not only are the problem and challenge resolved, the character and the audience break through and reach an unexpected happiness threshold, opening the world to a whole new range of possibilities.
• The Lesson . The conclusion is reached with an unforgettable lesson and resolution. The audience will feel inspired, informed and entertained.

This TED talk by Adam Driver about his journey from Marine to actor is the perfect example of The Drama structure.

He begins the story by telling the audience about what his life was like before he joined the Marines and what drove him to do it.

He tells how the Marines became his family, and closest friends. Then, right before deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan, he had an accident that separated him from the Marines for good.

He continues to explain how he went on to become an actor, followed by the creation of his project to unify theater with military service.

His talk ends with an example of the theater pieces he coordinates to be presented at military camps. Listeners are left with their hearts full of a newfound hope for humanity.

RELATED: This Classic Storytelling Model Will Help You Give a Mesmerizing Presentation

Situation - Complication - Resolution

According to Gavin McMahon , co-founder of fassforward Consulting Group, most presentations in the realm of B2B sales and business consultancy follow the Situation - Complication - Resolution structure. It is a three-element storyline linked by the words  but  and  therefore .

The starting point is The Situation , where current conditions are shown in an unbiased and transparent way. The situation connects to the next step through the word but .

A simple example: Our home decor company is selling pretty well this month, but…

This is when The Complication is presented.

In the above example, it could look something like this:

Our home decor company is selling pretty well this month, but  … we have been spending too much on international shipping.

When presenting The Complication , use facts to prove it. Present it as the challenge that needs to be overcome. The Complication is a low point, but from a low point we can only go up.

The final destination is The Resolution , which is connected to The Complication with the word, therefore .

Our home decor company is selling pretty well this month, but we have been spending too much on international shipping. Therefore,  we need to start using a new company that has a better price range and great service.

Back up all of your information with real facts and proof.

Situation - Opportunity - Resolution

A similar structure to the one above, the Situation - Opportunity - Resolution  replaces  Complication with   Opportunity . This three-part structure is also joined by the words  but  and  therefore .

The difference is that instead of the movement going down and then up, it goes slightly up and then levels out.

This structure is perfect when you need to show that something is not that hard to fix; that the problem might not be so big after all and that the solution is easy to grasp.

A presentation that follows this structure could turn out to be quite short, if only the facts are presented, but that would leave the audience feeling like “is that it?” Adding an interesting story to help the audience relate makes the overall presentation more effective.

This TED talk by Adam Galinsky about how to speak up for yourself is a perfect example of the Situation - Opportunity - Resolution presentation structure. He starts off by saying: “Speaking up is hard,” and instantly everyone in the audience can relate.

He gives a few personal stories about times when he should have spoken up and others when he shouldn’t. He gives contextual proof and explanations about how sometimes we feel powerless, other times powerful, and how this affects if we speak up or not.

His solution to the problem is not a huge effort but rather a personal mindset change. The presentation ends with an inspiring quote by the speaker’s father which leaves the audience feeling like they will know exactly when it’s the perfect time to speak up, or not.

Hook, Meat and Payoff

This presentation structure, like The Drama, is deeply founded in the art of storytelling. While the Hero’s Journey is more of a literary technique,  Hook, Meat and Payoff is more like a spoken-word progression.

The idea is that with the Hook , the presenter gives the audience a sense of place and time, plus a situation that will put them at the edge of their seats, wanting more.

The Meat is the middle section and usually the longest part of the presentation where the story progresses and all the information is relayed in an interesting and inviting way.

The Payoff is the inspiring conclusion that circles back to the beginning and leaves the audience feeling inspired.

It's like when you come out of the movie theater: You feel better about yourself and the world around you, as if you've learned something important that will make your life a little better.

This TED talk by Jill Bolte Taylor about her stroke of insight is a perfect example of a Hook, Meat and Payoff presentation structure.

One of the most famous TED talks of all time, this presentation starts with her personal story of the time she suffered a brain hemorrhage and stroke.

She is a neuroanatomist; she studies brains for a living. Her experience of having a stroke is one of the deepest stories you'll ever hear about the union between science and spirituality.

Her presentation hook, a real human brain which she shows to the audience, very much grabs your attention. The meat of the talk is also entertaining and interesting; she has the audience laughing and crying right along with her.

In the end, she recounts the moment when she felt her body die and then woke up feeling like she was a different person. She had lost all capacities with the stroke, and it took her eight years to learn to talk and walk again.

The Payoff is her invitation to everyone to feel like they have Nirvana at their fingertips, that being conscious of the world around us is not an impossible task.

RELATED: 7 Storytelling Techniques Used by the Most Inspiring TED Presenters

Make a Storyboard

Now that we've looked at the seven different ways that you can structure your presentation with storytelling techniques, it’s time to make a storyboard.

A storyboard is what film makers use to set up the structure of their movie before filming it. It is created with the help of the screenplay, following the flow of the story. Each rectangle in the storyboard is a scene in the film.

Presenters use this process of storyboarding to set up their presentations because it really helps with productivity. A storyboard is essentially a visual draft of your presentation.

(A note for the “un-artistic”: Don’t worry about things looking amazing right now! Uneven squiggles and weird shapes work the same way as perfect squares. The designed and finished look will come later when you set it all up in the Visme editor.)

As you add the story aspect to your presentation, make sure you don’t get too wordy and try using visuals instead of too much text. Use one or two sentences at most for each slide.

The best way to make a storyboard is with index cards, using each card as a slide. You can add things or easily take them away before you even start to design the final draft.

If it makes things easier, you can take a look at some presentation templates in Visme to see how we've created different slides. This might visually inspire the cards in your storyboard.

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Build it with Visme

You are now ready to move on to the final step: building your presentation with Visme. Okay, you can create it with whichever presentation software you like, but we think you'll conclude Visme is one of the best choices out there.

Promotions aside, it’s time to bring it all to life.

First, open a new presentation canvas, then choose a template or start from scratch. When you start from a blank canvas in Visme, you can add pre-built slides one by one from the slide library.

Create your slides by following the storyboard. For an added bonus, you can use animations, videos and audio to make your presentation unique.

Record your own audio and voiceovers within Visme

If your presentation is meant to be seen on its own, online or sent as a scrollable PDF, there might need to be more text than on a visual presentation which accompanies a speech. You can try animating the text so it's not just a big block of words.

Using audio also helps, but if the viewer has their computer on mute, they might miss it. Make sure your first slide gives the instruction to turn up the volume.

If your visual presentation is going to be used as a backdrop for a speech, you can forgo some of the text and make it more visual.

Remember to rehearse your speech along with the slides so it all flows seamlessly. TED speakers suggest you rehearse a spoken presentation at least 10 times until it flows naturally.

If you need more help with your presentation design, don't forget to grab our free e-book below.

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About the Author

Orana is a multi-faceted creative. She is a content writer, artist, and designer. She travels the world with her family and is currently in Istanbul. Find out more about her work at oranavelarde.com

Blog > How to structure a good PowerPoint Presentation

How to structure a good PowerPoint Presentation

08.09.21   •  #powerpoint #tips.

When creating presentations, it is particularly important that they are well organized and have a consistent structure.

A logical structure helps the audience to follow you and to remember the core information as best as possible. It is also important for the presenter, as a good presentation structure helps to keep calm, to stay on the topic and to avoid awkward pauses.

But what does such a structure actually look like? Here we show you how to best organize your presentation and what a good structure looks like.

Plan your presentation

Before you start creating your presentation, you should always brainstorm. Think about the topic and write all your ideas down. Then think about the message you want to communicate, what your goal is and what you want your audience to remember at the end.

Think about who your audience is so that you can address them in the best possible way. One possibility is to start your presentation with a few polls to get to know your audience better. Based on the results, you can then adapt your presentation a little. Use the poll function of SlideLizard and have all the answers at a glance. SlideLizard makes it possible to integrate the polls directly into your PowerPoint presentation which helps you to avoid annoying switching between presentation and interaction tool. You can keep an eye on the results while the votes come in and then decide whether you want to share them or not.

• an informative
• an entertaining
• an inspiring
• or a persuasive presentation?

Typical Presentation Structure

The basic structure of a presentation is actually always the same and should consist of:

Introduction

Make sure that the structure of your presentation is not too complicated. The simpler it is, the better the audience can follow.

Personal Introduction

It is best to start your presentation by briefly introducing yourself which helps to build a connection with your audience right away.

Introduce the topic

Then introduce the topic, state the purpose of the presentation and provide a brief outline of the main points you will be addressing.

Mention the length

In the introduction, mention the approximate length of the talk and then also make sure you stick to it.

The introduction should be no longer than two slides and provide a good overview of the topic.

Icebreaker Polls

According to studies, people in the audience only have an average attention span of 10 minutes, which is why it is important to increase their attention right at the beginning and to arouse the audience's interest. You could make a good start with a few icebreaker polls for example. They lighten the mood right at the beginning and you can secure your audience's attention from the start.

For example, you could use SlideLizard to have all the answers at a glance and share them with your audience. In addition, the audience can try out how the polls work and already know how it works if you include more polls in the main part.

Get to know your audience

As mentioned earlier, it is always useful to think about who your audience actually is. Ask them questions at the beginning about how well they already know the topic of your presentation. Use SlideLizard for this so that you have a clear overview about the answers. You can use both single- and multiple-choice questions or also open questions and display their results as a WordCloud in your presentation, for example.

Include a quote

To make the beginning (or the end) of your presentation more exciting, it is always a good idea to include a quote. We have selected some powerful quotes for PowerPoint presentations for you.

Present your topic

The main part of a presentation should explain the topic well, state facts, justify them and give examples. Keep all the promises you made earlier in the introduction.

Length and Structure

The main part should make up about 70% of the presentation and also include a clear structure. Explain your ideas in detail and build them up logically. It should be organized chronologically, by priority or by topic. There should be a smooth transition between the individual issues. However, it is also important to use phrases that make it clear that a new topic is starting. We have listed some useful phrases for presentations here.

Visualize data and statistics and show pictures to underline facts. If you are still looking for good images, we have selected 5 sources of free images for you here.

Focus on the essentials

Focus on what is most important and summarize a bit. You don't have to say everything about a topic because your audience won’t remember everything either. Avoid complicated sentence structure, because if the audience does not understand something, they will not be able to read it again.

Make your presentation interactive

Make your presentation interactive to keep the attention of your audience. Use SlideLizard to include polls in your presentation, where your audience can vote directly from their smartphone and discuss the answers as soon as you received all votes. Here you can also find more tips for increasing audience engagement.

Repeat the main points

The conclusion should contain a summary of the most important key points. Repeat the main points you have made, summarize what the audience should have learned and explain how the new information can help in the future.

Include a Q&A part

Include a Q&A part at the end to make sure you don't leave any questions open. It's a good idea to use tools like SlideLizard for it. Your audience can ask anonymous questions and if there is not enough time, you can give them the answers afterwards. You can read more about the right way to do a question slide in PowerPoint here.

Get Feedback

It is also important to get feedback on your presentation at the end to keep improving. With SlideLizard you can ask your audience for anonymous feedback through star ratings, number ratings or open texts directly after your presentation. You can then export the responses and analyse them later in Excel.

Presentation style

Depending on the type of presentation you give, the structure will always be slightly different. We have selected a few different presentation styles and their structure for you.

Short Presentation

If you are one of many presenters on the day, you will only have a very limited time to present your idea and to convince your audience. It is very important to stand out with your presentation.

So you need to summarize your ideas as briefly as possible and probably should not need more than 3-5 slides.

Problem Solving Presentation

Start your presentation by explaining a problem and giving a short overview of it.

Then go into the problem a little more, providing both intellectual and emotional arguments for the seriousness of the problem. You should spend about the first 25% of your presentation on the problem.

After that, you should spend about 50% of your presentation proposing a solution and explaining it in detail.

In the last 25%, describe what benefits this solution will bring to your audience and ask them to take a simple but relevant action that relates to the problem being discussed.

Tell a Story

A great way to build an emotional connection with the audience is to structure a presentation like a story.

In the introduction, introduce a character who has to deal with a conflict. In the main part, tell how he tries to solve his problem but fails again and again. In the end, he manages to find a solution and wins.

Stories have the power to win customers, align colleagues and motivate employees. They’re the most compelling platform we have for managing imaginations. - Nancy Duarte / HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations

Make a demonstration

Use the demonstration structure to show how a product works. First talk about a need or a problem that has to be solved.

Then explain how the product will help solve the problem and try to convince your audience of the need for your product.

Spend the end clarifying where and when the product can be purchased.

Chronological structure

When you have something historical to tell, it is always good to use a chronological structure. You always have to ask yourself what happens next.

To make it more interesting and exciting, it is a good idea to start by telling the end of something and after that you explain how you got there. This way you make the audience curious and you can gain their attention faster.

Nancy Duarte TED Talk

Nancy Duarte is a speaker and presentation design expert. She gives speeches all over the world, trying to improve the power of public presentations.

In her famous TED Talk "The Secret Structure of Great Talks" she dissects famous speeches such as Steve Jobs' iPhone launch speech and Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. In doing so, she found out that each presentation is made up of 4 parts:

• What could be
• A moment to remember
• Promise of “New Bliss”

Related articles

About the author.

Helena Reitinger

Helena supports the SlideLizard team in marketing and design. She loves to express her creativity in texts and graphics.

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Slide transitions.

Slide transitions are visual effects which appear in PowerPoint when one slide moves to the next. There are many different transitions, like for example fade and dissolve.

Solution Presentation

A solution has already been found during a solution presentation. The only thing that remains is to find a solution on how to realize the decision.

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Home Blog Business Presentation Structure Guidelines for Effective Communication

Presentation Structure Guidelines for Effective Communication

In the business world, a presentation is so much more than just a bunch of slides or points—it’s a golden opportunity. It can sway decisions, propel change, or bring people together. How you structure your presentation is absolutely critical in getting your ideas across clearly and compellingly. 

When you’ve got a structured presentation just right, it’s like you’re taking your audience by the hand and guiding them through your thoughts, making sure they pick up all the important bits along the way. Moreover, it speaks of your degree of professionalism and how much knowledge you bear on the topic in question. 

Therefore, nailing your presentation structure isn’t just helpful; it’s downright necessary to get the results you’re after. Whether you’re pitching a new concept to the investors, sharing the latest findings with your team, or taking the stage at a conference, how you lay out your content becomes the language you use to interact with your audience. Get to know all that’s required to create a powerful presentation structure that will guarantee success in business meetings, academic dissertations, or motivational talks .

Table of Contents

What is a Presentation Structure

Introduction, techniques to structure your presentation, common mistakes to avoid when designing a presentation structure, final words.

Let’s compare a presentation structure to a business plan . Just as a business plan is essential for guiding a company’s strategy and ensuring all aspects of the business are aligned toward common goals, a presentation structure is crucial for organizing the content and delivery of your talk. 

The presentation structure lays out a clear and logical sequence of information, akin to the sections of a business plan that outline the company’s mission , market analysis , and financial projections. This clear sequence ensures that your audience can easily follow and understand your message, maximizing the impact your speech can deliver and influencing your target audience. 

Key Elements of a Presentation Structure

The easiest way to study a presentation structure is to subdivide it into sections. Basically, every presentation has a structure that follows this formula: Introduction > Body > Conclusion.

The introduction is the first section of the presentation and sets the tone for the rest of the presentation. It should be attention-grabbing and make the audience want to listen to the rest of the presentation.

When defining how to start a presentation , these are the best tips we recommend you implement.

Start with a Hook

Kick off your introduction with a strong hook that grabs your audience’s attention. This could be an intriguing fact, a thought-provoking question, or a compelling story related to your topic. A captivating opening will make your audience want to listen and engage with your presentation.

Clearly State Your Topic

Be clear and concise when stating your topic. Your audience should immediately understand what your presentation is about and what they can expect to learn. A clear statement of your topic sets the stage and provides a roadmap for the rest of your presentation.

Establish Credibility

Take a moment to establish your credibility by briefly sharing your qualifications or experience related to the topic. This helps to build trust and rapport with your audience, and it shows that you are knowledgeable and well-prepared.

Engage Your Audience

Make your audience part of the presentation by engaging them from the start. Ask a question, encourage participation, or invite them to think about how the topic relates to their own experiences. Engagement helps to create a connection between you and your audience. Using a surprise factor is an alternative if you feel the topic you’re about to present may not fully resonate with the target audience.

Preview Main Points

End your introduction by briefly previewing the main points you will cover in your presentation. This provides a clear structure for your audience to follow and helps them understand what to expect in the body of your presentation. An agenda slide is the perfect tool for this purpose.

The body is the main part of the presentation and provides the content and information that the audience came to hear. It should feature the main points and details supporting your presentation’s objective. Depending on your topic, this could include data, arguments, case studies, examples, or demonstrations. Each main point should be clear and distinct, with evidence or examples substantiating it. The content should be tailored to your audience’s level of knowledge and interest.

Different presentations call for various structures. For example, a Product Presentation ’s structure should start by dividing the content into clear sections or headings. For instance, if presenting a new software tool, sections could include its features, benefits, and user feedback.

On the other hand, a Persuasive Presentation begins with stating the current situation or problem, followed by proposed solutions, evidence supporting those solutions, and the benefits of adopting your proposition.

Workshop or Training Presentations begin with an overview of what will be taught, followed by step-by-step instructions, examples, demonstrations, and summaries or quizzes after each major section.

One essential aspect is to plan the multimedia elements to include in your presentation, including audio, images, and video, depending on the presentation style you aim to deliver. Through our expertise, we want to share some tips on how to plan this kind of content:

• Using relevant content: Each image should be related to its accompanying content. Avoid using images just for decoration. If using videos, dedicate an entire slide to them rather than sticking them to a corner of your slide. Plan a powerful hook to connect your thoughts with these visual aids.
• Quality: Ensure all images are of high resolution and can be clearly viewed, even from a distance. Avoid pixelated or distorted images.
• Simplicity: Infographics and diagrams should be easy to understand. If presenting data, use simple charts or graphs instead of complex tables. Limit the amount of text on each slide to ensure clarity. This rule of simplicity also applies to written content and the structure of your speech. Use the Feynman Technique as a time-saver approach to simplify content to reach any knowledgeable audience.
• Consistency: A common cause of presentation failures is to distract the audience with an unprofessional look. Maintain a consistent style and color scheme for all images to give your presentation a polished and professional feel.

Along the path of creating these media elements, you can rethink your strategy for disclosing content. In general lines, you should present your points in a logical order, often from the most to least important or in a chronological sequence. This helps the audience follow along and build understanding step by step. Well-known practices like the storytelling technique follow this approach to maximize audience engagement. 

Transition smoothly between points. Phrases like “moving on,” “in addition,” or “on the other hand” can guide your audience through your narrative. Break up long sections of spoken content with anecdotes, questions, or short videos. Such an approach adds variety and keeps the audience engaged.

A well-structured conclusion is the linchpin that holds your presentation together, reinforcing your main points and leaving a lasting impression on your audience. It is your final opportunity to communicate your message and encourage audience engagement. So, before you consider how to end a presentation , here are some powerful tips to ensure you conclude your presentation with impact.

End with a Strong Statement or Quote

This technique is commonly used in motivational presentations, where the speaker leaves the audience with a slide containing a quote related to the topic of the presentation, something that evokes inner reflection about the topic discussed. 

Conclude your presentation with a strong, memorable statement or a powerful quote that ties back to your main message. This adds weight to your argument and leaves a lasting impression on your audience. If you aim to surprise your audience, silence can also be a strong statement if your presentation has to raise awareness about a problem.

Incorporate a Call-to-Action

Clearly communicate to your audience what you want them to do next. Whether it’s to adopt a new perspective, take specific action, or continue the conversation outside of the presentation, a clear call to action drives engagement and encourages your audience to act upon your message.

Ask Thought-Provoking Questions

Pose thought-provoking questions that stimulate reflection and discussion. This opens the door for audience participation and engagement and allows you to interact with the audience in a Q&A session, or reach after your presentation concluded to network.

Additional Resources and Contact Info

Offer resources such as articles, websites, or books for those interested in exploring your topic further. This not only adds value to your presentation but also encourages the audience to engage with the content beyond the presentation itself.

Consider the way you leave a communication channel open with your audience. This can be in the format of a deliverable, writing down your contact data in the “Thank You” slide , or simply via speech to inform where they can know more about you and your work.

We already discussed the basic Introduction-Body-Conclusion framework for a presentation, but there are alternative approaches that can help you structure your talk.

Problem-Solution Framework

The Problem-Solution Framework is a compelling method to structure presentations, particularly when aiming to persuade or inform an audience about addressing specific challenges. The framework operates on a simple yet impactful premise: initially, highlight a problem or challenge that needs addressing and subsequently propose a viable solution or set of solutions.

Starting with the problem establishes a context, engages the audience by highlighting pain points or challenges they may recognize, and creates a desire for resolution. It sets the stage for the solution to be perceived as necessary and valuable.

The solution phase offers that much-needed resolution. By presenting a clear, actionable solution or set of recommendations, the presenter provides a pathway to overcome the identified challenge. This structure is not only logical but also highly persuasive, as it appeals to the audience’s desire for resolution and improvement. In essence, the Problem-Solution Framework is both a guide for content organization and a psychological tool for persuasion.

Chronological Structure

The Chronological Structure is an intuitive and organized approach to presenting information based on a sequence of events or a progression in time. Whether recounting historical events, outlining the stages of a project, or narrating a personal story, this structure follows a clear beginning, middle, and end sequence. By presenting details in the order they occurred, the audience can easily follow the narrative, making connections between events and understanding causality.

This structure is especially effective when the timeline of events is crucial to the narrative or when showcasing developments, evolutions, or growth over time. It provides clarity and eliminates confusion that might arise from a non-linear presentation. Moreover, by anchoring information on a timeline, the Chronological Structure aids memory retention, as the audience can mentally “map out” the journey of events. In sum, this method offers clarity and a compelling narrative arc, ensuring audience engagement from start to finish.

Comparative Structure

The Comparative Structure is a strategic approach to presentations that hinges on juxtaposing two or more elements, ideas, or solutions side by side. By examining similarities and differences, this method illuminates unique qualities, advantages, or drawbacks inherent in each element. Often employed in business scenarios like product comparisons, market analysis, or debates, the comparative structure helps audiences critically analyze options and make informed decisions.

Presenters utilizing this structure typically start by introducing the elements for comparison. They then delve into detailed analysis, often using criteria or metrics to maintain objective evaluations. Visual aids like Venn diagrams or comparison charts can enhance clarity and visual appeal.

The strength of the Comparative Structure lies in its ability to foster critical thinking. By directly contrasting items, audiences are engaged, encouraged to weigh pros and cons, and ultimately arrive at a deeper understanding or more nuanced perspective on the subject matter.

Matrix Structure

The Matrix Structure offers an approach to organizing presentations by segmenting information into distinct categories or sections, akin to a grid or matrix. Instead of a linear flow, topics are grouped by themes, criteria, or any relevant classification, allowing for simultaneous exploration of multiple facets of a subject. Think of it as viewing a topic through various lenses concurrently.

For instance, in a business setting, a product might be examined in terms of design, functionality, market positioning, and customer feedback. Each of these constitutes a segment in the matrix.

Visually, the matrix can be represented using tables, grids, or quadrant charts, making the content easily digestible and engaging. A key advantage of this structure is its flexibility; presenters can delve deep into one segment or provide a broader overview of all areas, depending on the audience’s needs. Ultimately, the Matrix Structure ensures a comprehensive and multifaceted examination of a topic, providing depth and breadth in analysis.

Modular Structure

The final model we will study is the Modular Structure. It takes content and packs it into modules, which can be arranged at any other the presenter requires them to be. Each module addresses a specific topic or idea and is designed to be self-contained, ensuring clarity even if presented independently or in a different order. This adaptability makes the modular approach especially valuable in dynamic settings, such as workshops or conferences, where audience feedback or time constraints might necessitate adjustments on the fly.

For example, in a corporate training session, different modules could cover distinct skills or topics. Based on the attendees’ prior knowledge or the session’s time limit, the presenter can prioritize, omit, or rearrange modules without compromising the integrity of each segment.

By adopting the Modular Structure, presenters gain flexibility without sacrificing depth. This approach fosters a responsive presentation style, allowing speakers to tailor content in real-time, ensuring maximum relevance and engagement for their audience.

Even well-seasoned presenters can fall prey to these common mistakes in terms of presentation structure. Let’s learn how to prevent them.

Overloading with Information

It’s tempting to include every bit of knowledge you have on a topic. Still, information overload can quickly disengage an audience. Prioritize key points and leave out extraneous details. As famous architect, Mies van der Rohe famously coined, “Less is More.”

Weak Transitions

Jumping abruptly from one point to another can disrupt the flow and confuse listeners. Ensure smooth transitions between sections, signaling shifts in topics or ideas to keep the narrative cohesive.

Dull Design

While content is king, visual appeal matters. Relying solely on walls of text or bland slides can lose your audience’s interest. Incorporate engaging visuals, charts, and multimedia elements to enhance your message and retain attention.

Ignoring the Call to Action

Concluding your presentation without guiding the audience on the next steps or what’s expected of them can be a missed opportunity. Whether it’s seeking feedback, prompting a discussion, or encouraging an action, always have a clear call to action.

Good communication is all about making your point clear, especially in presentations. We’ve talked about how the right structure can keep your audience hooked. But there’s more to it. Think about your presentation. Is it telling your story the way you want? Is it reaching your audience? Take a step back and really look at how you’re laying it out. Don’t just go with the flow – choose your format wisely. Remember, every presentation tells a story, and how you set it up matters a lot.

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How to Structure a Presentation: Tips for Success

How to structure a presentation? Start with a clear introduction, present your main points, and end with a strong conclusion.

How To Structure A Presentation

How to structure a presentation? Start with a clear introduction, present your main points, and end with a strong conclusion. This simple three-part structure helps you make your presentation better , organise your ideas and keeps your audience engaged.

Your introduction tells people what you’ll talk about and why it matters. In the main section, share your key ideas with examples. The conclusion reminds everyone of your main points and suggests what to do next.

This structure works for any presentation, from work meetings to client pitches. It makes your message clear and easy to remember.

What are the key principles that great presenters keep in mind?

Key Takeaways

• Structure your presentation with a clear introduction, main content, and conclusion
• Know your audience and keep them engaged throughout your talk
• Use visual aids like simple slides and pictures to support your key message
• Practice your timing and be prepared to handle questions confidently

Tips For Presentation Success

• Presentation Structure

Understanding Your Audience

Using visual aids effectively, connecting emotionally, managing your time.

• Improving Your Presentation Skills

How to Structure a Presentation

Introduction.

Your introduction sets the tone for everything that follows, so it’s worth putting some thought into it.

Start by saying hello to your audience. It might seem simple, but a friendly greeting can work wonders for putting everyone at ease – including yourself! Next, introduce your topic. Give your audience a clear idea of what you’ll be talking about. This helps them know what to expect and gets them ready to listen.

Finally, share why your topic matters. Maybe it solves a problem they’re facing, or it could change the way they think about something important. Whatever it is, let them know why they should care about what you’re about to say.

Main Content

Think of your main content like a story. Each point should flow naturally into the next, creating a clear and logical path for your audience to follow. Don’t just list facts – explain why each point matters and how it connects to your overall message.

Remember, people learn in different ways. Some people are visual learners, others prefer hearing things explained. That’s why it’s smart to back up your points with a mix of examples. You might use a quick story to illustrate a point , share some interesting data, or show a relevant picture. This variety keeps things interesting and helps your message stick with different types of listeners.

Wrap up your talk with a memorable finale to make your main ideas stick. An effective ending of your presentation does three key things:

First, it briefly recaps your core points. This reminds folks what matters most.

Next, it clearly tells the audience what you want them to do afterwards. Do you hope they’ll try something new or think about a topic differently? Be specific on the action to take.

Finally, it leaves people with a powerful closing thought to remember, maybe a meaningful quote, thought-provoking question, or conclusion to an earlier story. This final moment often sticks for the longest, so choose it carefully.

The ending is your last chance to make an impact. Use it to drive your message home and inspire your audience to take action. Send them off with a strong finish.

Know Their Needs

Before you even start planning your presentation, take a moment to think about who you’re talking to . Consider these factors about your audience:

• Age range and professional background
• Existing knowledge of your topic
• Interests and motivations
• Potential concerns or questions they might have

Understanding your audience helps you pitch your presentation at just the right level. If you’re talking to beginners, you might need to explain some basic concepts. For an expert audience, you can dive into more complex ideas without losing them. The key is to match your content to their knowledge level so everyone feels like they’re learning something valuable.

Keep Them Engaged

Even the most interesting topic can feel boring if it’s presented in a dull way. That’s why keeping your audience engaged is so important.

One great way to do this is by asking questions. It could be a simple show of hands or a more in-depth discussion question. Either way, it gets your audience thinking and involved in what you’re saying.

You can also try adding some interactive elements to your presentation . Maybe a quick poll using a smartphone app or a brief activity that gets people moving or talking to each other. These little breaks in your talk can help refresh people’s attention and make your presentation more memorable.

Simple Slides and Pictures

Visual aids can make your talk more interesting and help people understand your ideas better. But using them well takes some thought. When creating impactful presentation slides and choosing pictures, keep these tips in mind:

• Keep slides simple with no more than six lines of text
• Choose clear, relevant images that support your points
• Use high-quality pictures that are easy to see from a distance
• Avoid cluttering slides with too many elements

By following these guidelines, you’ll create visual aids that enhance your presentation rather than distract from it. Remember, the goal is to make your ideas easier to understand and remember.

If you are looking for In-House PowerPoint Presentation Training for a group or teams, please see our

Videos and Charts

Short videos can be great for showing examples or demonstrating how something works. Just make sure they’re not too long – aim for less than a minute if possible.

Charts and graphs are useful for showing numbers or data in a way that’s easy to understand. But remember, not everyone finds these easy to read. Take a moment to explain what your chart or graph shows and why it’s important.

Tell Stories

Stories are a powerful way to connect with your audience . They make your talk more interesting and help people remember what you’ve said.

Share your own experiences that relate to your topic. This makes your talk more personal and real. For example, if you’re talking about overcoming challenges, you could share a time when you faced a difficult situation and how you dealt with it.

Using humour can also help. A funny story or joke can lighten the mood and keep people interested. Just make sure your humour is appropriate for your audience and doesn’t offend anyone.

If you are looking for In-House Storytelling Training for a group or teams, please see our

Make a Connection

Looking at your audience while you speak helps create a connection with them. Try to make eye contact with different people in the room. This makes everyone feel included and shows you’re confident about what you’re saying.

Your body language is important, too. Use hand gestures to emphasise your points. Stand up straight and try to look relaxed. This helps you appear confident and makes people more likely to listen to what you’re saying.

Timing Your Presentation

Keeping track of time during your talk is really important. If you run over, you might not get to say everything you planned, or worse, your audience might lose interest.

Start by practicing your presentation before the big day. Time yourself to see how long it takes. If it’s too long, you’ll need to cut some parts. If it’s too short, you might need to add more information or examples.

On the day of your presentation, wear a watch or keep a clock where you can see it easily. This helps you stay on track without having to look at your phone, which can be distracting for your audience.

Handling Questions

Many presentations end with a time for questions from the audience . This can be tricky to manage, but it’s a great chance to clarify your ideas and show you know your stuff.

Before your talk, try to think of questions people might ask. Prepare some short, clear answers. This way, you won’t be caught off guard.

When someone asks a question, listen carefully. If you’re not sure what they mean, it’s okay to ask them to explain. Give brief answers to keep things moving, but make sure you’ve fully addressed their question.

Improving Presentation Skills

Giving a good, well-structured presentation takes practice. Here are some ways to get better:

• Plan your content well before you start making presentation slides
• Practice your talk out loud, not just in your head
• Ask friends or family to listen and give you feedback
• Record yourself and watch it back to see how you can improve
• Learn to use pauses effectively – they give your audience time to think
• Work on speaking clearly and at a steady pace

Remember, even experienced speakers get nervous sometimes. The more you practice, the more confident you’ll become.

These skills don’t just help with formal presentations. They can make you better at explaining ideas in class, talking to new people, or even in job interviews later on. So keep working on them – they’re useful in many parts of life!

How Impact Factory Can Help

If you want to get even better at giving presentations, we at Impact Factory can help. We’re experts in teaching people how to speak confidently and share their ideas effectively.

We offer different types of training to help you improve. Our presentation skills course teaches you how to structure your talks and keep your audience interested. We also have storytelling classes that show you how to use stories to make your presentations more engaging.

For those who get nervous speaking in front of others, we have public speaking training . This helps you feel more comfortable and confident when talking to groups.

If you need to convince people or sell ideas, our pitching for business training might be just what you need. It teaches you how to present your ideas in a way that makes people want to listen and agree.

Are you ready to take your presentation skills to the next level? Just give us a call . We’re here to help you become a great presenter, no matter what level you’re starting from.

How do I arrange my presentation?

Start with an introduction that tells people what you’ll be talking about. Then, present your main ideas one by one. End with a summary of what you’ve said and what you want people to remember or do.

What are 7 basic steps to deliver a successful presentation?

• Plan your content
• Know your target audience
• Create clear, simple visual aids
• Practice your delivery
• Start strong to grab attention
• Speak clearly and at a steady pace
• End with a powerful conclusion

What are the 7 C’s of presentation?

The 7 C’s stand for:

• Clear – Make your ideas easy to understand
• Concise – Keep it short and to the point
• Concrete – Use specific examples
• Correct – Make sure your information is accurate
• Coherent – Have your ideas flow logically
• Complete – Cover all important points
• Courteous – Be polite and respectful to your audience

What is the 5 5 5 rule for better presentation?

The 5 5 5 rule suggests:

• No more than 5 words per line of text
• No more than 5 lines of text per slide
• No more than 5 text-heavy slides in a row

This rule helps keep your slides simple and easy to read, which helps your audience focus on what you’re saying.

Related Articles:

Here are more tips on how to improve your presentation skills:

• 12 Crucial Tips To Develop Effective Presentation Skills – Follow our tips to reach presentation mastery.
• How to talk like TED – What makes a good TED talk and how can you incorporate these lessons in your presentations?
• The Reason Why Your Workplace Presentation Skills Are So Important – Explore how good presentation skills can affect your career.

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• Storytelling

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Presentation Structures: Everything You Need to Organize Your Talk

Hrideep barot.

• Presentation , Public Speaking , Speech Writing

A presentation structure includes an introduction, context, main body, conclusion, and scope for questions. Depending on the type of presentation you’re doing, this format can change. The article discusses various considerations for each section of a presentation structure.

For presentations to be understood and create a good impression, they can’t be haphazard. It has to have some sort of pre-planned presentation structure that is both logical and simple enough. Depending on the type of presentation you’re doing, there are likely some basic frameworks available that people tend to follow. Before we delve into the format, let’s consider key points to consider when planning a presentation.

How do you structure and plan a presentation?

We plan a presentation by considering the type of presentation, who our audience is, ideating the purpose, and formulating subtopics through research.

Consider the type of presentation

This leads to understanding the ideal flow to convey your content best. For instance, for persuasive presentations, you could use creative ways to convey what is best about a product, such as starting with a story about how it has helped many people achieve something.

On the other hand, for a progress presentation at your workplace, you might have conventions about what is expected, which must be followed precisely.

A few other types of presentations include:

• Informative presentations
• Instructive presentations
• Motivational presentations
• Analytical presentations

You might also want to consider if you want audience interaction and put that into the structure accordingly. While some allow questions mid-presentation for smaller audiences, it is typically left towards the end.

Consider your audience’s knowledge level and interests

This will determine if you can assume a particular knowledge base and not include it in your presentation structure or if you have to start off with basics and build up on that.

For instance, if you’re teaching 1st-year students about something, you might start with basics. But for graduates, a similar format would be unnecessary as they might have already learned about it.

Similarly, if your purpose is to deliver something entertaining, knowing about the interests and values of your audience helps a ton.

The most simple way is demographics. It’s typically quite easy to find out the expected age group, gender, etc of the audience. This information can help you have a basic idea of the sort of experiences they go through, which helps formulate an understanding.

Consider the purpose of your presentation

While this may seem obvious, many of us lose track of the main purpose and spend too much time on remotely related content. This diverts attention from the topic and might even cause boredom.

For example, if you’re advocating for some social action, it would be beneficial to stay on the topic itself, like the pros, cons, what can be done practically, etc. Instead, if the presenters spend more time criticizing others, the presentation will fall short of its purpose.

Few other examples of different purposes your presentation could have:

• Entertainment
• Providing information
• Telling your story
• Proposing ideas
• Discussing future plans for the company

Research your topic and start noting down the subtopics

Skip this if you already know exactly what needs to be a part of your presentation, and plan to include just that. While looking up your topic, you’ll discover the various sub-topics within that field. After you start noting them down, you can organize later what comes under which to build a structure.

Here is a guide on short presentations that you might be interested in.

So with these three considerations and subtopics in mind, we’re good to go over to decide our final structure.

What is the best presentation form?

The best presentation format is one that includes the introduction, context, main body, conclusion, and questions.

Here, we will discuss a template or structure for a typical presentation.

Introduction

• Greet the audience and introduce yourself, e.g., what you do and why you’re here
• The purpose of your presentation
• The flow or outline gives a sense of what they can expect
• Depending on the topic and audience, you might have to provide more or less context about your topic
• This could include a brief history, terminologies, the current market status, the current status of the field, etc.
• Includes the full depth of the primary purpose of the presentation
• All major chunks of data, including examples, evidence like research studies, etc, are included here
• Care needs to be taken at times to ensure that your introduction and context are not taking up so much time that the main body isn’t receiving enough attention. Ever wonder if a presentation can be too short? Check out this article .
• Bring emphasis to the main takeaways
• Thank your audience if they have been a good one
• Take questions and encourage healthy discussion
• End with sharing ways they can address their questions later

To make sure that the structure works out, it is important that you practice your presentation. This will also tell you if you’re falling within the time constraints. Here is a guide on how you can go about practicing your presentation.

5 Ways to Structure Your Presentation

The five ways include ordered, problem-solution, comparative, storytelling, and demonstrating structures.

1. Ordered Structure

The presentation follows a logical sequence starting with an introduction, main points, and then conclusions. This is what this article has focused on, as it’s the most straightforward method and tends to be very clear for the audience. However, for presentations that do not follow a clear progression, this may not be useful.

2. Problem-Solution Structure

This is useful when persuading the audience. You explain the problem (+ its importance and impact) and then provide a solution that motivates the audience to take it. This could be in the form of a product, a particular method of communication, some technical thing, etc. There should be a decent amount of time spent on the benefits of the solution as well as the exact “How?” to implement it to make the audience convinced. It helps to address any questions or barriers you expect them to have during the speech itself.

3. Comparative Method

This is useful when you want to highlight the benefits of something over alternatives . It is ideal to first fully address the alternatives by talking about their benefits and limitations. Then you lastly talk about the solution that you possess that effectively addresses the other limitations or is in some way a better choice than others, based on your arguments.

Alternatively, if you do not want to highlight the benefits of something particular and just form a comparison that demonstrates the pros and cons of different subjects in an unbiased manner, this technique is still used. For instance, how the main benefit of a product is practically useful for the consumer in comparison to the main benefit of another product can be discussed.

4. Storytelling Structure

This is useful when your goal is just to tell a story. This could be to explain the context or history of a company. It could also serve to talk about yourself and how you got there. A story will typically have an introduction, a complicating factor that introduces some challenges, and then an ending that highlights the importance of some action or belief. 

You may also go in a timewise order when explaining a story. This might take away from the thrill but is useful nonetheless when it is required for the audience to properly understand what is being conveyed. Storytelling can be done in various ways, so feel free to find your own structure.

5. Demonstration Structure

This is useful when demonstrating products or services . The benefits of the product/service are highlighted and it is demonstrated showing those capabilities. The goal should be on persuading the audience that it is useful to them for their needs.

How to structure a scientific presentation?

Structuring a scientific presentation typically includes an introduction, methods, results, and discussion.

This typically follows the below format, but depending on the university/conference guidelines, you’ll have to adjust accordingly. The rest of the sub-topics revolves around these sections.

• Introduction/Background 
• Literature review (if applicable)
• Acknowledgments (often optional)

After this, time is given to take questions.

How do you structure a presentation script?

The presentation never includes the full extent of the information. It’s just a concise version of what you’re speaking that adds as a visual aid at times while also highlighting major points. 

The script is where the major content lies. The structure remains the same, but the content is greater in depth .

Sample Presentation Script

To make it easier for you to understand how you can structure your presentation script, here is a sample script for a presentation on the topic: Importance of Public Speaking.

This follows the same flow introduced earlier- introduction, context, main body, conclusion, and questions.

Title: Importance of Public Speaking

Slide 1: Why is Public Speaking Important?

Greetings, ladies, and gentlemen. Today, I will be exploring the importance of public speaking. My name is John, and I’m thrilled to discuss with you how improving our public speaking abilities may make a significant difference in our quality of life in the personal, social, and professional domains.

Slide 2: Introduction

Public speaking involves persuading an audience with a well-organized message. It is an essential part of our daily lives. We use it when we make conversation in social groups as well as when we address enormous crowds at social gatherings. It is a highly multifaceted and effective tool.

I will start off by giving some information about the context, moving on to its benefits, which is the main crux of our presentation, and then we will spend some time concluding.

Slide 3: Context

Effective communication is essential in our globally interconnected society. Speaking in front of an audience enables us to express our views and thoughts clearly and firmly. It facilitates the development of solid bonds and influences others, and acts as a catalyst for constructive change. Public speaking may open doors of opportunity and propel achievement for anyone, whether they are a student, professional, or member of the community.

Slide 4: Personal Development

Public speaking increases self-esteem and confidence, which are quite rudimentary to our self-efficacy. Effective communication skills help us to be more assertive and feel more in control of our lives. Research suggests that having an internal locus of control (i.e., feeling in control) leads to better outcomes in our personal lives as well as greater mental health.  As we organize our ideas and arguments through public speaking, it improves critical thinking and organizational abilities. Furthermore, as we interact with others during talks and Q&A sessions, public speaking also enhances our listening abilities.

Slide 5: Professional Advancement

The ability to speak in front of an audience effectively is highly essential in most workplaces.

You ask Why? Well, it is because we are better able to communicate our qualifications and worth to potential employers, which enhances our performance in job interviews. Secondly, our influence within organizations grows when we can make a strong case for our points in meetings and conferences.

Next, for leadership positions, where success depends on inspiring and motivating others, public speaking is critical. And in general, you’ll need public speaking in any meeting or any talk you would typically deliver in front of a bunch of people. 

Slide 6: Conclusion

Public speaking is a sought-after, multifaceted, and handy skill across many settings. It gives us the ability to inspire others, tell our stories, and make a lasting impression. Strong public speaking abilities help us communicate clearly and lead with influence in many facets of our lives.

Slide 7: Questions

I appreciate everyone here for being a great audience and cooperating wonderfully throughout the presentation. Now I will be taking any questions you all have. Feel free to discuss this now or reach out to me after the session is over.

Slide 8: Thank you

I want to thank you all for being here today.

I hope that the presentation did well to emphasize the importance of public speaking and perhaps motivated at least some of you to work on improving your abilities. We will end here.

[End of presentation]

Here are some tips for delivering an effective presentation.

We considered a few key points for presentation structure and the typical format that can be followed. We also covered five ways you can structure your presentation and the format for a scientific presentation. Lastly, we covered a sample script for presentations.

Public speaking coaching is a great way to increase your skills and get better at presentations as well.

Enroll in our transformative 1:1 Coaching Program

Schedule a call with our expert communication coach to know if this program would be the right fit for you

How to Brag Like a Pro as a Speaker

Less is More! Tips to Avoid Overwhelming Your Audience 

What does it mean to Resonate with the Audience- Agreement, Acceptance, Approval

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The Best Presentation Structure: Tips & Tricks!

The name PowerPoint says it all – a powerful tool for visualizing expressive content. With the right presentation structure, PowerPoint helps add weight to your ideas and statements through visual impact.

Are you looking for the perfect presentation structure that provides lots of opportunities to inspire your audience? Not exactly sure where to start? Keep reading for a detailed guide that will guarantee success.

As a rule, a presentation needs a topic and a specific reason for presenting it.

Here are some examples:

• A sales presentation to a customer to introduce products or services
• Presenting company figures to management
• An onboarding presentation to inform new colleagues about the most important company information
• A presentation for your company’s anniversary
• Presentations for school or university
• A presentation of research results for a science conference

Regardless of the topic or occasion, you need a clear and well-thought-out presentation structure. Without that, your audience will have a tough time following and your presentation will fall short of its goal, like attracting a new customer.

Give yourself enough time

Give yourself enough time to prepare your PowerPoint presentation. As soon as you know when you’re presenting, create a schedule. Spend 30 minutes a day preparing your upcoming presentation. Allow enough time to research the material, too. Use the rule of thirds as a guideline: If you have twelve days until the presentation, devote four days to researching and collecting information.

Take the time to thoroughly research your presentation topic. Take notes, collect ideas and thoughts. Use something you always have with you; a small notebook, a tablet or your smartphone is all you need. Keep your notes short – just enough information to get your creative juices flowing.

Organize your notes

Once you have enough material, it’s time to organize and structure it. Now is the time to form your basic presentation framework. Remember to allot enough time for this (think about the 3/3 rule).

Use your notes to develop your presentation. Ask yourself this: What’s the goal of my presentation? For example, do you want to impress investors with your startup or present an innovative marketing plan for the coming fiscal year? Answering this question will help you develop a core thesis.

Here’s something else to ask yourself: What do you want from your audience? Do you want to prompt an action (e.g., buy a product) or kick-start a discussion?

The go-to PowerPoint structure

Now that you’re prepared, it’s time to think about the right PowerPoint presentation structure . Here’s a general guide:

• Introduction
• Topic component 1
• Topic component 2
• Topic component 3

Remember to balance the various parts of your presentation. As a rule, the introduction shouldn’t be more than two slides. The topic slides form the body and should make up about 70% of your PowerPoint presentation. As simple as this may sound, it can be difficult to know which stylistic devices or elements to use to keep your audience’s attention. What should you focus on in each section of the presentation?

Take a look at this chart outlining a presentation:

So, what does this mean for each part of the presentation structure?

1. The introduction: Pique curiosity

An intro is an important part of any presentation structure. It has to awaken the audience’s interest and ideally, create a rapport. There are several ways to start the presentation.

• The soft intro

With this type of introduction, you meet the audience at their level and gradually get to the core content of your presentation. Your first slides should be simple and not introduce too much new content. The audience should be able to understand and agree with all points until you finally get to the main topic. The first step is to describe the current situation , the second step to describe the challenge and the third step to discuss how to respond to the challenge .

• The “element of surprise” intro

With this introduction, the element of surprise is on your side. Start the presentation with a statement that shocks or surprises your audience. Bold statements or results from studies are excellent ways to do this. With this kind of intro, you also describe the current situation and what has happened or could happen. You outline the potential consequences and ask how it should be handled. Make sure these statements are true and relevant to your audience. If they aren’t, you’ll come off as less credible.

2. The body of the presentation: The heart of the matter

The body should make up about 70% of your presentation structure. This is where you flesh out your presentation topic. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes; how you would like a presenter to address you? Are their arguments valid? This is a great time to actively involve your audience in a question-and-answer scenario. This is called a dialogue-oriented presentation. Involving your audience this way guarantees their full attention.

There are two ways to organize the main part of the presentation:

• As a pyramid

With this structure, the core message is introduced at the beginning of the presentation’s main section. Presenting the core message early will have your audience wanting to hear more. This is exactly the right time to start the question-and-answer scenario to hold their attention and get them involved.

• As a funnel

The funnel introduces the core message towards the end of the presentation . This structure does have a few drawbacks. It doesn’t lend itself well to a dialogue-oriented presentation and by waiting until the end to deliver your core message, your audience may not make the connection with earlier key statements. To avoid this, it always helps to revisit those earlier statements and reinforce the core message.

It’s also a more challenging presentation structure to pull off, especially if you don’t have that much experience with presenting. The funnel can be effective with controversial and/or highly emotional topics. Controversial core messages that are brought up at the very beginning of a presentation can lead to discussions that veer off and are hard to control. In these cases, the funnel structure is the better option.

3. The conclusion: crossing the finish line

The final part of your presentation structure may seem like the easiest. You’ve presented all your content, so the hard part is over, right? Never underestimate the importance of your conclusion . It gives you the perfect opportunity to reiterate your key points. Use it to summarize your insights, draw a conclusion and finally, discuss what needs to be done next.

It’s also a great opportunity to initiate an open discussion. If you want to open the floor to comments and questions at the end, give your audience a heads-up at the beginning of your presentation. That will give them a chance to take notes as you go along. You could also encourage the audience to ask questions during the presentation. Do this only if you know you won’t get thrown off track and you can quickly shift gears while presenting. You can find more helpful tips for a successful end of presentation here.

How to apply these tips now and create a presentation from scratch can be found in this tutorial .

The right presentation structure: It’s not just about content

Don’t forget that content alone is not enough to convince your audience. A well thought-out and rehearsed presentation is also counts as part of a presentation’s structure. The right delivery supports your slides and opens the door to communicating with your audience. You can find many helpful tips on giving a presentation in these articles:

• Why a good presentation intro is so important
• Tips for closing out a presentation
• Using the right body language while presenting
• Public speaking skills
• How to handle mistakes and slip-ups while presenting
• Using humor in presentations

Pro tip: Use notes

Is your presentation ready? Now it is time to prepare for your delivery. A short script may help . Just make sure you provide additional information and don’t simply read the slides aloud.

You can choose any note-taking tool you like. You can either use classic index cards with keywords or the Notes function in PowerPoint. You can read more about this here .

Most importantly, practice your presentation . Speaking freely and confidently is key to your presentation’s success. As great a tool as it is, PowerPoint can’t do it all for you; it can only visually support your key messages. So, take the time to make sure you are as well prepared as possible.

Impress your audience: Deliver a strong presentation with the perfect structure!

PowerPoint gives so many advantages to you and your presentation. PowerPoint is so easy to use, even beginners can master it in just a few simple steps.

Follow our tips on the right presentation structure – you’ll be amazed at how easy it is to create a professional and cohesive PowerPoint presentation!

If you need help developing the right presentation structure or building your presentation, let us put our expertise to work and help you create the perfect presentation. Feel free to contact us here for a no-obligation estimate or email us at: [email protected] .

Are you looking for professionally designed slide templates for your presentation? Then take a look at our shop . We have templates on a diverse selection of business topics and design themes for you to download. For example, these:

These articles might also interest you:

• Create a PowerPoint presentation
• How to create a PowerPoint table of contents
• Notes in PowerPoint
• A solid presentation conclusion
• Why the start of a presentation is so important
• The right body language while presenting

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The Presenter's Guide to Nailing Your Next PowerPoint

Updated: July 27, 2022

Published: February 11, 2021

Have a presentation coming up that involves PowerPoint slides? Creating the content and design for a new presentation can be a daunting task.

Between outlining, deciding on a design, filling it out, 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 -- yet slightly technical -- design tricks that can take a presentation from good to great?

We're here to make the process a little easier for you. We've talked to some of the best presenters at HubSpot and have included their tips throughout this blog.

With the following tips in your arsenal, you'll be able to navigate PowerPoint much more fluidly and give a standout presentation that'll leave your audience wanting more.

How to Structure a Powerpoint Presentation

1. decide on a working title and the main takeaways..

Beyond picking a topic, your first step should be coming up with a working title for your presentation. A working title is more specific than a topic: Think "How the Right Nutrition Can Strengthen Your Kids' Bones" instead of "Raising Healthy Kids." Keep in mind that a compelling presentation title is much like a compelling blog post title : short, accurate, and valuable.

Once you've got your working title, make a list of the main takeaways of your presentation to begin to give it some structure. This'll help you stay focused when writing your outline and elaborating on those sections.

Aja Frost, the Head of English SEO at HubSpot, says, "I try to structure my presentations around a story. Not only does this make the presentation more memorable and engaging, it's also easier to figure out which information is relevant."

To do this, Frost says to pick a protagonist. She adds, "It might be your team, your audience, your customer.... Then, identify the rising action, problem, climax, and falling action. It's just like grade school. This structure works whether you're talking about an accomplishment, a challenge, a big question—anything, really."

2. Create a short text outline with your audience in mind.

Once you have your main takeaways and your story in mind, it's time to begin outlining the content of your presentation in more detail, while keeping your specific audience in mind. A presentation on any topic should sound different if you're speaking to an audience of college students versus an audience of investors, for example. The tone, words, design, and delivery of your presentation should all cater to your specific audience for maximum impact.

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? Then, make choices during every stage of the presentation process accordingly.

Justin Champion, a content professor at HubSpot, says, "Before diving into a presentation, I create an outline of how it'll flow. I do this by creating an intro (what they're going to learn), the body (what they're learning), and finish with a conclusion (recap what they just learned) I use bullet point slide a lot for talking points I can expand on. Pro tip: use animations to guide the story. For example, instead of showing all the bullets at once, click through to each via animation."

3. Formulate your content as a narrative, if possible.

This may not apply for more formal presentation 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 to your audience. They also help make complicated concepts more easily understandable to your audience, who may not share the same experience level or work in the same industry.

Kyle Jepson, a senior professor at HubSpot, says, "Since I’m an educator, I always structure my presentations around the learning outcomes I want to achieve. If there are three things I want my listeners to understand at the end of the presentation, I’ll have three sections. Whenever possible, I put some sort of interactive element at the end of each section to assess their understanding. In a virtual event, this might be a poll or a question for people to respond to in the chat. In an in-person setting, workshop activities or small-group discussions work well."

4. Collect data and examples.

While sweeping statements can help you set the stage, supporting those statements with evidence will make your argument more interesting and credible. Data and examples give your argument content, and people will understand what you're saying much better.

But don't just slap random stats on your slides 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.

Finally, don't overwhelm your audience with too much data. According to psychologist George Miller , we can only remember approximately five to nine bits of information in our short-term memory at any given time. Keep that in mind as you collect your evidence.

5. Engage with your audience.

During a presentation, it's important to connect with your audience. But how can you do that when you're just talking at them?

Anni Kim, an INBOUND professor at HubSpot, says, "Staying engaged during a virtual presentation is tough, so provide plenty of opportunities for participation. You should add a slide at the beginning that points out how people can take advantage of the chat and ask questions throughout the presentation."

Once you've set the expectations, keep up on the chat and answer questions as they arise.

Now that you have a structure in mind, you'll start to write the content. Below, we'll give tips for how to start and end your presentation.

How to Start a Powerpoint Presentation

1. start with a story..

Not to be repetitive, but storytelling is one of the best ways to capture your audience's attention in general. Presentations are no different. Starting with a hook is a great way to get your audience invested in your content.

Champion says, "The best way to start a presentation is with an interesting story that connects to the content. A great way to keep you audience engaged is to make the content interesting."

2. Be yourself.

On the other hand, while you want to tell a story, you also want your audience to connect with you as the presenter.

Jepson says, "During the introduction, I think one of the most important things to do is to set expectations for your style as a presenter. You don't always need to start with a joke or a story. Start out by being you, and then keep being you for as long as you’re on stage."

3. Include surprising or unusual information at the beginning.

While you'll most likely use a standard approach with session title, presenter's bio, and an agenda, you don't want your audience to get bored.

Jepson adds "I think the standard approach (session title, presenter’s bio, agenda) is pretty effective except that it’s usually super boring. I try to include the standard information but sprinkle in things that are surprising or unusual."

Some examples include:

• Adding a photo of your family on the About Me slide. "A lot of presenters put a picture of themselves on their About Me slide. But I think that’s silly because I’m standing right there," Jepson says. "If people don’t know what I look like, they will by the end of the presentation! So I’ve started putting a picture of my wife and kids on that slide and saying something sweet or silly about that."
• Asking people to use their phones. "A lot of in-person presentations start with a request to silence cell phones," Jepson comments. "Sometimes I’ll do the opposite and say something like, 'Before we get started, I want you all to pull out your phones. You probably think I’m going to ask you to silence them. But I’m not. I’m here from HubSpot, and I’m here to help you however I can. So if there’s anyone from your team who might have questions or need help from a HubSpotter, I want you to send them a message and tell them to send their questions to you before we get to the Q&A section of presentation. To give you time to do this, I’m going to send a text to my wife to let her know I made it here safely.' And then I’ll literally pull out my phone and send a text message on stage."

Now that you've structured your post and have ironed out the details of your introduction, it's time to work on the end of the presentation.

How to End a Powerpoint Presentation

1. recap what the audience has learned..

First and foremost, the end of your presentation should tie everything together.

Champion adds, "Recap what they just learned, explain next steps based on learnings, and offer any associated resources to continue learning."

This will help people remember the content and give them resources to learn more or reach out if they have questions.

2. Q&A.

Another great way to end a presentation is with a Q&A.

Jepson remarks, "I always end with Q&A. The only tricky thing about that is knowing how to cut it off if you’re getting more questions than you have time to answer or if you aren’t getting any questions at all. In both of those situations, I do essentially the same: I cut it off and tell people to come talk to me individually."

For in-person meetings, Jepson will tell the audience to come find him after the presentation to ask more questions. However, for virtual meetings, he'll let people know how to reach him, whether that's via LinkedIn or email.

3. Call to action.

Calls to action are an important component of any piece of content and presentations are no different. What do you want your audience to do with this information?

In your recap, include actionable ways for your audience to incorporate your information into their day-to-day (if applicable). You can also let people know to reach out to you with questions so they know the next steps in case they want to discuss the presentation further.

Now that you have an idea of what you're going to be talking about and how you'll be laying it out, it's time to open up a new PowerPoint presentation and apply those basic design elements.

Outlining Your PowerPoint Design

1. pick a color scheme..

Before you begin translating your text outline into PowerPoint, you'll want to start by adding some very basic design elements to your PowerPoint slides. First, choose a color scheme -- one that has enough contrast between colors to make colors stand out. 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. Read the sections on creating color schemes in this blog post to figure out a good color combination.

Image Source

2. 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.

The three main ways to add a background design to a PowerPoint presentation are: 1) to use a predesigned template from PowerPoint; 2) to create a custom background using a solid color; or 3) to create a custom background using an image. Here's how to do each of those things.

(We also have a few general PowerPoint templates available for download here , which come with a series of videos to teach you some basic PowerPoint creation tips.)

How to Browse Predesigned Templates in PowerPoint

PowerPoint comes with a series of predesigned templates to choose from.

To browse these templates on a Mac: Click on the slide or slides you want to add the background to. Then, click the "Themes" tab at the top of the screen.

You can either scroll through your options up there, or you can access the themes gallery in a bigger window by hovering your mouse over the theme previews and clicking the dropdown arrow that appears below them.

Right-click the background style that you want. To apply the background style to the selected slides, click "Apply to Selected Slides." To apply the background style to all of the slides in your presentation, click "Apply to All Slides."

To browse these templates on a PC: Click on the slide or slides you want to add the background to. Then, click the "Design" tab at the top of the screen. In the "Background" group, click the arrow next to "Background Styles" to open up the theme gallery.

Pro Tip: You can also apply any PowerPoint template you already have as a theme, even if it doesn't show up in the theme gallery. To do that, click the "Browse Themes" option you'll find at the bottom of the dropdown themes gallery, and navigate to wherever the given presentation, template, or theme is located on your computer. Then, click "Apply."

How to Create a Custom Background Using a Solid Color

Want your slide background to be a simple, solid color? The steps to do this are almost identical on a Mac and a PC.

Simply right-click the slide(s) you want to add a background color to, then click "Format Background." In the window that appears, click "Fill" and then "Solid." Notice you can also adjust the gradient or make the background a pattern. Click "Apply" at the bottom to apply the changes.

How to Create a Custom Background Using an Image

Sometimes, making the slide background a high-definition image can really make that slide pop. It also encourages you to cut down on text so that only a few keywords complement the image. PowerPoint makes it easy to create a custom background using an image you own.

First, choose your image. Size matters here: Be sure it's high resolution so that it can fill your slide without becoming blurry or distorted. Here are the 17 best free stock photo sites to help you find some large, great quality images.

To create a custom background using an image on a Mac: Click the slide that you want to add a background picture to. To select multiple slides, click a slide and then press and hold CTRL while you click the other slides.

Next, click the "Themes" tab at the top of your screen. In the "Theme Options" group, click "Background," then "Format Background."

In the window that appears, click "Fill," then "Picture or Texture." To insert a picture from a file, click "Choose Picture..." and then locate and double-click the picture you want to insert. If you want to use this picture as a background for just the slides you selected, click "Apply." If you want to use the picture as a background for all the slides in your presentation, click "Apply to All."

To create a custom background using an image on a PC: Click the slide that you want to add a background picture to. To select multiple slides, click a slide and then press and hold CTRL while you click the other slides.

Next, click the "Design" tab at the top of your screen. In the "Background" group, click "Background Styles," then "Format Background."

In the window that appears, click "Fill," then "Picture or texture fill." To insert a picture from a file, click "File" and then locate and double-click the picture you want to insert. If you want to use this picture as a background for just the slides you selected, click "Close." If you want to use the picture as a background for all the slides in your presentation, click "Apply to All."

Filling In the Content

1. fill in the text on your slides using concise language..

Your slides are there to support your speech, not replace it. If your slides contain too much information -- like full sentences or (gasp) 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 details verbally. We recommend using up to three bullet points per slide and making any text as simple and concise as possible. A good rule of thumb is this: If you're using more than two lines per slide or per idea, then you've used too much text. Depending on the type of presentation, two lines might even be a little text-heavy.

Are you planning on sending your slides to your audience afterward? If you're concerned about putting enough information on the slides for people to understand your presentation when they go back to it later, you can always add little details into the slide notes in PowerPoint. You can find the Notes pane at the bottom of your PowerPoint screen, right below your slides. Click and drag the edge of the pane to make it larger or smaller.

2. Brainstorm your final title with someone else.

Once all your content is there, you're ready to finalize your title. First, refine your working title as best you can on your own. Is it compelling and interesting enough to engage your audience from the very start? Does it accurately reflect your presentation?

Next -- and this is important -- connect with someone else to brainstorm the final title together. Read this blog post for a helpful walkthrough on writing a great title and title brainstorming with others.

Filling In Your PowerPoint Design

1. choose a font that's easy to read..

Choose either one font to use throughout your presentation, or two (one for your headers and one for your body text) that contrast each other well. Here's a list of 35 beautiful fonts you can download for free to get you started.

If you decide on two fonts, your header font should be bold and eye-catching, and your body text font should be simple and easy to read. (For more guidance on what fonts work best together, take a look at this visual guide .)

2. Embed your font files.

Fonts changing from one computer to another is one of the most common problems PowerPoint presenters have -- and it can really mess up your presentation and flow. What's actually happening in this case is not that the fonts are changing; it's that the presentation computer just doesn’t have the same font files installed .

If you’re using a PC and presenting on a PC, then there is a smooth workaround for this issue. When you involve Mac systems, the solution is a bit rougher.

On a PC: When you save your PowerPoint file, click "Save As" and then "Save Options." Then, select the "Embed TrueType fonts" check box and press "OK." Now, your presentation will keep the font file and your fonts will not change when you move computers (unless you give your presentation on a Mac).

On a Mac: In PowerPoint for Mac, there's no option to embed fonts within the presentation. So unless you use ubiquitous typefaces like Arial or Tahoma, your PowerPoint is likely going to encounter font changes on different computers. The best way to avoid this is to save the final version of your presentation slides as JPEGs, and then insert those JPEGs onto your PowerPoint slides. In other words, make each slide a JPEG picture of your slide. (Note that the file size of your PowerPoint will increase if your presentation includes a lot of JPEGs.)

Mac users can easily drag and drop the JPEGs into PowerPoint. If you don't use actions in your presentation, then this option works especially well.

If you want your presentation to appear "animated," then you'll need to do a little tinkering. All you need to do is save JPEGs of each "frame" of the animation. Then, in your final presentation, you'll just display those JPEGs in the order you'd like the animation to appear. While you'll technically have several new slides in place of one original one, your audience won't know the difference.

If you're a Mac user and want to use this option, then be sure to add this to your checklist as the final step.

3. Adjust the font sizes.

Once you've chosen your font, you can start playing around with font size. Carefully choose the font sizes for headers and text, and consistently use the same font face and sizes on all your slides to keep things clean and legible. Be sure your font is big enough so even the audience members in the way back of the room can read them.

4. Adjust line and character spacing.

The biggest PowerPoint no-no is using too much text on a slide. The most effective slides use text sparingly and present it in a way that's easy to read. One trick to make text more legible without changing the font size or layout is to increase or decrease the space between each line and each letter.

To adjust line spacing:

Select the text you'd like to adjust. On the "Home" tab, in the "Paragraph" group, click "Line Spacing" and choose "Line Spacing Options." In the Paragraph dialog box's "Spacing" section, click the "Line Spacing" dropdown list and choose "Exactly." In the "At" text box, adjust the value accordingly. Click "OK" to save your changes.

To adjust character spacing:

Select the text you want to change. Then, on the "Home" tab, find and click the "Font" button." Choose "Character Spacing Options" from the dropdown menu. Adjust spacing as needed.

5. Add images.

Great visual cues can have a huge impact on how well your audience understands your message. Using gorgeous images in a slide presentation is the perfect way to keep things interesting.

It's important, though, that you don't use images to decorate. This is a very common mistake. Remember: Images are meant to reinforce or complement your message, but they can be distracting. Focus on finding high resolution images so that they look good when expanded without becoming blurry or distorted.

If you don't have your own images to use, check out our roundup of the 17 best free stock photo sites .

Pro Tip: If you're finding that the background of an image is distracting, you can actually remove it before putting it into your presentation directly inside PowerPoint -- no Photoshop required. Read this blog post for instructions .

6. Use multimedia, but sparingly.

Using multimedia in your presentation, like video and audio, can be an effective way to capture your audience's attention and encourage retention of your message. In most cases, it's best to avoid using more than one or two video or audio clips so you don't detract from your talk or your message.

PowerPoint lets you either link to video/audio files externally, or embed the media directly in your presentation. You should embed these files if you can, but if you use a Mac, you cannot actually embed the video. We'll get to that in a second.

PC users: Here are two great reasons to embed your multimedia:

• Embedding allows you to play media directly in your presentation. It'll look much more professional than switching between windows.
• Embedding also means that the file stays within the PowerPoint presentation, so it should play normally without extra work (except on a Mac).

Mac users: You need to be extra careful about using multimedia files. You'll always need to bring the video and/or audio file with you in the same folder as the PowerPoint presentation. It’s best to only insert video or audio files once the presentation and the containing folder have been saved on a portable drive in their permanent folder. You can also record voiceovers for your presentation or hire a voice actor through Voice123 .

If your presentation is going to be played on a Windows computer, then Mac users need to make sure their multimedia files are in WMV format . That can get complicated, so if you want to use PowerPoint effectively, consider using the same operating system for designing and presenting no matter what (if that's something you can control).

7. Design your title slide.

The title of your presentation is often the first impression it gives off -- especially if it's going to be on display as people file in to your presentation -- so it's important to put some time and careful thought into its design.

Here are 20 layout ideas for PowerPoint title slides from Chris Lema :

8. Add any consistent elements, like your company logo.

There's a reason this is at the end. If you add things like your logo that you want to be in the same place on every slide, any adjustments you make to individual slides could slightly alter the alignment ... and you'll have to go back and adjust them all over again.

Preparing For the Presentation

1. review and edit your slides..

Spend some time on your own flipping through your slides while practicing your talk. Make sure you can check all of the following off the list:

• Your slides flow well and align with your talk.
• Your slides are free of all grammatical, formatting, or design errors.
• Your multimedia files work.
• You've double-checked any mathematical calculations you made yourself.
• You've properly attributed any statistics, data, quotes, ideas, etc. to the original source.
• You've double-checked you're actually allowed to use the photos/images you used . (Don't skip this step. Here's a cautionary tale about internet copyright law .)
• You're sure nothing in your presentation could potentially harm any of your partners, stakeholders, audience members, or your company.
• You've checked with a friend that nothing in your presentation might offend certain people in your audience -- or, if so, that it's worth it.

2. Know your slides inside out.

The best presenters don't read off your slides, so it's important to prepare and practice your presentation ahead of time. You never want to be the person finalizing your talk or presentation half an hour before an event ... that's just poor planning. Plus, what if the projector fails and you have to give your talk without slides? It can happen, and if does, you'll be incredibly happy you spent so much time preparing.

3. Practice using "presenter view."

Depending on the venue, you might have a presenter's screen available to you in addition to the main projected display that your audience can see. PowerPoint has a great tool called "Presenter View," which includes an area for notes, a timer/clock, a presentation display, and a preview of the next slide.

Make sure "Presenter View" is turned on by selecting it in the "Slide Show" tab of your PowerPoint.

To practice using "Presenter View," open the "Slide Show" tab within PowerPoint. In the "Presenter Tools" box, click "Presenter View."

4. Bring your own laptop and a backup copy of your presentation.

This isn't just a bonus step -- it's an essential one. Technology can mess up on you, and you need to be prepared. Between operating systems or even between different versions of Microsoft Office, PowerPoint can get a little wonky. One way to avoid problems is to ensure you have all the right hardware with you. Bring along your own laptop when you're presenting, just in case.

Even if you bring your laptop, but especially if you for some reason cannot, bring a backup copy of your PowerPoint file on a flash drive.

What other tips do you have for nailing PowerPoint presentations?

Editor's note: This post was originally published in October 2015 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Don't forget to share this post!

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How To Write A Presentation 101 | Step-by-Step Guides with Best Examples | 2024 Reveals

Jane Ng • 05 April, 2024 • 9 min read

Is it difficult to start of presentation? You're standing before a room full of eager listeners, ready to share your knowledge and captivate their attention. But where do you begin? How do you structure your ideas and convey them effectively?

Take a deep breath, and fear not! In this article, we'll provide a road map on how to write a presentation covering everything from crafting a script to creating an engaging introduction.

So, let's dive in!

Table of Contents

What is a presentation , what should be in a powerful presentation.

• How To Write A Presentation Script
• How to Write A Presentation Introduction 

Key Takeaways

Tips for better presentation.

• How to start a presentation
• How to introduce yourself

Start in seconds.

Get free templates for your next interactive presentation. Sign up for free and take what you want from the template library!

Presentations are all about connecting with your audience. 

Presenting is a fantastic way to share information, ideas, or arguments with your audience. Think of it as a structured approach to effectively convey your message. And you've got options such as slideshows, speeches, demos, videos, and even multimedia presentations!

The purpose of a presentation can vary depending on the situation and what the presenter wants to achieve. 

• In the business world, presentations are commonly used to pitch proposals, share reports, or make sales pitches. 
• In educational settings, presentations are a go-to for teaching or delivering engaging lectures. 
• For conferences, seminars, and public events—presentations are perfect for dishing out information, inspiring folks, or even persuading the audience.

That sounds brilliant. But, how to write a presentation?

• Clear and Engaging Introduction: Start your presentation with a bang! Hook your audience's attention right from the beginning by using a captivating story, a surprising fact, a thought-provoking question, or a powerful quote. Clearly state the purpose of your presentation and establish a connection with your listeners.
• Well-Structured Content: Organize your content logically and coherently. Divide your presentation into sections or main points and provide smooth transitions between them. Each section should flow seamlessly into the next, creating a cohesive narrative. Use clear headings and subheadings to guide your audience through the presentation.
• Compelling Visuals: Incorporate visual aids, such as images, graphs, or videos, to enhance your presentation. Make sure your visuals are visually appealing, relevant, and easy to understand. Use a clean and uncluttered design with legible fonts and appropriate color schemes. 
• Engaging Delivery: Pay attention to your delivery style and body language. You should maintain eye contact with your audience, use gestures to emphasize key points, and vary your tone of voice to keep the presentation dynamic. 
• Clear and Memorable Conclusion: Leave your audience with a lasting impression by providing a strong closing statement, a call to action, or a thought-provoking question. Make sure your conclusion ties back to your introduction and reinforces the core message of your presentation.

How To Write A Presentation Script (With Examples)

To successfully convey your message to your audience, you must carefully craft and organize your presentation script. Here are steps on how to write a presentation script: 

1/ Understand Your Purpose and Audience

• Clarify the purpose of your presentation. Are you informing, persuading, or entertaining?
• Identify your target audience and their knowledge level, interests, and expectations.
• Define what presentation format you want to use

2/ Outline the Structure of Your Presentation

Strong opening.

Start with an engaging opening that grabs the audience's attention and introduces your topic. Some types of openings you can use are: 

• Start with a Thought-Provoking Question: "Have you ever...?"
• Begin with a Surprising Fact or Statistic: "Did you know that....?"
• Use a Powerful Quote: "As Maya Angelou once said,...."
• Tell a Compelling Story : "Picture this: You're standing at...."
• Start with a Bold Statement: "In the fast-paced digital age...."

Main Points

Clearly state your main points or key ideas that you will discuss throughout the presentation.

• Clearly State the Purpose and Main Points: Example: "In this presentation, we will delve into three key areas. First,... Next,... Finally,.... we'll discuss...."
• Provide Background and Context: Example: "Before we dive into the details, let's understand the basics of....."
• Present Supporting Information and Examples: Example: "To illustrate...., let's look at an example. In,....."
• Address Counterarguments or Potential Concerns: Example: "While..., we must also consider... ."
• Recap Key Points and Transition to the Next Section: Example: "To summarize, we've... Now, let's shift our focus to..."

Remember to organize your content logically and coherently, ensuring smooth transitions between sections.

You can conclude with a strong closing statement summarizing your main points and leaving a lasting impression. Example: "As we conclude our presentation, it's clear that... By...., we can...."

3/ Craft Clear and Concise Sentences

Once you've outlined your presentation, you need to edit your sentences. Use clear and straightforward language to ensure your message is easily understood.

Alternatively, you can break down complex ideas into simpler concepts and provide clear explanations or examples to aid comprehension.

4/ Use Visual Aids and Supporting Materials

Use supporting materials such as statistics, research findings, or real-life examples to back up your points and make them more compelling. 

• Example: "As you can see from this graph,... This demonstrates...."

5/ Include Engagement Techniques

Incorporate interactive elements to engage your audience, such as Q&A sessions , conducting live polls, or encouraging participation. You can also spin more funs into group, by randomly dividing people into different groups to get more diverse feedbacks!

6/ Rehearse and Revise

• Practice delivering your presentation script to familiarize yourself with the content and improve your delivery.
• Revise and edit your script as needed, removing any unnecessary information or repetitions.

7/ Seek Feedback

You can share your script or deliver a practice presentation to a trusted friend, colleague, or mentor to gather feedback on your script and make adjustments accordingly.

More on Script Presentation

How to Write A Presentation Introduction with Examples

How to write presentations that are engaging and visually appealing? Looking for introduction ideas for the presentation? As mentioned earlier, once you have completed your script, it's crucial to focus on editing and refining the most critical element—the opening of your presentation - the section that determines whether you can captivate and retain your audience's attention right from the start. 

Here is a guide on how to craft an opening that grabs your audience's attention from the very first minute: 

1/ Start with a Hook

To begin, you can choose from five different openings mentioned in the script based on your desired purpose and content. Alternatively, you can opt for the approach that resonates with you the most, and instills your confidence. Remember, the key is to choose a starting point that aligns with your objectives and allows you to deliver your message effectively.

2/ Establish Relevance and Context

Then you should establish the topic of your presentation and explain why it is important or relevant to your audience. Connect the topic to their interests, challenges, or aspirations to create a sense of relevance.

3/ State the Purpose

Clearly articulate the purpose or goal of your presentation. Let the audience know what they can expect to gain or achieve by listening to your presentation.

4/ Preview Your Main Points

Give a brief overview of the main points or sections you will cover in your presentation. It helps the audience understand the structure and flow of your presentation and creates anticipation.

5/ Establish Credibility

Share your expertise or credentials related to the topic to build trust with the audience, such as a brief personal story, relevant experience, or mentioning your professional background.

6/ Engage Emotionally

Connect emotional levels with your audience by appealing to their aspirations, fears, desires, or values. They help create a deeper connection and engagement from the very beginning.

Make sure your introduction is concise and to the point. Avoid unnecessary details or lengthy explanations. Aim for clarity and brevity to maintain the audience's attention.

For example, Topic: Work-life balance

"Good morning, everyone! Can you imagine waking up each day feeling energized and ready to conquer both your personal and professional pursuits? Well, that's exactly what we'll explore today – the wonderful world of work-life balance. In a fast-paced society where work seems to consume every waking hour, it's vital to find that spot where our careers and personal lives harmoniously coexist. Throughout this presentation, we'll dive into practical strategies that help us achieve that coveted balance, boost productivity, and nurture our overall well-being. 

But before we dive in, let me share a bit about my journey. As a working professional and a passionate advocate for work-life balance, I have spent years researching and implementing strategies that have transformed my own life. I am excited to share my knowledge and experiences with all of you today, with the hope of inspiring positive change and creating a more fulfilling work-life balance for everyone in this room. So, let's get started!"

🎉 Check out: How to Start a Presentation?

Whether you're a seasoned speaker or new to the stage, understanding how to write a presentation that conveys your message effectively is a valuable skill. By following the steps in this guide, you can become a captivating presenter and make your mark in every presentation you deliver.

Additionally, AhaSlides can significantly enhance your presentation's impact. With AhaSlides, you can use live polls , quizzes , and word cloud to turn your presentation into an engaging and interactive experience. Let's take a moment to explore our vast template library !

Frequently Asked Questions

How to write a presentation step by step .

You can refer to our step-by-step guide on How To Write A Presentation Script: Understand Your Purpose and Audience Outline the Structure of Your Presentation Craft Clear and Concise Sentences Use Visual Aids and Supporting Material Include Engagement Techniques Rehearse and Revise Seek Feedback

How do you start a presentation? 

You can start with an engaging opening that grabs the audience's attention and introduces your topic. Consider using one of the following approaches: Start with a Thought-Provoking Question: "Have you ever...?" Begin with a Surprising Fact or Statistic: "Did you know that....?" Use a Powerful Quote: "As Maya Angelou once said,...." Tell a Compelling Story : "Picture this: You're standing at...." Start with a Bold Statement: "In the fast-paced digital age...."

What are the five parts of a presentation?

When it comes to presentation writing, a typical presentation consists of the following five parts: Introduction: Capturing the audience's attention, introducing yourself, stating the purpose, and providing an overview. Main Body: Presenting main points, evidence, examples, and arguments. Visual Aids: Using visuals to enhance understanding and engage the audience. Conclusion: Summarizing main points, restating key message, and leaving a memorable takeaway or call to action. Q&A or Discussion: Optional part for addressing questions and encouraging audience participation.

A writer who wants to create practical and valuable content for the audience

Tips to Engage with Polls & Trivia

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How to structure a PowerPoint presentation: A detailed guide

 · Create Courses

How do you structure a PowerPoint presentation?

Introduction , what is the 555 rule in powerpoint, what is the 10 20 30 rule in powerpoint, the conclusion , powerpoint presentation examples , graphy, the all-in-one course creation platform.

In this blog, you’ll understand the step-by-step guide on how you can structure a PowerPoint presentation effectively.

You might be a great presenter but suck at creating a structured presentation. The idea of outlining, selecting the right templates, and adding transitions is way out of your league. 

However, creating a structured presentation is as important as the narration.  

When information is presented logically, the retention rate automatically goes up. It becomes easier for a viewer to understand the meaning behind the words and create a flow of information. 

Monetize your skills and extertise GOT YOUR CONTENT READY? GRAPHY IS ALL YOU NEED TO GET STARTED!

A report published by Standard Business says that people retain 40% more information when presented structurally. 

So, here we are to help you understand how you should structure your PowerPoint presentation to make it likable and easy to digest. 

Table of Contents

You can follow this standard structure while creating your PowerPoint presentations. A good presentation is always one that has a good storyline and narration. Let’s dive into detail on how to create a solid PowerPoint structure.

An introduction is the most crucial part of a presentation. It sets the tone for your audience and makes them comfortable. Before you start with your presentation, make sure to

• Introduce yourself
• Explain the purpose of this presentation
• And, what outcomes can your audience expect at the end of it? 

This doesn’t have to be super-detailed, but it should build a connection with the person. You can include storytelling to gather attention and further move on to introducing the topic. 

Here are some slides that you must include in your introduction:

• The title: Introduce the topic of the presentation and add a brief description 
• Challenges/ objectives: Explain the goals or challenges you will target in the presentation. For example, I’ll “compare,” “evaluate,” and “analyze” this topic. 
• Outcome: Your audience must know the results they can expect at the end of the presentation. For instance, at the end of this presentation, I hope to provide you with a….
• Table of Content: You can include a table of contents for your audience to know the topic of discussion in the presentation. 

In the introduction, you can also tell the length of the talk or whether you want audience participation. Clarifying such small things can make presentations smoother and less awkward. 

The body 

This is the part where you take your introduction forward and briefly discuss the key topics. You must organize these points to transition smoothly from one topic to another. The body of your presentation needs to be spot-on for your audience to understand the information given. 

Here are some tips to consider when creating the body of your presentation:

• The length and structure of your slides are crucial to the body of your presentation. You can use the 5-5-5 and 10-20-30 rules to structure a PowerPoint presentation. 

The 555 rule says, to use at least

• 5 words on a single line.
• 5 lines of text on every slide
• 5 slides that use the mentioned rules in a row

The purpose of this 555 rule is to create a flow in presenting your information. This rule helps if you have to make a big presentation that requires heavy content and various slides. It will help you structure a presentation well and not overwhelm your audience with the information. 

The 10 / 20 / 30 rule in PowerPoint is fairly simple. It says that no PowerPoint presentation should have over 10 slides, be longer than 20 minutes, and have fonts smaller than 30 points. 

Each of the rules helps the presenter form a balance between design and explanation. This helps to structure a PowerPoint presentation and create easy-to-digest slides. 

• Use images more than words. The human brain processes visual stimuli 60 times faster than text. So, instead of writing lengthy paraphs, add photos or videos. If you think a concept is explainable through a photo, use it. 
• Your presentation should be short and crisp. You don’t have to write everything about the topic in your slides. Include a few short-crisp sentences and use narration to explain the topic in depth. 
• Try to organize your topics well. List points in order of numbers or alphabets put them in a time frame, or use transition words like next, then, and another for easy understanding. No matter how well you explain concepts, if your presentation lacks the translation to move from one topic to another, then it might not work. 

In your conclusion, you can summarise the main points you have made and do a recap of what your audience has learned. Lastly, mention how this new information meets your objective for the presentation. 

In conclusion, you must state your sources of information, like books, articles, or interviews with people. 

Include a Q&A part to ask questions. This way, there isn’t any open-ended conversation, and your audience is clear about the points you made. If you cannot answer any question because of a lack of time, note it down to provide the solution through mail or phone. 

End your presentation by thanking your audience for their precious time and asking for their feedback.

See how simple it is to structure a PowerPoint presentation. Now, look at a few examples of PowerPoint structures for your reference. 

Powerpoint presentations are mostly referred to as bland and boring, but that’s not the case. If you structure it well, your presentations will become more like a learning opportunity than an endurance test. Here are some PowerPoint presentation examples you can refer to:

• Teacher education 

Look at this slide deck , created for teachers on how to use Google Slides. It’s not overloading with information nor holding it back; it’s simply perfect. Most of the slides are image-oriented with practical examples to help the audience understand the basics of creating presentations in Google Slides. 

• Zuroa sales deck 

To see how storytelling works in presentation, refer to Zuroa’s sales desk . These slides are a perfect example of how you can make your audience relate to your issues. Including metrics and messages from well-known CEOs makes the slides authoritative. 

• Trackmaven research deck 

Creating a data-heavy presentation is quite tricky. Your audience can quickly accelerate from engaging to boring. Trackmaven excellently presents its report on the best time to post on social media. The presentation has more graphs than numbers or text. If you are looking for a reference for creating such data extensive topic, then, indeed, check this out. 

• Officevibe collaboration examples 

This slide deck increases awareness of the problem faced because of a disengaged team. The presentation has bright colors and unique designs that draw attention. Plus, it’s filled with relevant data to ensure the authority and seriousness of the issue. 

They are excellent examples of how you can structure a PowerPoint presentation. If you notice, none of them are text-heavy. Instead, they have used visuals or videos to convey most of their information. Thus, the information presented is easy to digest and keeps the audience hooked until the end. 

If you are looking to create your online course and sell it with minimum effort and easy-to-use features, then Graphy is the best place for you. Graphy has thousands of active content creators who have created their own online courses and monetized their skills. You can also do the same, and the best thing is that you can start for free.

Graphy offers a load of features that will definitely add stars to your success, features like:

• Branded website and mobile app
• Advanced-level marketing and sales tools and features
• Multi-layer content security
• Rich multimedia
• 24*7 customer support
• Customizable landing/sales pages
• Personalized course completion certificates for your learners
• Integrated payment gateways and country-specific pricing

Isn’t it amazing?

So join Graphy , just like 40,000+ creators.

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How to Make Effective Impactful Presentations (Tips & Tools)

Learn how to make a good presentation great - step-by-step with examples. Learn the principles, guidelines & qualities needed to prepare captivating slides.

Dominika Krukowska

12 minute read

Short answer

Short answer: how to make a good presentation.

Start with a surprising statement, a bold promise, or a mystery

Provide context with a bit of background information

Structure your presentation within a story framework

Make every word count, and use as few as possible

Use visuals only to support your presentation text

Use interactive design to make your audience active participants

End by telling your audience what they can do with what they’ve learned

Boring presentations are instantly forgotten. How’s yours?

Lifeless presentations can spell doom for your message, leaving your audience disengaged and your goals unreached.

The price of a mediocre presentation is steep; missed opportunities, unimpressed prospects, and a bad rep.

In a world where everyone has grown to expect a good story, a boring presentation will be instantly forgotten. Like a drop in the ocean.

But not all is lost.

This post will teach you how presentation pros create compelling narratives and leverage the latest tech tools to command attention, drive a powerful message, and get shared like gossip.

Let’s get started!

How to prepare a presentation?

The successful presenter understands the value of small details and thorough preparation like the seasoned chef knows the importance of quality ingredients and careful technique for serving a 5 star dish

But where do you start?

Step-by-step guide for preparing a presentation:

1. Define your objective

Every presentation needs a clear goal. Are you looking to persuade, educate, or motivate? Perhaps you aim to showcase a product, or share insights about a recent project.

Defining your objective early on will guide your content creation process, helping you to focus your message and structure your presentation effectively. Think of your objective as the North Star guiding your presentation journey.

2. Analyze your audience

Next up, who are you talking to? Your audience should shape your presentation as much as your objective does. Understanding their needs, interests, and background will enable you to tailor your message to resonate with them.

Are they experts in your field, or are they novices looking for an introduction? What questions might they have? The more you know about your audience, the more compelling your presentation will be.

3. Research your topic

Once you've defined your objective and analyzed your audience, it's time to delve deep into your topic. Comprehensive research lays the groundwork for a robust, credible presentation.

Don't just scratch the surface – explore different perspectives, recent developments, and key statistics. This will not only enhance your understanding but also equip you with a wealth of information to answer any questions your audience might have.

4. Choose the right delivery format

Finally, consider the best format to deliver your message.

The right format can make all the difference in how your message is received, so choose wisely!

PowerPoint presentations are classic and easy to work with. But PowerPoint and Google slides are not so versatile in terms of their content experience. They're static, packed with information, and all look alike.

Our own presentation maker offers interactive, personalized, and multimedia content experience.

Data from our research of over 100K presentation sessions shows that audiences engage with Storydoc presentations 103% better than PowerPoint.

How to create an effective presentation?

There’s part art and part science in creating high-engagement high-impact presentations.

An effective presentation is the painstaking result of well-organized content, visuals that support and elevate your message, simplifying complex information, and personalizing wherever possible.

I wrote this post to teach you how to do all these, and a few things more.

Ready to learn? Let's dive in!

How to organize your presentation content?

Crafting a compelling presentation is like writing a page-turner.

You need to captivate your audience, maintain their interest, and guide them effortlessly through your narrative.

But how do you transform a heap of information into a well-structured presentation you can’t stop reading? There’s a structure you can follow.

3-step process for organizing a magnetic presentation:

1. Prioritize content

Your presentation should immediately capture interest and demonstrate relevance before moving on to establish understanding .

A) Build interest:

Begin with a strong hook that grabs your audience's attention. This could be an intriguing statistic, a powerful image , or an engaging question. It should stir curiosity and make your audience eager to hear more.

B) Establish relevance:

Once you have their attention it's time to establish why your presentation matters to your audience.

Address your audience's main concerns. Make sure your content directly speaks to these pain points, and address them in order of importance.

2. Build anticipation

A great presentation is like getting a new car – it builds anticipation, takes you on a thrilling ride, and ends with you wanting to share the experience with all your friends.

Start with a compelling problem your audience relates to and follow up with a promise of an amazing way they can solve it. This problem-solution dynamic creates a suspense that keeps your audience glued to your presentation.

3. Use a story framework

Finally, use a story framework to give your presentation structure and flow.

Begin with a big idea that underpins your presentation. Then delve into the problem, showcasing why it needs attention. Present your solution, painting a vision of a better future for your audience.

Weave in concrete examples of how your solution changes lives.

Tell the story of WHO you helped, WHAT the situation was before and after your solution, WHERE and WHEN it happened, WHY it worked and HOW it made them feel.

If you’re writing a business presentation you should follow this with an execution plan that outlines how the solution will be implemented.

Finally, close with clear next steps, guiding your audience on what they should do after the presentation to bring meaningful change into their lives.

Our recommended story framework:

How to design your presentation?

A good presentation is more than just making it look pretty ; it's about communicating your message effectively and creating a lasting impression.

Good presentation design grabs attention, and leads it to where it’s needed most. It takes your hand and leads you through the easiest and most pleasant path to understanding.

Good presentation design supports your message rather than steals the spotlight. Good design is narrated design.

What is narrated design (Scrollytelling)?

Scrollytelling, where "scroll" meets "storytelling", is an interactive content experience that guides readers through a narrative journey with a simple scroll. It connects text, images, videos, and animations into integrated “scenes” where content is both shown and narrated.

Scrollytelling breaks complex content into digestible chunks and gives the reader control over pace. It has been scientifically shown to enhance engagement, understandability and memorability.

Scrollytelling came up as a central thing when Itai Amoza, our Founder and CEO was building the foundations for Storydoc.

He partnered with one of the world’s leading visualization scientists , prof. Steven Franconeri , to help him bring to Storydoc the means to reduce the complexity, friction, and information overload so characteristic of business presentations.

Scrollytelling is part of the solutions that came up, which led to specialized storytelling slides like our narrator slide (in the example below).

An example of Storydoc scrollytelling:

How to design presentation visuals to support your story

Presentation visuals can be unsung heroes or sloppy distractions.

Visuals can bring your message to life, make complex concepts easy to understand, and engage your audience in ways that words alone cannot. Or… they can sit there looking all pretty and distract you from what’s really going on.

4 elements of great presentation visuals:

Support your message: Your visuals should support your text, highlight your main message, and align with your objective. They should reinforce your points and help your audience understand your message.

Represent your audience: The best visuals are relatable. They should resonate with your target audience and reflect their world of associations. Use images and graphics that your audience can identify with – this can enhance their engagement and make your presentation more memorable. Equally important is using clean images - an effective way to do this is by using tools that allow you to remove your image backgrounds . By eliminating distractions and focusing on your subject, you create images that are more impactful and, therefore, can potentially increase audience engagement.

Introduce your product, outcomes, and clients: Wherever possible, use visuals to demonstrate your product, illustrate outcomes, and represent your clients. This can remove doubt and misunderstanding by letting your audience see (and make obvious) what words sometimes struggle to describe.

Follow your branding guidelines: Your presentation is an extension of your brand, so your visuals should conform to your branding guidelines. Consistent use of colors, fonts, and styles not only enhances brand recognition but also creates a cohesive, professional look.

Here’s an example of a well-designed presentation:

How to communicate complex information?

Did you ever have to read a presentation where you felt like you're lost in a maze of jargon, data, and complex concepts?

Are you giving others this same experience?

Communicating complex information is a common challenge in presentations. But there are ways you can simplify your presentation and reengage your audience.

Here’s how you can get complex information across:

1. Use interactive content

Interactive content is your best friend when it comes to simplifying complex information and getting deeply engaged with your content.

It gets the readers more involved in your presentation by letting them play an active part; like choosing the content route they wish to take and controlling the pace.

It keeps your presentation textually lean - giving readers the choice to expand more details on demand (in tabs, live graphs, sliders, accordions, and calculators).

Beyond that, live graphs can illustrate trends, animations can demonstrate processes, and videos can bring concepts to life.

Calculators, questionnaires, and chatbots provide personalized and specific answers to readers as part of your presentation, without them having to get in touch with you or your team.

Elavating your presentations from static to interactive has been tied to increasing the number of people who read your presentation in full by 41% !

Making interactive used to be hard, but now you can just use Storydoc. Go make your first interactive presentation. It’s easy as pie.

2. Show don’t tell

A picture is worth a thousand words. Because no one will read a presentation with a thousand words, do everyone a favor and use images.

Images can be super effective at communicating complex information and save you a lot of needless text.

In fact, visual representation of data and concepts can often convey what words cannot. Use diagrams, infographics, and images to illustrate your points and simplify the complex.

The goal is to create a visual narrative that complements your verbal one.

3. Narrate your content

Storytelling is another powerful tool for communicating complex concepts.

Whether it's through text to speech AI, video bubbles, or a scrollytelling narrator slide, narrating your content can help guide your audience through the complexity.

By giving your information a narrative structure, you can make it more digestible, engaging, and memorable.

According to Sales Hacker’s data, people remember up to 10% of numbers and 25% of images they see. When you center your presentation around a story, this rises to 60-70% .

4. Use examples and allegories

Examples and allegories help unravel the complexity of ideas.

They scaffold your message with concepts we already know and understand, and can easily imagine in our mind. This makes them less new and intimidating and more familiar.

Critically, the real secret lies in selecting examples that are not just familiar but also deeply relevant—those are the ones that will truly ring with your listeners.

If you tailor the allegory to your audience's world, it is guaranteed to lead to an “aha” moment.

5. Open a line of communication

Finally, invite dialogue. This could be through a chatbot or an option to book a meeting for further discussion. This not only helps clarify any confusion but also encourages engagement and deepens understanding.

For example, finishing your presentation with an interactive calendar to book a meeting instead of a generic “Thank you” slide has proven to boost conversion rate by 27% !

How to personalize your presentation?

Imagine attending a party where the host doesn't remember your name or anything about you. Not a great experience, right? The same holds true for presentations.

In a sea of generic content, personalization can be a lifeline that connects you to your audience on a deeper level. It’s also the single most important predictor of success, getting 68% more people to read your presentation in full .

But how do you add that personal touch?

1. Address reader by name

Just as you wouldn't start a conversation without a greeting, don't start your presentation without acknowledging your audience.

Using your audience's name can make your presentation feel like a personal conversation rather than a generic monologue. It's a simple yet powerful way to engage your audience from the get-go.

2. Use their company logo

Including your audience's company logo in your presentation can make them feel seen and valued. It shows that you've taken the time to tailor your presentation to them, enhancing its relevance and appeal.

Plus, it's a subtle way to reinforce that your message is specifically designed to address their needs and challenges.

3. Add a personal message (video or text)

A personal message can go a long way in building a connection with your audience.

It could be a video message from you, expressing your enthusiasm for the opportunity to present to them, or a text message highlighting why the presentation matters to them.

This personal touch can make your audience feel special and more invested in your presentation.

4. Personalize your Call-to-Action

Finally, cap off your presentation with a call to action that speaks directly to your audience.

Swap out the generic 'Contact us' with something that gets to the heart of their needs, something like, 'Let's roll up our sleeves and tackle your [specific issue] at [their company].'

By tailoring your call to action, you show your audience you've truly got their back, that you're not just here to talk, but to make a real, positive impact on their world.

Here’s an example of a personalized slide:

How to measure the effectiveness of your presentation

Imagine if you could peek into your audience's mind, understand what resonated, what fell flat, and what drove them to action?

Presentation analytics is essential in order to guide you on how to fine-tune it for maximum impact.

But how do you get your hands on presentation analytics?

Any presentation you create with Storydoc comes with an out-of-the-box analytics suite , ready to track and provide insights.

We give you 100% visibility into how people engage with your presentations and send you real-time engagement alerts.

Here’s a video explaining how you can track performance with our analytics panel:

4 critical presentation engagement metrics to keep track of

1. Reading time

Storydoc gives you the precise time prospects spend reading your presentation so you can quickly figure out what's hitting the target and what's not.

Are they soaking up every word or just quickly skimming through? This can help you shape your content to hit the bullseye.

NOTE: Keep in mind that reading time alone might not show you a full picture. A better way is to use a smart engagement score that brings together different metrics like time spent and depth of reading. You can get this kind of total score in Storydoc.

2. Reading completion

Another basic metric we track is how many people read your content from start to finish.

This metric is a strong sign of the prospect’s interest and your content quality. It shows you if they're finding the information relevant, but also worth sticking with till the end.

3. Next step conversion rate

This one tracks how many people take the next step after they check out your presentation. This could be filling out a form, setting up a meeting, or downloading more files.

For business presentations, measuring this can show how well your presentation is pushing people further down the sales funnel.

At the top of your analytics dashboard, you can find a tab that shows you how many people clicked on your CTA divided by presentation, date, and location. If you scroll down to the list of readers, next to each person you can also see whether they clicked on the CTA or not.

Here's what it looks like:

4. Number of shares

This metric is particularly important for B2B sales teams . As more people are getting involved in buying decisions, this measure helps you see if and when your content is being passed around inside your prospect’s company.

On the analytics dashboard, under each presentation version, you can find detailed information on how many people read it. So, the higher the number, the more your presentation has been shared internally.

We'll notify you when your presentation has been shared, and who opened it, so you can time your follow-up perfectly to your buyer’s readiness to advance further.

Here's where you can find this information:

Best tool for making an effective presentation

In the realm of presentation tools, classics like Google Slides and PowerPoint offer simplicity and ease, while Canva and Pitch add a dash of design flair and collaboration.

If you're seeking to elevate your presentations to new heights you’ll need to do better than simple PowerPoints or flashy Canvas. Next-gen AI presentation tools like Storydoc are your game-changer.

They break free from the static concept of slides and offer the creation of interactive, immersive content experiences that sweep us along like a good story.

Grab a template - create your best presentation to date

Ever wished for a secret recipe to whip up a killer presentation? We've got something even better! Our interactive presentation templates are your shortcut to success.

Say goodbye to hours of formatting and hello to captivating, interactive presentations, all with a few clicks.

Grab a template and turn presentation woes into wows!

Hi, I'm Dominika, Content Specialist at Storydoc. As a creative professional with experience in fashion, I'm here to show you how to amplify your brand message through the power of storytelling and eye-catching visuals.

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7 Incredible Ways to Structure Your Presentation

As a speaker, you make every effort to make your presentation stand out – you add high-resolution images, well-researched content, animation, and whatnot, but despite this, sometimes your slideshow fails to hit the mark. Can you think of any reason? Poor design, lack of facial expression, and ineffective delivery of speech are the most probable reasons you will give for the presentation failure . Well, these are quite obvious reasons. Wait! Are you overlooking one important aspect that makes the presentation fall flat, i.e., the structure?

Every decent presentation follows a natural flow with a clear beginning, middle, and end, and appropriate transitions and signposts, which gives a direction to the audience and keeps them on track. However, creating a well-structured presentation is a daunting task and takes a lot of nerve as you have to consider a lot of factors – the objective of your presentation, whether you need any visual assistance, settings where you will be delivering your talk, knowledge of the audience level, time constraints for your speech, etc.

If you are not sure how to organize your slides to create an impact on the audience, you have landed at the right place. In this blog post, we have provided some outstanding ways to structure your presentation. Let’s dive deeper!

1. Situation-Complication-Resolution

Image Source:

https://www.presentation-guru.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Situation-Complication-Resolution.jpg

This structure is the best fit for presentations that aim to persuade the audience. It first describes the current scenario (more precisely, what’s going on at present) and then introduces the audience to the complication or problem (causes and impact). Then portray the solution of the problem (the steps, resources, and time required to solve it, the objections you may encounter, etc.). Finally, visualize the benefits after the resolution of the problem. You can make the presentation more intriguing by backing up your information with real-life examples, proof, and facts.

To sum up, the flow of information in this structure goes this way:

• Situation – The current scenario is represented with clarity.
• Complication – The challenge/problem that needs to be solved.
• Resolution – It depicts the solution to the problem.

Example : In his TED talk, Paul Greenberg beautifully presented how fishing salmon, tuna, and shrimp can ruin the oceans. He then suggested a few specific ways to overcome the problem that can benefit both nature and the people who earn their livelihoods through fishing.

2. Hook, Meat, and Payoff

Image Source: 

https://www.presentation-guru.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Hook-Meat-and-payoff.jpg

In this presentation structure, the presenter opens his talk with something (like surprising information, less known facts, provocative statements, rhetorical questions, etc.) that keeps the audience hooked and wanting more. Gradually, the story progresses in an interesting way and finally ends with a conclusion that relates to the beginning.

• Hook – It develops the interest of the audience and piques their curiosity, giving them a strong reason to stay intrigued and listen. 
• Meat – The main part of the presentation that describes what people actually need to understand.
• Payoff – The benefit or reward the audience gets after gaining new knowledge or developing a new understanding. 

Example : To learn more about how this structure works, watch this presentation by Simon Sinek on “How Great Leaders Inspire Action.”

3. Situation-Opportunity-Resolution

https://www.presentation-guru.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Situation-Opportunity-Resolution.jpg

Every problem has an opportunity – this can be better represented by leveraging the Situation-Opportunity-Resolution structure. Instead of focusing more on the audience’s fear, it gives more attention to their aspirations. 

• Opportunity – The opportunity that must be grabbed to address the problem.
• Resolution – It depicts the solution to the problem. You can provide evidence and proof to increase the credibility of the story.

Example : Watch this TED talk by Adam Galinsky on “How to Speak Up for Yourself” to get more insights into this structure.

4. The Drama

https://www.presentation-guru.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/The-Drama.jpg

https://www.presentation-guru.com/on-structure-the-hidden-framework-that-hangs-your-story-together/

This structure is generally followed to present the success story of the business/individual. To be more precise, this structure depicts a Hero’s Journey – how he embarked on a voyage, what challenges/obstacles he encountered on the way, what unique things he discovered about himself, and what was the outcome of the entire voyage.

The entire story is narrated in the following 8 steps:

• One Fine Day – Depicts a stage situation that is not completely perfect, but just average.
• The Challenge – The challenge that comes suddenly and can’t be overlooked.
• Descending Crisis – How the challenge made things worse for the hero.
• Rock Bottom – Everything is at its worst, and the hero feels lost.
• The Discovery – A ray of hope (new abilities, skills, etc.) that makes the hero believe that the problem can be resolved.
• The Rise – How the problem can be resolved in a positive manner.
• The Return – How the hero overcomes the challenge and opens the way to a new range of possibilities for him.
• The Lesson – The key takeaway message that the hero gets from the entire journey.

Example : See how beautifully Adam Driver narrated his story of becoming an actor from Marines. This TED talk is the perfect example of this structure.

5. The Pitch

https://www.presentation-guru.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/The-pitch.jpg

The Pitch is perfect for sales presentations that aim to make the audience believe that the presenter’s idea can help them resolve their problem. The slideshow begins with the evaluation of the current situation and then proceeds towards the hurdles and the solution. You can include data, research, experiments, case studies, or use tests to support your ideas. Conclude your talk with the action that the audience is supposed to take next. Don’t forget to add a ‘hook’ (added benefit).

Here is a quick look at how this structure looks like:

• The Wind Up – A summary of the current scenario.
• The Hurdle – The problem/issue that needs to be resolved.
• The Vision – A quick glimpse into the main idea on how the problem/issue can be solved.
• The Options – Illustrates two different options to solve the problem.
• The Close – The best option is presented as the ideal solution to the problem.
• The Fine Print – Represents how exactly the problem will be resolved.
• The Hook – Showcases the ‘added benefit’ of the solution.

Example : Check out how Enric Sala pitched to solve the problem of turning the high seas into a natural reserve. He ended by making people aware of how people can contribute to their country.

6. The Explanation

https://www.presentation-guru.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/the-explanation.jpg

This structure works best for crafting information-rich presentations that aim to educate the audience about a new regulation, initiative, insights, or process. The presentation progresses in an upward direction, depicting where we are now and where we need to reach or what we need to attain in the future. The steps to move to the next stage are showcased precisely, ensuring that the audience understands accurately how and why each stage affects or concerns them. The final stage of transformation is disclosed at the end. In a nutshell, this structure follows the following steps:

• The Lay of the Land – Where the things are now and what is the final destination.
• The Roadmap – The visual map that shows how to reach the final destination.
• The First Step – Instills the adventure to embark on the journey.
• The Next Step – Further steps are illustrated one by one.
• Almost There – Depicts how much you have progressed since the first step.
• The Arrival – Indicates the end of the journey.

Example : Watch this TED talk by Amy Cuddy, an American social psychologist. She followed an Explanation structure for delivering her talk on power poses and how they can impact the consequence of a difficult situation.

7. Fact and Storytelling

https://www.presentation-guru.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Sparkline.jpg

If you are going to communicate your company’s or department’s vision or present an idea, product, or initiative, you can use this structure which follows a zig-zag pattern instead of a traditional linear one. Using this structure, you can zig-zag back and forth between ‘how things worked then’ and ‘how they would work in the future,’ giving momentum to your presentation. This structure focuses on concluding the slideshow on a high note.

Example : In 2007, Steve Jobs used the same structure for his keynote for launching the iPhone. He took advantage of the power of the unexpected to create a suspenseful opener and tease the audience. He threw light on what smartphones looked like and could do then and what they would look like and would do in the future. He finally demonstrated the iPhone in a very dramatic way. 

Watch Steve Jobs’ full keynote below:

The Bottom Line

Some presentations leave you informed or inspired. This is because the speaker crafted the slides in a simple and logical manner that made it easy for you to grab the key takeaway message quickly. 

A thoughtfully organized presentation benefits the speakers as well by helping them stay on topic, remain calm, avoid awkward silences, and deliver their talk with confidence. By choosing the right structure for your presentation, you can convert your boring information/data into an exciting story that appeals to your audience, both emotionally and intellectually. If you are presenting for the first time or have no time to craft a presentation from scratch, you can use pre-designed, high-definition templates to give a structured look to your information. If you have something relevant to the topic you want to share with us, write in the “Comments” section below. And, if you like the blog post, do share it on your social media handles.

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Getting The Presentation Structure Right

Home  > Presentation Outline  >Presentation Structure

This article provides 6 different types of presentation structure you can use to create stronger outline for your presentations.

As a presenter, you may feel that you have great points to share. But, these points won’t be remembered and appreciated till you get the structure of your presentation right .

Like the way a simple string connects a set of pearls…

How does this study affect us, as presenters?

A good presentation structure has the power to break down a large and complex idea into short meaningful chunks and connect them into a memorable story.

What are the different ways to chunk information?

Once you have defined your presentation objectives you can think about the structure of presentation detailed below.

You can chunk any complex information using 6 basic questions:

Who, What, When, Where, Why and How.

Here is how you treat each presentation structure…

In the first one, we will use two questions together…

1 & 2. Who does what / which one does what?

You can use this structure of presentation to chunk the information based on how different parts of a whole function.

The structure helps you distinguish people from their roles, parts of a machine from their function etc. Since you separate the objects from their performance, your audience can easily organize the information in their minds.

Examples of presentations made with this flow are…

• A presentation on organizational hierarchy
• A demonstration of the various parts of a machine and their functioning
• An explanation of the various modules in a program and their performances

The next way to chunk the information is to use…

You can use this presentation flow to explain how different events are related in time. Since it helps your audience to travel along the timeline, they remember your message as a story.

The presentations made using this format are…

• Review of organization history
• A presentation on impact of technology in the past, present and future
• A project report in the form of a Gantt chart

You can use this structure to explain how objects are related based on their location. It helps your audience to visualize the chunks of information clearly separated from one another.

Some examples for this type of flows are…

• Performance report of different branches across the country
• A chart on acupressure points in the body
• A map depicting the market potential for the product in different regions in the world

You can use this format to explain a process or a sequence of steps. The nature of this structure lends itself nicely to train people on what to do, and provide directions.

Some of the examples are…

• An explanation on how to create an effective presentation using Minimal® process
• A flow chart on how a file moves across various departments during its processing
• A step-by-step tutorial on how to use a software

You can use this structure to help your audience to evaluate option and make a logical decision. It is used to compare and contrast different objects based on a certain set of parameters.

Some of the examples for this are…

• A product presentation showing how it is better than the competition based on 6 critical parameters.
• Presentation on pros and cons of an alternative
• An analysis on the myths and realities, usual errors and ways to avoid them etc.

As you can see, once the brainstorming from target audience point of view, is completed, creating a presentation outline is a very simple process.

Another benefit of a clear structure

There is another major benefit in using a clear structure for your presentation – it helps your audience to know where they are and where they are going.

Thus, it addresses the basic human curiosity and gives them reassurance.

A simple statement by a presenter – “So far, we’ve covered four stages of the process. Now, we’ll move to the fifth and final stage” orients the audience instantly.

Use an appropriate structure of presentation to make your presentation more memorable.

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Structure Your Presentation Like a Story

• Nancy Duarte

To win people over, create tension between the status quo and a better way.

After studying hundreds of speeches, I’ve found that the most effective presenters use the same techniques as great storytellers: By reminding people of the status quo and then revealing the path to a better way, they set up a conflict that needs to be resolved.

• ND Nancy Duarte is a best-selling author with thirty years of CEO-ing under her belt. She’s driven her firm, Duarte, Inc., to be the global leader behind some of the most influential messages and visuals in business and culture. Duarte, Inc., is the largest design firm in Silicon Valley, as well as one of the top woman-owned businesses in the area. Nancy has written six best-selling books, four have won awards, and her new book, DataStory: Explain Data and Inspire Action Through Story , is available now. Follow Duarte on Twitter: @nancyduarte or LinkedIn .

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5 steps on how to make a presentation that stands out

Team Duarte

Making a presentation may appear like an easy task. Most of us have access to PowerPoint or Keynote or Google Slides, but these tools just allow you to build your presentation — they don’t make a presentation. You do. Just because you have a kitchen doesn’t mean a five-course dinner will magically appear from it. You are the chef. You are the presentation maker. In so doing, you should keep a few things in mind as you begin “cooking.”

5 steps to consider when making presentations

1. how to start a presentation, 2. how to design and build a presentation, 3. how to give a good presentation, 4. how to end a presentation, 5. how to get better at giving presentations.

There’s important things to consider when you start, deliver, and end a presentation — that is — if you’re trying to give a good or great one. We believe, at Duarte, that you should never give a presentation you wouldn’t want to sit through yourself. Take your time to consider and adopt these tips so your audience leaves your presentation thinking, “I got a lot out of that,” or “I understand that topic or idea now,” or “I believe in that idea and want to take action.”

Know your audience

Understand who your audience is and make them your focus, not you! When you understand them, they feel known by you, and your content can better connect to their needs and expectations.

Create a persona

Design a simple persona slide to put at the beginning of your deck and refer to it while building your content. Add a photo (or draw one) to represent them. Putting a face to your audience will help you stay focused on them – because they are the hero of your presentation, not you.

Plan the Audience Journey™

You start this by asking yourself who your audience is? Who are they before they hear your presentation and who will they be when they leave it? Use this Audience Needs Map™ to help you get started. If you don’t define that, you won’t persuade others with your talk.

Write your talk first

If you draft out your talk track first, it makes designing and building the presentation much easier. By writing your talk first, you can see the overall flow and you can make sure you add moments of tension between “what is and what could be,” (this is called the Sparkline of your talk).

After that, you can then easily segment your talk into single ideas, with each getting a slide. Remember, you don’t want to make busy slides! If you’re unsure if your slides are “busy,” download our Glance Test™. It’ll help you in the next step to make design choices easier.

Have a Big Idea™

Make your central message clear by communicating one idea. What are you trying to influence them to do? What’s at stake if they do or don’t understand your presentation? Write that down! Make your central message very clear. And then all the other key insights in your talk will be in support of this one main point.

Create a logical structure

Create a structure that makes sense with sections clearly marked. Each section should have slides that support that point — but most importantly, they all continue to support your Big Idea™. Use the slide sorter view in your tool of choice to organize your thoughts in a presentation.

Test your ideas

Run your initial idea and presentation structure through others before you dig into designing slides. Make sure it supports your audience’s needs and that it makes sense. Work through their feedback and incorporate it into your talk.

Structure it like a story

Organize your content with a clear beginning, middle, and end. The middle can have the same cathartic rise and fall that a story does. Using contrast in your presentation outline can also help keep your audience engaged.

Anticipate audience’s level of appeal

Vary the level of appeal based on your audience. You’ll need high emotional appeal if you’re amping up a sales team. Yet, you’ll need logical appeal if you’re trying to get technical engineers on board with your idea. Use the right amount for the audience, or you’ll lose your credibility.

Don’t be boring

Your audience will match the energy you’re giving — so if you feel energized and excited about your presentation, they will as well. If you want your audience to pay attention, you’ll need vocal variety. Projecting (not yelling) lets you focus your voice forward so people can hear you. Create contrast by changing:

• Your volume

Use pauses before and after important keywords or phrases. To remember where those are in your presentation — bold, italicize, or highlight the most important words in your talk and emphasize those.

Speak clear and crisp

Whether you like it or not, listeners judge speakers on how they talk. Clear articulation makes you appear more intelligible to your audience. Use your teeth, tongue, mouth, and jaw to control your articulation. Speaking clearly matters, particularly when your presentation uses words with many syllables. Say things into a mirror and see if your mouth and lips are moving. Work hard to form the words. Show your teeth and drop your jaw. When you articulate clearly, your audience understands you and your message will be more persuasive.

Be confident

Check yourself for upward inflections (also called upspeak or uptalk). Upspeak can cause your audience to lose confidence in you and your ideas because it sounds as though you are asking questions rather than making statements. It makes you sound unsure and robs you of your authority.

Research says audiences who notice upspeak consider it negatively. To avoid, speak in shorter sentences and pause in between. Use this trick, “Start in the attic and end in the basement.” Start a sentence with your hand above your head, and as you say it, drop your hand down while lowering your voice.

Use gestures

Gestures are a terrific way to add emphasis where needed. If you talk with your arms by your side, odds are you’ll sound boring. Purposefully use gestures like hand movements, nodding, and smiling to help you appear a confident speaker. It’s important to avoid:

• Crossing arms
• Or other nervous behaviors that can detract from the presentation

Use your arms deliberately to bring variety to your talk, whether swinging them in a karate chop to “get rid of something” or up and over your head for “exciting things to come.” And always stand up straight, keeping the shoulders back and relaxed. This will put your body in a more confident position as you speak.

Practice, practice, practice

Research shows that the way you say something’s just as important as what you are saying. Make time to practice. Can you rehearse in the space you’re giving your talk? Can you record your practice and watch yourself to look for “ums” or fidgeting or other areas of improvement. Get some friends or coworkers to be your pretend audience so you can see if your jokes land or if they understand your ideas. Make your rehearsals as real as possible for the best effect.

Summarize your key points

It’s time to end your presentation. But there’s more to it than just putting a “period” at the end of a sentence. We recommend the best way on how to end a presentation is summarize the key points. By summarizing the key points you covered in your presentation, your audience can remember the most important information you shared.

Have a clear call to action

Ask your audience to take a specific action. You might need them to fund your project, give you insights, start something, or just have the stamina to keep going. Make sure what you need them to do is very clear.

State the New Bliss

Don’t just end your presentation on the call-to-action, end with what Duarte calls: the New Bliss. Use the end to paint a clear and wonderful picture of what the world will look like with your idea adopted. Make it clear how your idea can benefit your audience and their sphere of influence or ultimately make the world a better place. The tone can be poetic, fist-bumpy, melancholy … whatever suits the purpose.

What you say at your presentation ending needs to be memorable enough for them to be talking about it afterward. The end of a talk is a lot like the end of a story — it needs to be resolved in a clear way or the audience could leave frustrated.

Display something memorable

At the end of your presentation, have your final slide display a memorable quote or key graphic that ties back to your topic and leaves a lasting impression on your audience. Something they might even want to take a picture of to remember the talk as they leave the room. How you conclude a presentation determines if you leave a lasting impression on an audience.

Provide a takeaway

Provide your audience with a handout, resource, URL, or QR code at the end of your presentation. This way, they can continue learning after the presentation and have somewhere to go to act on your exciting ideas.

Take a presentation class

Creating a successful presentation is much more than making slides. It takes planning and time to deliver effective presentations. But when you’re prepared, your engaging presentation will easily land with your audience. Duarte can help you learn the tricks of the trade that have made us the most renowned storytelling firm in the world. Resonate® can help you craft your persuasive narrative, and Slide:ology® can teach you how to turn your ideas into impactful slides.

Sharpen your presenting skills

Presenting is a mental game. It’s an individual sport just like golf or running. To become world-class at it, you need to devote time and practice at all the steps involved. Duarte’s highly-rated training course Captivate™, goes beyond outward delivery signs and traits by helping you strengthen your core — finding your purpose, passion, and perspective. By focusing on your core, you’ll learn to deliver a talk empathetically, dynamically, and comfortably.

Check out these related courses

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• Scroll to top

How we structure presentation content.

• Author Chris Tomlin
• Published June 11, 2024

Your content is the foundation of your presentation, and how you create and structure it can be the difference between audience engagement, and losing them before you’ve made it to the second slide.

Human beings love stories, it’s in our DNA. From that gossip you overheard in the bathroom, to the greatest movie ever made, when you hear a good story, you’re instantly immersed, enraptured and desperate to find out how it ends. When it comes to your presentations, why wouldn’t you want your audience hanging on your every word?

In this article, we’re going to walk you through the secret formula for creating and structuring your PowerPoint presentation content. In just a few easy steps, you can craft your most powerful presentation yet.

First things first, open PowerPoint.

Uh uh. That was a test. You failed already.

You shouldn’t be going anywhere near your chosen presentation software until your content, structure and narrative are perfect. 

I know, I know, tricks are cruel. But we wanted to prove a point. There is no secret formula, and we’re not going to tell you exactly what to do, because creativity doesn’t work like that. And, if we did just tell you exactly what to do, your presentation content would be identical to all the others. We’re assuming you want to stand out from the crowd. 

Even if you don’t consider yourself a creative person, in order to turn dry, uninspiring messaging into an engaging story, you’re going to have to flex some creative muscles. We’re not going to give you any step-by-step instructions to creating your PowerPoint presentation structure, we’re going to suggest a few eye-opening ideas, and creative exercises, to encourage your imagination to take it from there. 

Sound good? Let’s get started. And, I promise, no more tricks.

Know your purpose

Here we go again, with the purpose chat. We know, you’ve got it by now. However, just in case you haven’t read any of our other  storytelling blogs , we’ll go over it again. Once more for the seats in the back. 

If you identify exactly what you want your audience to think, feel, or do, by the end of your presentation, you can work backwards and ensure every message in your presentation content points them towards that goal. Why are you standing up and speaking to this group of people? What is the change you want to make?

Once you know your purpose, you can keep checking in on your story, as it develops, and asking yourself “does this serve my purpose?”. If it doesn’t, you can edit or remove it completely.

Most people, when planning the structure of their PowerPoint presentation structure, have a rough idea of their purpose before they begin. Usually, the general outcome is included in the brief. Sell more products. Demonstrate our capabilities. Change how they see the industry. Which means you just need to work to understand why you do what you do. You don’t just sell products, you sell people their time back, through more efficient software, for example.

Know your audience

You know where you are, and where you want to be, but don’t forget who is going to get you there: your audience. They hold the key to your success, so you’re going to have to sweet talk them. 

Understanding your audience is the most important part of any communication. Most people make the mistake of talking about themselves, and their presentation content comes from a purely selfish standpoint. And we get it, you’re proud of your product and all the clients who have had tremendous success from partnering with you. But your audience don’t care about your successes, they’re thinking about their own.

If you can’t prove to them that your product is the answer to their problems, they’ll stop listening pretty much straight away.

The first step to doing this, is to understand what their problems are. What do you know about the people who will be sitting across from you when it comes to the big day? What keeps them up at night? What do they dream of? What’s stopping them from achieving these dreams?

Once you understand their motivations, and their barriers for success, you can structure your PowerPoint presentation in a way that proves you get them, and you have the answers they’re looking for. This is how you define your key messages: audience challenges and your proposed solution.

The language of your presentation content

Who you’re speaking to will also dictate the language that you use to write your presentation content. While your tone of voice should always be authentically you, the level of detail you go into, and the specialist language you use, will be controlled by your audience’s existing knowledge. 

You don’t want to pitch too low and insult their intelligence. But you don’t want to bombard them with jargon and lose them from sentence one.

As well as language, you also want to think about tone. How well do you know the people sitting across from you? Can you afford to be more conversational and friendly, or would they respond more positively to a corporate and professional tone?

The answer to all these questions lies in your research, so don’t skip the getting to know you part. One thing we can tell you about your audience is: they’re – most likely – human. And humans are storytelling animals.

Why structure your presentation content as a story?

Stories are easy for our brains. We consume stories every day of our lives. From the bedtime stories our parents would read us, to the books and movies we use to escape the ordinary, to the short, sharp visual stories told through intelligent advertising. 

By structuring your presentation content as a story, you become the guide. You take your audience by the hand, introducing them to new and exciting concepts and persuading them that a better future is just around the corner, so long as they stick with you. 

What does a story look like?

A story has to be a journey. And, for a presentation, it has to be one that’s easy to follow. Your audience aren’t going to put in work to understand your message. If it’s too convoluted, they’ll just stop listening.

This is where you start to add structure to your presentation’s key messages. Traditional stories are told in three parts: beginning, middle and end, so that’s a good place to start.

Presentation structure: Beginning

In the beginning, you set the scene and establish a connection with your audience by describing a situation they’re familiar with. Describe the current landscape, in brief, to make sure you’re all on the same page, showing them you understand the industry.

Give them a sneak peek into what’s in store. Set the level of expectation by sharing a condensed version of the agenda. We find summing up the journey they’re about to embark on in three themes does the trick. Humans find threes easy to cope with.

We’ve previously discussed ways to  start a corporate presentation , but suffice to say there’s a wealth of options. The only limit is your imagination.

Presentation structure: Middle

The middle is where we explore the challenges you identifed during your audience research. Your audience might have one challenge, or 46, and it’s important to at least acknowledge each of them. That doesn’t mean you need to go into detail. By grouping challenges into larger themes, you can create a presentation structure that’s easy to follow, while comprehensively covering all their challenges.

For each challenge, you need to offer a solution. And you need to draw an obvious line between the challenge and your answer to it. Remember, they’re not going to work hard to join the dots in your presentation. It’s your job, as guide, to show them the way.

When planning out the ideas you want to cover during your presentation, here’s a piece of advice: don’t bite off more than you can chew. Don’t attempt to find a cure for cancer, achieve peace in the Middle East and resolve the riddle of what happens to odd socks in a single presentation. Three ideas – or even two, or one – answered satisfactorily will be far more effective than half a dozen ideas, half-answered in a half-baked fashion. Keep it lean.

Presentation structure: End

By the time you reach your final slides, you will have your audience emotionally hooked. Now you just need to appeal to the logical part of the brain. 

There are numerous ways, such as case studies, client testimonials, procedure deep dives, or even showing how the technology actually works, that can add both logic and credibility to your argument. Whichever is relevant to your product, make sure you break the information down in an easy-to-understand format, and that it’s valuable to your audience.

Bring your presentation to a close with a summation of how much better their lives will be if they adopt your ideas. Reiterate your key points in brief. This is your culmination, your final opportunity to make your message heard. Tough, we know, that’s why we leave it up to our Storytellers.

Make sure your call to action is clear. You’ve done all the hard work, taking them on a journey and dropping breadcrumbs of change, so don’t miss this opportunity to tell them exactly how they make this change happen. Lay out how they take that first step towards a better future. 

For your final slide, you need to end with impact. We’ve explored the intricacies of ending a presentation in this article . Yes, it needs its own post. 

Once you’ve got the basics down, feel free to play with your narrative structure and get more creative with how you tell your story. Your key messages should remain the same, tailored to the needs of your audience, but you can mess with timelines to keep them guessing. 

Don’t forget to edit your presentation content

Once you think you’ve got your perfect story, go back through and take the “so what?” test. For each of your key messages, ask why your audience should care. If you can’t come up with an answer, get rid of it.

Of course, editing also includes streamlining your ideas, to make sure you’re not repeating yourself, making sure all your messages point towards your end goal, and tidying up your script in terms of narrative flow.

We’re almost at the end of our own journey, and we haven’t even opened PowerPoint yet. Do you see how important it is to get your narrative tight, before you start messing with slide content? We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: you are the star of your presentation, your slides are there to support you, and cement your ideas.

Go on then, open PowerPoint

It’s time to treat yourself and get working on your slides. 

Each idea deserves its own slide, to give it space to breathe, and give your audience ample opportunity to digest what you’re saying.

On-slide presentation content

When we say presentation content, we do mean on-slide copy, as well as speaker notes, so we weren’t going to end this article without talking about the last piece of the puzzle.

Your on-slide copy needs to be minimal. Your audience can’t listen to you and read your slides at the same time, so remove the distractions and just pull out the most important points from your script, and put those on slide. This will support what you’re saying, aid comprehension and increase the chances that they’ll remember your messages. 

The impact of these visual cues is enhanced when supported by imagery or iconography that also reinforces the message. But we’re in danger of moving on to  design  and animation now. If this has piqued your interest, feel free to continue your PowerPoint education by reading some more of our articles on these topics.

The best stories can use PowerPoint to drive the message home, but it’s you that’s the guide. The best way to not let your slides take over is to perfect your presentation content outside of presentation software. Only once your messaging, narrative and structure is right, should you even think about slides.

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A simple, engaging presentation structure that works every time

A simple, engaging presentation structure is like the air that your audience breaths: invisible, unnoticed and essential.

It will draw them into the content, and they will stay fully focused on what you have to say.

And if you don’t have a simple, engaging presentation structure your audience will suffer!

The benefits of this presentation structure

There are three key benefits, this presentation structure ensures that:

• The audience connects with your central message and key points
• You feel confident and in control
• You can flex the duration of the presentation to different circumstances

More on this last point a little later. Use my presentation structure and you’ll see how you can adapt it to a 1-minute elevator pitch or a 1-hour deep dive into the topic.

The ideal presentation structure

This presentation structure is deliberately simple (structure is not something that you should complicate!). At its highest level, it consists of the opening, content and closing.

Each of these three sections has a very specific purpose.

• The opening : deliver your central message and 3 key points
• The content : Dive into the detail of your 3 key points
• The closing : Recap your central message, Q&A, call to action

There’s more here on the benefits of this presentation structure from Inc’s 3 Tips from Aristotle article.

The opening

Let’s imagine for a moment that you’re proposing a 4-day working week for the whole company (with 5 days’ pay!), and your audience is the CEO and other C-level executives.

Open with your central message:

Good afternoon, I’m here to share with you how a 4-day working week can boost the profitability of the company. I realize that’s a big claim, let me tell you a little more about what I’ll be covering today.

Notice, you didn’t just mention the topic (4-day working week), you delivered your central message from the opening slide: that you can boost the productivity of the company. Motivate them to engage, ensure your central message is compelling to them , and deliver it right from the start.

Move to your agenda slide. This should be structured around 3 key points.

In this presentation I’ll be covering 3 points. How my proposal can: boost our productivity, reduce operating costs and increase revenues.

You’ve already hit your central message and key points. Then transition into the content.

Now, let me jump into the content, looking at our productivity first.

For added impact to your opening, explore how to use a presentation hook (to grab your audience!). 

The content

Structure your content around the three key points to your central message.

Take a look at this ethos3.com article on the rule of three , here’s an extract:

Steve Jobs was famous for using the Rule of Three in his presentations. In 2011, he described the iPad 2 as “ thinner, lighter, and faster ” than the first. These three adjectives were massively effective; they said everything the audience needed to know.

Three points is complete and perfectly formed. If you use two points, it looks like you’re missing something, four key points and your audience will start to forget. Five, six or seven key points, and your audience will be lost!

Avoid a laundry list of topics (it’s lazy and it doesn’t help your audience!), distill your message into three key points.

The elevator pitch

Earlier I mentioned how this structure will help you flex the presentation to any duration. If you’re in the elevator, and someone asks you about this presentation, just use your ‘opening’ it’s a summary of your complete presentation.

A 4-day working week is a great opportunity to increase profitability. Let me tell you how, there are just 3 key things to know: it will boost our productivity, reduce operating costs and increase revenues. Is this your floor? OK, see you later!

The deep dive

Or, if you have an hour, use this structure to give yourself the confidence to expound on the topic. Talk about each key point in some detail, tell stories, share data, ask for input.

And if you’re doing this deep dive, add in some additional structure, to help the audience navigate. Summarize at the end of each key point, and transition to the next key point.

Use this kind of language to summarize:

That has been a great discussion about the first point I wanted to cover, how my proposal will boost productivity. Let me just summarize…

And this kind of language to transition to the next key point.

Now, as I mentioned, the next big benefit is increased productivity. There are several perspectives on this, let me take the next 20 mins to walk you through and share my experience, feel free to jump in any time…

That’s the beauty of this structure, it gives you control.

The closing

Finally, the closing. Use it to reinforce your central message and key support points, open the presentation for more questions, and your call to action.

Before you open the presentation for more questions, make sure you take a look at these simple and powerful techniques for confident Q&As .

Finally, your call to action. You do have a call to action, right? What is it that you want your audience to do, as a result of your presentation?

There should always be an action. Never present as a ‘briefing’ or ‘for information’. If that’s the case, then send an email. Presentations are expensive. (Take a look at the cost of meetings .)

Presentations can only be justified if there is clear business value, and business value comes from taking action.

Presentation structure, in summary

A great presentation structure is like air. Your audience won’t notice it, because they’ll be fully engaged with your central message and key points.

Keep your presentation structure simple:

• Open with a central message
• Structure your content around 3 key points
• Close with a call to action

Always have a call to action, that’s the business value.

Keep it simple, let your content shine!

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How to create a Powerpoint Presentation

Powerpoint presentations are a great way to share information with a team, but making them is a skillset in its own right. We've got guides on general Powerpoint use , but if you're keen to just get started making a slideshow right now, this is the way.

How to create a Powerpoint presentation

How to build your first slide, how to add more slides to a powerpoint presentation, how to make an awesome slideshow presentation.

Here's how to make a Powerpoint presentation.

What You Need

Powerpoint or Microsoft 365 subscription

The first step in building your fancy slideshow is to create the presentation itself. Here's how to do it.

Step 1: Install Powerpoint (as part of Microsoft 365 ) if you haven't already, then open the app up.

Step 2: The home screen will give you a range of options for selecting templates and premade presentations to give you a great starting-off point. Select one of them if they're applicable. For even more options, select the New tab from the left-hand menu.

Alternatively, if you want to start from a blank canvas, select Blank presentation.

Step 3: From there, it's a good idea to name and save the presentation so you can come back to it later. Select File > Save or* Save As*, then name the file on the right, choose a location for it, and select Save .

Step 1: Your first slide will automatically have text fields for a title and subtitle. If you want to have that on your first slide, select them, then type in what you want them to read. You can also click and drag them around, or resize them using your mouse.

Hover your mouse over the white circles, then click and drag them to resize the box. Alternatively, select the rotational arrows near the corners of the box, to rotate it.

If you don't want those text fields, select their boundary individually and press the Delete key to remove them.

Step 2: If you want to add more text to this slide (or any others in the future), select the Insert tab, then select Text box. Click on the slide where you want the box to appear, then use your mouse to drag the box to the desired shape.

Then click the box and type in what you want that text box to say. The contextual home menu will automatically adjust to give you quick access to font choices and other text style options.

You can access more detailed text formatting options by selecting the Format tab. There you'll find options for changing text coloring, its outline, and any text effects you want to use.

Step 3: To add pictures to your slideshow, select the Insert tab, then select Pictures in the top-left. You'll then have the option to insert an image from your local PC, a selection of stock images, or a range of online images.

Step 4: You can also freehand draw or annotate your slides, using the Draw tab, or alter the entire theme of the slideshow by selecting Design.

To add a new slide to your presentation, select the Insert tab at the top of the screen, then select New slide on the left. Then choose the type of slide you want. You can have a blank slide to do it all yourself, or you can get a headstart on its design by copying a previous slide, using the same theme as another part of your presentation, or having a predefined layout.

Want even more tips on making a great slideshow? We've got you covered. Check out our guide on how to use Microsoft Powerpoint , for all the most important tips.

We've also got a guide for more tips and tricks for making engaging and attractive slides .

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While PowerPoint is widely used to develop presentations, using Google Slides has become a popular alternative. Part of what makes it so popular is that it's free to use, as is other Google software such as Google Docs and Google Sheets – which is a stark contrast to the premium price you'll pay for Microsoft Office and PowerPoint.

Even if you know how to use Microsoft PowerPoint, you might want to jump ship to Slides, and Google makes it easy to do so. In fact, it takes little more than a few clicks to convert a PowerPoint to Google Slides. Whether you need to change the format for a coworker or want to permanently switch to the free platform, here's a look at how to convert your PowerPoint into a Google Slides presentation.

We all know that Microsoft’s PowerPoint software has been a presentations staple for a few decades now. And whether you only used it in school once or twice, or you use it for work on a daily basis, there’s always something new to learn about the classic Microsoft platform.

Even if you know how to use PowerPoint, did you know that you can embed videos in your presentations?

Creating a successful slideshow is no small task. So, if you’re new to Microsoft PowerPoint, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with the features and tools you need to build a presentation.

We’ll guide you through the process of creating a PowerPoint slideshow by adding slides and elements as well as how to present the show when you finish. These basics are just what you need as a beginner and should get you off to a terrific start with PowerPoint.

How to Structure Variable Compensation: A Step-by-Step Guide

What is variable compensation?

Why offer variable compensation, variable compensation examples, how to structure variable compensation.

• Step 1. Define objectives clearly.
• Step 2. Select appropriate variable pay types.
• Step 3. Establish detailed performance metrics.
• Step 4. Create a structured compensation plan.
• Step 5. Communicate the plan effectively.
• Step 6. Monitor employee feedback and performance.
• Step 7. Review and refine the program.

Your employees might feel unmotivated and disengaged in their work when you only offer a fixed salary. Implementing a variable compensation plan that goes beyond the minimum can help boost their performance and align it with your company goals.

Thanks to Salary.com's Compensation Consulting Services , you can help your organization create and offer a more competitive performance-based compensation plan; all backed by over 70 years of compensation and total rewards experience.

Variable compensation is a pay structure that goes beyond base salary. It includes cash and non-cash bonuses, profit sharing, and commissions that are all based on individual or company performance.

These plans are designed to balance the company's budget for compensation expenses with the payments that employees deserve. Companies use variable pay to motivate employees and sales teams to meet performance expectations that promote employee engagement.

With Salary.com's Variable Pay Program , you can design long- and short-term incentive programs that reward employees fairly and motivate them to achieve goals and deliver results.

Fixed compensation vs variable compensation

Fixed compensation is a stable and predetermined salary that employees receive regularly. It includes base salaries and set hourly wages that are given bi-weekly or annually with no direct link to performance outcomes.

On the other hand, variable compensation adjusts based on employee performance and company results. This includes cash bonuses or profit sharing that can only be given when employees complete a project or meet sales targets.

Offering an effective variable compensation plan helps retain top talent as it makes employees feel valued and motivated to contribute more. It also attracts highly qualified candidates as 53.8% of senior managers view it as a key factor in job acceptance.

With Competitive Pay Assessment , you can help your organization assess the market competitiveness of your pay and benefits programs.

Benefits of offering variable compensation

Organizations that offer variable compensation can expect the following benefits:

Attracts top talent through rare and unique offers that are more appealing in a tight labor market.

Encourages employees to achieve specific performance targets and contribute to the company’s success.

Offers employees, especially sales reps, the opportunity to earn sales compensation based on revenue and customer satisfaction scores.

Improves employee retention by showing employees that you value and appreciate their job performance and efforts.

Promotes a performance-driven company culture where high performance is recognized and rewarded as employees consistently strive for excellence.

Here are some examples of performance-based compensation:

Non-cash bonuses

Boosts employee morale and job satisfaction by offering gift cards, vouchers, training, or unique benefits to them.

Profit sharing

Enables employees to have a share in company profits based on their contributions to the company's achievements or income.

Stock options

Encourages long-term commitment by offering employee equity that allows employees to have a potential future gain.

Sales commission

Allows sales reps to earn variable pay based on their sales performance that forms the basis of the entire sales compensation plan.

Quarterly or annual bonuses

Allows employees to receive bonuses on a quarterly or annual basis for meeting the company's performance metrics during a specific period.

Cash bonuses

Provides immediate financial rewards like extra paychecks or spot bonuses for employees' exceptional achievements that motivate them to excel.

Key considerations for structuring variable compensation

Here are some considerations in structuring variable compensation:

Structure performance pay based on individual performance and revenue generated to reward employees fairly.

Ensure that the bonus plan is easy to understand so employees know how their performance affects their pay.

Align incentives with company objectives to drive overall company success.

Incorporate a mix of short-term and long-term incentives to determine both immediate results and sustained performance over time.

Review and adjust your variable pay plan regularly to ensure it remains effective in motivating and retaining talent.

To help address these concerns, organizations can take advantage of Salary Structure Building to model competitive salary structures and assign appropriate salary ranges.

Here are 7 simple steps on how to effectively structure performance incentives in your company:

Set specific goals for your variable compensation plan, such as boosting sales or enhancing productivity. Match these objectives with your compensation strategy to ensure they drive the desired results and support your organization's success.

Evaluate various types of variable compensation such as cash bonuses profit-sharing or stock options based on your company's goals and employee roles. Choose the best to incentivize the behaviors you want to encourage and fit your organization's compensation strategy.

Identify specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) key performance indicators (KPIs). Establish benchmarks and targets for each indicator and develop a system for regular tracking and analysis of these metrics. Ensure that they are directly tied to the variable compensation elements to reward employees fairly and accurately.

HR Metrics & Analytics can help review current metrics, establish benchmarks, and provide a model for measuring effectiveness over time.

Design a comprehensive variable pay plan that outlines how and when rewards are distributed. Use information gathered and metrics created and include details like eligibility criteria and payout schedules. This is to ensure the plan effectively motivates employees, employee performance aligns with company goals and promotes a culture of accountability and fairness within the workplace.

Ensure all employees understand the plan created by clearly communicating its details through discussion channels. You can use virtual or physical systems for regular tracking and printed materials. This promotes transparency, helps prevent confusion, and ensures everyone is aware of how their performance impacts their pay.

Capture insights on employees' experiences and satisfaction with the compensation plan by gathering employee feedback through regular surveys or focus groups. This information can be used to improve the plan’s effectiveness by addressing what satisfies them.

Regularly review the effectiveness of your performance incentive plan regularly by staying updated on current market trends, analyzing employee feedback, and referring to performance data. Identify gaps and discrepancies that need to be addressed and make adjustments if necessary. This is to enhance the program's impact on employee motivation and ensure competitive market standards.

Implementing well-structured variable compensation plans motivates employees to perform at their best. It goes beyond offering just a base salary and rewards employees for their specific contributions and achievements. With Salary.com's Compensation Consulting Services, you can create a performance-based pay program that aligns employee performance with company goals and contribute to the overall success of your organization.

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