As a business, there will be plenty of opportunities where you’ll need to provide presentations. Whether it’s to entice suppliers and distributors to work with you or it’s a how-to video guide for your customers on using your product or services. 

Presentations offer a lot of knowledge and are often helpful in shedding light on answers or gaps within the viewer’s knowledge that need clarifying. However, not all presentations are engaging and that can be due to a lack of creativity and originality within the design and production of the presentation.

What makes for an inspiring and motivating presentation? Audiences need to be engaged with your presentation from start to finish and if they’re dropping off thirty seconds in, then the goal of the presentation isn’t being achieved.

In this guide, you’ll understand why it’s important to switch up your presentations within a business and ten presentation ideas that will motivate any audience that engages with it.

Why it’s important to switch up your presentations in business

When it comes to your business, switching up your presentations is important for a number of reasons. With 55% of people saying a great story is primarily what holds the attention during a presentation, here are a few reasons why you should be focused on changing up the pace and look of your presentations.

Keeps the engagement of the audience

Keeping the engagement of your audience is challenging. Especially when it’s an early morning presentation or it’s a long-winded one that many will often drift from focusing on. It can be helpful to have something that’s interesting to look at and to read or listen to. That’s mainly the formula needed in order to make it a successful one.

Look at how well engaged your audience has been before and if there are some problems, then it’s worth adjusting these issues to make the presentation more engaging.

It’s not always a one-formula solution

Talking of formulas, the same formula used for every presentation is not likely to work. That’s because each presentation might be different in its intentions, from the next one. One presentation might need more information placed into the presentation, whereas another might require more interactive content to get the message or CTA across as a business.

Simply giving every presentation the same layout or structure might not have the necessary impact you’d like to have.

Your audience might change

It’s important to remember that your audience might change when it comes to the different presentations you give. That means how you approach your presentation in design and content will also likely change too.

Remember that the presentation is intended mainly for the benefit of your audience, so if they’re not being catered for, they’ll likely switch off.

10 presentation ideas that will motivate your audience

How can you help motivate your audiences as a business in 2022? We’ve put together ten presentation ideas that will hopefully provide you with the success you’re after when it comes to keeping your audience engaged and willing to do what you ask them.

1. Opt for presentation templates to create unique designs.

When it comes to making your presentation, you should be creating eye-catching work that’s going to get noticed. This can be guaranteed with presentation templates and using these pre-made documents to work from when it comes to providing structure and unique designs to your presentations.

It saves a lot of time having to create them from scratch and to potentially miss out anything that you’ve not thought about including.

2. Tell a story.

In order to get your audience hooked, it’s always good to tell a story when it comes to your presentation. For all they know, your story could be true, an expansion of the truth or simply made up. A story can draw people in and give extra meaning to those that aren’t always swayed by a few visual images and some statistics on a page.

Often enough, it’s just as important when it comes to what the presenter is saying, not just what’s on the presentation itself.

3. Make it interactive.

Making it interactive is a great way to get your audience involved. Previous presentations that have garnered much success are those that invite the audience to engage with the presenter or presentation itself. This might be by responding to a question posed by the presenter. You might also find it beneficial to add in quizzes to the presentation at some point.

Instead of it just being about the presentation and having the presenter talk all the time, a bit of light relief with audience interaction can make all the difference.

4. Add a little humor in parts.

Humor is always a welcome element to a presentation, especially when some presentations can end up being presented in the same monotone voice.

A joke inserted here or a little skit for those who are feeling brave, may end up going down a treat for those audience members who are still in the room physically but have left mentally.

5. Use visuals to make it interesting.

Visuals are a great way to keep the presentation interesting. If it’s all text and no imagery, you’re guaranteed to bore your audience to death. Think imagery that’s related to the presentation and that would be interesting to look at while you’re talking.

You may also want to turn to video as that can also be highly effective in keeping your audience engaged. It’s also a welcome break from all the talking that the presenter is giving for both the presenter and the audience listening.

6. Implement user-generated content.

Just like on social media, implementing user-generated content is an excellent way to get your points across where needed. There’s nothing like having content straight from your target market’s mouth and that can be helpful if you’re needing to convince stakeholders or investors into your business.

If you’ve already got quite the following, then getting that user-generated content should be easy.

7. Add music to your slides where appropriate.

Despite 71% of people using company branding in presentations, 66% will struggle when it comes to the design. That’s where music can come in as an additional aid for presentations. It’s one that not everyone thinks about or considers but it can be highly effective in engaging your audience.

It’s also one that they’re likely not to expect when it comes to presenting. It’ll certainly jolt awake any snoozers who’ve taken the opportunity to drop off in a dark room!

8. Take questions from your audience.

Where you can, try taking questions from your audience. It’s a great way to get data from those that you’re presenting to and this can often be helpful in your ventures as a business. Not only that, but it can give you an idea of how well engaged the presentation is. Sure, there will be great presentations that get no questions, however, they’re not always helpful.

Be sure to tell your audience that you’ll be asking questions throughout and will take any towards the end. This is also where it’s handy to record the presentation where possible or have someone taking note of the questions asked and answered.

9. Utilize social media.

Social media is a good way of helping bring more creativity to your presentation. You may want to use your social media handles or hashtags in order to get people talking about the presentation you’ve given. 

This could be particularly effective when it’s a presentation you’re giving at a conference or an event that could get a lot of the attendees talking about your business via social media platforms. Nothing like a bit of advertising for your business and killing two birds with one stone! 

10. Use props to keep your audience engaged if presenting in real life.

If you’re struggling to keep audiences engaged, another creative presentation idea that tends to work is by introducing props. These are only really effective in real-time presentations but if you’re recording the presentation with you in the frame, then this can still be achieved.

Like the imagery, it’s important to keep the props relevant to the presentation so that not too much attention is being taken off what you’re talking about. However, they can be a great way of encouraging a bit of interaction from the audience and keeping them interested when it comes to the presentation itself.

Don’t drop the ball when creating presentation ideas for your business

When it comes to presentation ideas, there are a lot of ways to motivate your audience so that whatever presentation you bring to them, it’s successful in its intentions. With that being said, make sure to utilize all of the tips above to ensure the best presentations are created.