There is substantial power in good storytelling. It is an innovative marketing strategy and a powerful business skill to adopt. Storytelling is used world wide, and has been used for thousands of years to convey large pieces of information. The effects of a good story can have a long-lasting positive impact on your target audience.
As a public speaker delivering a professional presentation, you want to build a connection with your audience to boost their engagement with the information you are feeding them. Conveying your message through the art of storytelling is an excellent strategy to help your audience retain the information behind your presentation whilst involving your audience too.
With storytelling being one of the oldest forms of communication, it is already happening within your business and you are perhaps already using some techniques without consciously thinking about it.
So, how can storytelling techniques be incorporated into your presentation? And how can they help captivate your audience’s attention? Below are some tips on how to utilise some storytelling techniques and embed them into a dynamic powerpoint template.
Don’t Always Save the Climax For the End
A great novel leads up to a dramatic climax with an ending that has a satisfying resolution. However, to create an engaging powerpoint presentation, you almost need to flip this entire technique on its head.
Don’t wait until the end of your presentation to tell your audience the most important information. You might have lost their attention by this point.
Start your presentation how you mean to move forward. Telling your audience the most important details of your message is a marketing technique based around the idea of a hierarchy of information. By telling your audience the most interesting information immediately, you will gain and retain their attention. Try to create tension, and leave open ended questions which your audience need to answer themselves. By letting your audience reach their own conclusions on your message at the beginning, it sets you up as a presenter to be able to change their minds through the course of the powerpoint. Next, you are able to feed informative information through the rest of the delivery of your powerpoint to conflict and change your audience’s original questions.
You might be wondering how to successfully adopt this technique, which leads nicely onto the next point.
Construct Your Audience as Characters
In order to successfully challenge your audiences pre-conceptions of your powerpoint’s message, try to imagine your audience as a single character. What are their interests and motives? What do they want to hear? How, and what is the best way to keep their attention?
By constructing your audience as a character you can tailor your powerpoint presentation to their needs, ensuring their full engagement throughout.
A character usually embarks on a journey which changes and develops them overtime. With each new chapter of the story, the character finds out new things about themselves and develops as a result.
Think of each of your slides as a new chapter you need to take your audience through. The information you need them to remember has to help them grow and develop, answering their internal monologue of questions.
You may also think of yourself as a character whilst presenting. How are you engaging with your audience? Developing a good dialogue with your audience through a coherent narrative and positive body language is going to make the process of keeping their attention easier.
Include Images and Videos To Reinforce Your Message
Some of the best literature has captivating illustrations alongside the text which are rich with colour and imagery. A carefully crafted story including a mixture of resources is more likely to boost engagement and ignite a conversation with your audience. Images can convey powerful messages by tuning into your audience’s emotions. Delivering creative, memorable information is vital for your audience’s retention.
Pictures and videos are great tools to tap into your audience’s imagination and resonate with their previous experiences. Including small optimised videos and images are fun ways of relaying information quickly and efficiently. Having a few powerpoint slides with creative infographics, audio, and short video clips help to initiate your audience’s senses and directs their focus to what is most important on that slide.
You can find pre-built infographics, graphs, tables, and shapes on our website which are fully customisable. Explore our website to find the right graphic to transform your powerpoint presentation.
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