The Value of a Professional PowerPoint Presentation

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Despite being more than 30 years old, PowerPoint remains the most popular presentation software in the world with an estimated 500+ million users worldwide and an incredible 95% market share.

And it’s no wonder: the appeal of PowerPoint is that it’s extremely easy to use, and yet it’s also powerful, allowing advanced users to create all kinds of impressive visuals, from animations to embedded video.

So, why are so many PowerPoint presentations so terrible?

The problem, in part, lies within the two advantages we just identified: the ease of use and advanced capabilities. Because two of the most common pitfalls in a PowerPoint presentation tend to be:

    • Poorly designed and cluttered slides, created by users who don’t have any background in design or presenting.
    • Overly complicated visuals distract the audience from absorbing the presentation’s most important points.

Either scenario can leave the audience bored, confused, or turned off by the presentation. For sales presentations especially, that can result in a major missed opportunity.

This is why it’s so important to create engaging, effective PowerPoint presentations, professionally designed by experts who know how to make an impact.

Why it matters

A 2019 survey by presentation expert Dave Paradi found that PowerPoint is the “de facto method of communicating” at many organizations. A staggering 78% of survey-takers said they view 2 or more PowerPoint presentations every week. But at the same time, respondents found most presentations to be “annoying” for a variety of reasons, including:

    • Presenters simply reading the text on the PowerPoint verbatim
    • Text on slides being too small to read
    • Full sentences on every slide
    • Information overload: “Presentations look like a Word or Excel file”

This is a big problem for presenters.No matter what the purpose of the PowerPoint – informing, persuading, selling or presenting ideas – the point will surely be lost if the presentation doesn’t engage the audience. Additionally, it doesn’t matter if it’s an audience of one or a packed auditorium. If the presentation is bad, it will fail to make an impact. That could mean more than just a bored audience. It could result in a lost sale, a bad reputation, and a complete waste of your time.

The importance of using experts

When designed properly, a PowerPoint presentation can be extremely powerful. The right balance of information and graphics can keep audiences engaged and interested in the presentation so that it achieves its end goal.

Whereas the novice PowerPoint user may not give much attention to things like image placement or color schemes, a professional designer will know exactly how to structure the content to make it visually compelling. Additionally, the audience will instantly see that the presentation looks professional, which can go a long way to increasing credibility and persuasiveness.

Starting with custom PowerPoint templates

Hiring professional designers doesn’t mean that you need to have a completely new PowerPoint made for every single presentation or audience. At Sullivan Design, our experts can create a custom PowerPoint template that will serve as a starting point for your most important presentations. The template provides the design foundation and overall structure for the presentation while allowing you to edit the text and other elements to tailor it to each viewer.

For more information on creating a custom, professionally designed PowerPoint for your next presentation, connect with us at Sullivan Design and we’ll be happy to discuss your options.