10 Design Tips for Effective PowerPoint Presentations

Could you use help creating professional-looking presentations for your small business or non-profit?

Small business owners and non-profits often need to share information with prospective clients or partners. PowerPoint is a great tool for you to leverage.

Here are 10 tips to help you make your presentations look professional!

1. Leverage a template. There are many tools that offer templates to assist with slide design. PowerPoint has some built-in templates, but often those are a bit dated. Canva.com offers some more modern templates that can be easily accessed within their free platform.

2. Keep your slides simple. Even with templates, it's tempting to pack too much information into each slide. Keep in mind that less is more. A cluttered slide is distracting and can make it hard for your audience to read. They may also miss the most important point.

3. Limit the number of words on your slides. Limiting the words on your slides will help keep your slides simpler. The detail should be provided by you the speaker, not within the text of the slide.

4. Use high-quality images and graphics. Your images and graphics should be relevant to the topic you are speaking to. The old saying a picture is worth a thousand words is still true and applies to presentations. Pixabay and Unsplash offer free high-quality photos. Canva also includes many free photos to choose from.

5. Include charts and graphs. Share your relevant data in simple, easy-to-read charts and graphs to add interest to your slides. Leverage color to highlight the most important data elements.

6. Consistent fonts. You should keep your presentation to 1 to 3 fonts. Including too many fonts looks unprofessional and can take away from simplicity.

7. Color scheme to match your brand. The colors in your presentation should match your brand and should be limited to 3 to 5 colors in the scheme.

8. Slide alignment. This is one of the most common mistakes I see when it comes to slides and it's an easy one to fix. A simple way to create a well-designed presentation is to make sure all items on a slide are intentionally aligned within the slide. Your borders should be the same. The spaces between elements should also be the same. PowerPoint and Canva both offer guidelines you should use. Taking the extra time to ensure everything is aligned properly will give your presentation a more professional look.

9. Limit punctuation and over-formatting text. For example, there’s no need to use multiple exclamation points or have every word capitalized. Limit or eliminate use of underlining and other effects. Those often distract and can make a slide appear cluttered.

10. Create Infographics. For complex topics with data and text, consider creating an infographic by combining information with graphics using icons to replace text when possible.

Leveraging the above tips can help you create a professional-looking sales and marketing presentation and showcase your products and services confidently.

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At It's All About the How Marketing Consulting we offer expert marketing support and practical tools to help improve your brand awareness and results. We can help with all aspects of your small business or non-profit marketing needs from developing strategic marketing plans to weekly blog content. You can reach us at itsallaboutthehow@gmail.com or check out our website at www.itsallaboutthehow.com.