In the age of technology, distractions are everywhere. When it comes to creating a presentation, capturing attention and retaining user interest can be difficult. Understanding your goals while thinking outside the box will put you in the best position to create a memorable experience for your audience. In this post, we’re leveraging our industry experience to highlight creative presentation ideas that will help you reach your initiatives by putting the best possible product in front of your audience.
Creative Presentation Ideas for Better Audience Engagement
Before we get into the details, when you begin to plan a presentation, what are the two major concerns you face? For us, it’s pretty simple.
- Delivering relevant information as effectively as possible
- Capturing and maintaining your audience’s attention
While those objectives may sound obvious, proper execution is the difference between forgettable time-wasters and the type of presentation that generates momentum and desired actions and outcomes after the fact.
Here’s what you should think about when creating your presentation.
Put Thought Into Your Color Palette & Design Style
Putting real thought into your design aesthetic and the colors you choose has a bigger impact than you might think.
Color Psychology
The goal of any presentation is to impact your audience and ultimately generate post-event action. Specific colors and design elements can play a significant role in eliciting human emotions, and you should use that to your advantage. For example, blue and green are often used in calming or peaceful environments, while studies show that looking at the color red can actually increase your heart rate.
Though it sounds crazy, thinking about the purpose of your presentation and how you want your audience to feel should be closely connected to the color scheme you incorporate in your deck.
Use Design Elements to Simplify Repetitive Messaging
For a presentation to be effective and memorable, it’s critical to avoid overwhelming your audience with endless content and data. You should incorporate design elements that eliminate repetitive bullet points and messaging while providing creative visualizations that make your content more digestible and easier to retain.
If you don’t have an in-house graphic design team, there are tons of high-quality presentation design templates available that can help you elevate your aesthetic.
Use Video Animation to Tell a Cohesive Story
It’s safe to say that audience engagement is the most critical KPI (key performance indicator) when measuring the success of your event. As we mentioned previously, design elements play a significant role in how audiences interact with your demonstration, but there are additional creative elements you can leverage to grow interest and engagement. Incorporating video animation is the best way to do that.
Video Animation Styles to Consider
There are tons of different video animation styles that all provide unique purposes in different use case scenarios. Here are a few to consider for your presentation efforts.
Motion Graphics
Motion graphics, sometimes referred to as animations, combine snippets of digital footage to create the illusion of motion or movement. This style is often used in explainer videos, title sequences, television, and other marketing content. By incorporating music and specific copy, motion graphics offer an excellent tool for compelling storytelling.
2D
2D is a traditional animation style that requires every frame to be drawn by hand. 2D animation software has mostly eliminated pens and paper in animation and is a great solution for designing characters that tell a story and highlight products and services.
Whiteboard Animation
Whiteboard animation has become increasingly popular as a visual aid and displays graphics being created in real-time on-screen. Typically, whiteboard videos involve a character that tells a story and guides users through a specific journey.
Leverage the Power of Graphic Recording
From pre-produced animations to live sketching, visual assets are proven to better engage users and help them to retain critical messaging. When it comes to consolidating big-picture messages into effective and meaningful displays, graphic recording is the best tool available for making your large-scale ideas actionable and understandable.
Whether your presentation is virtual or in-person, working with a graphic recording or live sketch artist will visualize your message and leave users with a memorable keepsake.
Energize & Visualize Boring Data
The significance of visualizing your message is crucial when it comes to demonstrating data. If your content bullet points weren’t captivating your audience, it’s safe to say that just throwing metrics up isn’t going to fare much better. Think about the critical components of your data and leverage design elements that help you display that information in an appealing way. Consider these graph templates to replace text-only displays and monotonous pie charts with energizing and appealing visualizations.
Incorporate Pop Culture References & Humor
No matter what you think of them, the word “meme” is now in the dictionary and has become a common phrase in households across the country. Bridging the gap between your messaging and relevant cultural references is a great way to build a stronger connection with your audience. Though this approach might not fit every event, try to think creatively about how you can align specific portions of your message with the power of viral internet moments and other pop culture references.
Leverage the Power of Social Media
Depending on the kind of presentation you are preparing, social media should be considered in forming your strategy. Social media offers serious benefits for pre and post-promotion and gives you the ability to keep the conversation going outside of the presentation itself. Hashtags, live tweets, and live streams are terrific avenues for expanding your reach and generating additional awareness. Integrating a comprehensive social media strategy with a thoughtful call to action (CTA) can genuinely elevate the success of your presentation.
Examples of Creative Presentation Ideas That Hit the Mark
Your ideas are too good to go to waste. That’s why we use bold, contrasting colors to synthesize your big ideas in an even bigger way. Say goodbye to repetitive background images and boring black and white displays with help from The Sketch Effect.
Ready to take your presentation game to the next level? Our team of presentation gurus is standing by to help conceptualize your ideas and create an experience that your attendees are sure to remember. Want to learn more about our capabilities? Check out our definitive guide to graphic recording for virtual and live events here.
