A great presentation consists of a compelling opening hook, logical and structured storyline, just-right visual support, and a memorable closing call to action. Creating a great presentation does not require any special design talent but attention to common details that most users tend to ignore.
What makes a presentation great? Too much information, lots of images, too much text, and random tables- these are things that people add to make their slides look good. In reality, all these factors work in favor of a failed presentation.
Presenters think that if their point of view makes sense to them, it should make sense to their audience, too. Presentations don’t work like this.
If you want to learn the anatomy of a great presentation, let’s break down the entire process into simpler blocks, the way a biologist might dissect a body. Each part adds some value to the process, leading to a great presentation.
Components of a Great Presentation
What separates a good presentation from an average one? Design elements, visuals, and animations are important, but they don’t define the effectiveness of a presentation.
A great presentation does five things better than most decks:
- It has a clear and well-defined purpose or end goal
- Story is logical and well-structured
- Content of slides is focused on the audience, not the presenter
- Important information is easy to understand
- It supports the speaker and has clear instructions for the audience
The goal is not to put everything onto a single slide but one slide per idea. The definition of a great presentation may vary depending on the nature of the topic, audience, and purpose.
Commercial pitches, project reports, and quarterly reviews are different from marketing decks, informative presentations, and common slides.
1. The Core Idea- What You Want to Say
Before writing the topic of the presentation or choosing a template, the core idea of the presentation must be defined. The topic, title, or name of the slide is not the core idea. It is the point of view that you want to convey in the presentation.
Imagine the title of the presentation might be “Q3 Sales Performance,” but the core idea behind this presentation can be “our digital marketing campaigns are bringing more sales, and we should shift more budget towards these campaigns.
What’s the Core Idea?
The core idea is the single sentence that you want your audience to remember about the presentation. If you cannot find a single line that answers this question, you don’t have a great presentation yet.
2. Know your Audience
The same idea presented to a room full of marketers and executives should have two different presentations. This does not mean changing the facts or numbers, but what they need to know changes.
A CEO needs an executive summary that can help him understand what needs to be done, and marketers need specifics about each campaign. You can see that level of detail, delivery, and many other things change depending on the audience. These two simple points can help you structure your content according to the audience:
- What does your audience already know? Don’t overexplain those things.
- What action or decision do you want from them?
- What objections or doubts might they have?
For executives, stick to the summary for the first slide; for the next slides, add supportive content and evidence. Employees, technical teams, and other members need to see the reasoning to form a conclusion.
3. Structure Holds the Entire Presentation
The skeleton holds everything up, and structure is invisible to the audience, but it does the most work. There are certain tried and tested approaches that work well for structuring presentations.
What is the Best Presentation Structure?
Problem → Insight → Solution → Proof → Ask
This presentation structure works for most business presentations and professional decks. You can start by presenting the problems faced by the business or audience and then share some information that is new to the audience.
Offer your solution backed by evidence and then close your presentation with a specific and doable ask.
4. Grab the Attention Quickly- Most Important First 30 Seconds
Audience is most attentive at the very start, and attention starts decaying from there. Don’t waste that precious time on general slides that add no value to your presentation, like title, gratitude, and thank you slides.
Use one of these tricks to grab attention at the start:
- Lead with a surprising number or fact
- Open with a highly relatable scenario
- State the conclusion first to spark curiosity
Starting with a biography and explaining your achievements does not work for a wider audience. They might take interest in you as a person once they see you are capable of delivering quality and value.
5. One Idea Per Slide
More information per slide is wrong. This is the most important yet most broken rule by most presenters. Imagine your slide being filled with bullet points, a few paragraphs, two images, one chart, and other elements. Can your audience process all this in a minute or two?
Crammed slides force the audience to read, instead of listening. When participants start reading your slides, they stop listening to you.
Every slide has a headline that defines the entire purpose of that slide, not just a headline. “The West region grew 3x faster than any other region this quarter” is a way better headline than “Regional Performance”.
6. Be Smart with Data Visualization
You put a complete spreadsheet on the slide, knowing that the audience cannot read that sheet. If people cannot read something, it shouldn’t be on your slides. Use smart and summarized tables, charts, and similar tools to present important data.
- Pick the most important comparison.
- Remove details that are not relevant to the audience
- Annotate the takeaway directly on the chart
- Round your numbers as “Revenue grew about a third” is better than “Revenue grew 34.2739%.”
7. Consistency in Visual Design
Content remains the single most important thing in the anatomy of a great presentation, but audiences unconsciously use visual consistency as a sign of credibility. If fonts, image sizes, and colors keep changing for every slide, these inconsistencies indicate signs of unpolished slides. Here are a few practical tips to maintain visual and design consistency across all slides in a deck:
- Pick two fonts at most
- Use one primary color, one accent, and one color for text
- Leave white space on slides to make text distinct
- Align every element on a slide to a grid
8. Focus on Presentation Delivery
Slides are meant to support your talk; they are not the talk. Work on your delivery, stage presence, and confidence. These are some practical tips to present confidently:
- Pause for a moment after key points
- Don’t just read your slides like a lesson
- Rehearse the transitions, not just the content
- Plan for the Q&A as part of the presentation
Don’t think of questions as an additional part but a well-planned component of your presentation. This small session at the end will help the audience clarify their doubts.
9. Closing Ask or Call to Action
A thank-you note is important, but that shouldn’t be the closing of your presentation. A stronger closing restates the core idea in one sentence and makes the ask explicit. The presenter should have a clear idea of what he wants the audience to do after this session.
Do you want them to buy your product or service? Do you want them to subscribe to a platform? Do you want them to decide based on your presentation?
Whatever you need from the audience, clearly define it. If your presentation doesn’t end with a clear next step, the audience is left to invent their own.
10. Speaker Notes Boost Authority
Not everything needs to appear on the slide. Speaker notes have data and information that are useful for you as a presenter and can contain:
- Talking points
- Examples
- Supporting statistics
- Explanations
- Questions to ask
- Transition statements
Speaker notes are particularly useful when multiple people present the same deck because they can help maintain consistency in delivery.
Making a Great Presentation with AI
Processing and following these and many other steps of a great presentation may be overwhelming. Instead of wasting time checking your slides against these points, use an AI tool that can ensure and implement all these tips and rules automatically for every presentation.
Twistly is an AI add-in for PowerPoint that follows all these parts of the anatomy of a great presentation for creating and editing slides. Instead of adjusting layouts, fonts, formatting, and text boxes manually, install Twistly now and let AI handle these tasks for you.
Final Words
People rarely remember every detail of a presentation. Anatomy of a great presentation focuses on selective components that are a must for every deck. The presentations that people remember are rarely the most visually elaborate ones.
Audiences remember great presentations that have a clear point of view and deliver actual value. The next time you build a presentation, try starting not with a blank slide.
Use Twistly to create great and impactful presentations within moments. Every template and slide layout adds value to turn your ideas into great presentations.
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