How to make a presentation memorable? I mean great presentations which engaged the audience and empowered them to take action.
Do you know that spoken words, written words and black and white colors are the least effective ways of making people remember?
Yet these are usually the three things presenters use in their speech, visual aids and the handouts.
So how do we get the audience to remember our presentation, so they can act on what we have presented to them? In short, a great and memorable presentation.
Read and find out more on how to boost your presentation skills.
The attention span of humans is about 15 minutes.
Therefore, in order to keep your audience engaged and remember what you have said, you have to employed different delivery style and approach in your presentation.
The problem is when it comes to memory, we all have our own preferences. Some of us have very short memory who hardly remember much was said.
We can only absorb about seven facts or less.
Anything more, the brain gets confused and all information is muddled up and lost. We get mentally worn-out and become agitated.
One good way to embed new information into people with short memory is to get them to talk about after they have learned.
Then there are those who can remember quite a substantial, but they only retain selected information of interests to them or they believe it to be true or useful.
So if you present information which they feel uncomfortable or they think is is questionable, they will stop listening to you and drift off into their own thoughts.
Remember By Association
As you know seeing something is usually more memorable than just hearing about it, right? And tasting or smelling something is even more memorable than just hearing or seeing it.
The most effective way to remember is touching and doing. Definitely the more senses you use, the stronger impression it has on your memories.
The more associations you make when you are learning something new, the easier it is to remember.
Talking about association, one good way to create a more memorable message of your presentation is to illustrate it with simple example, interesting comparison, captivating illustration or any relevant reference to what is already known to them.
I'm sure you know most of us have problem remembering big numbers.
If you need to present numbers, then break the numeric information into digestible chunks.
For instance: 57076801122906. You can break them up into chunks like this: 5707 680 1122 906.
Normally we can remember the first and the last part in any learning process. This is called the ‘primacy and recency effect’. So that is why it is important to begin your talk or presentation with a impact opening and close it with a big bang.
Taking a momentary break and changes of pace are great ways to overcome monotony and they also help your audience to remember better.
For instance after talking about 20 minutes on a subject, you need to have a minute break.
When you restart, quickly recap about where you were and add an example of what you were talking about.
Using different pacing will enliven your presentation or speech.
Don't just drone and drive them to sleep. Certain parts of your presentation, you use only short punchy key points.
No long explanations with heavy facts and flashing of slides.
Other ways to help your audience to remember what you have said is by making a difference in the way you present information.
1. Make use of bright but pleasant colors to your visual aids.
2. Add colors to your voice. Modulate your voice when presenting.
Play with its volume, tone, pitch and punctuate with pauses too.
3. If you can, move and change the position when you are on the stage.
Don't just stand behind the lectern with the same background.
4. Don't just let them listen to your talking.
Change the pace. Get the audience involvement. Ask them questions to get them to contribute and that can refresh them for a moment.
5. Make use of multi-media to break up the monotony. You can start off with slides, then change to video clip or voice recording.
6. When designing your slides, make sure you use different design layout and fonts. If you use a standard layout, color and fonts for all slides, they are going to appear as one boring stream of similarity.
Your closing needs to sum up what you want them to remember about your presentation.
Do not overload them with too much information in your closing. Only the essential points to reinforce what you have presented.
The final reminder should be your call to action or what you want them to do next. It would be useful to provide them with a comprehensive handout containing all the information you have covered.
Another great way to make deliver an persuasive presentation is the use of nonverbal communication skills.
So besides knowing your audience and having a good speaking voice, you still need to know how to employ different techniques to get your audience's attention.
Plus you also have to to consider their personalities and the way their brains filter information in order to be effective in your speech or presentation.
We have more valuable article here on how to make a presentation great and memorable.
