Last Updated on November 29, 2022 by
No matter the sales pitch or your experience as a marketer, visual presentations will always find a place in your repertoire. According to statistics, 91% of people feel to present their ideas to others if their arguments are backed by visual slides.
After all, 70% of the American workforce believes that creating visual presentations represents a pivotal skill in a job candidate’s resume.
Today, we find PowerPoint presentations and their equivalents in every facet of society including education, project development, and B2C/B2B marketing. But why are visual slides so important to the overall sales pitch of an individual? Let’s find out.
1. Establishing a Precedent
Believe it or not, more than 30 million PowerPoint presentations are created on a daily basis. While their purposes vary greatly, they are still used to ensure the same general idea is communicated correctly. Visual slides can help marketers establish the current state of affairs in terms of their presentation.
They can easily explain their reason for speaking; present their previous work experience and the company they represent in several short slides. In doing so, they can establish a firm and professional precedent with their listeners from the get-go.
2. Visual Slides are a Timesaver
Explaining your point to an audience of people who have little-to-no knowledge of your industry can be intimidating. According to data, 85% of customers are more likely to buy a product if they are presented with visual content beforehand.
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You can get to the point of your speaking much more quickly and seamlessly if you sprinkle the argument with several visualized data slides, testimonials and demonstrations. This type of trust and two-way communication can be established through visual slides and save you as a presenter a lot of time and energy.
3. They’re Attention Grabbers
Talking about an abstract, intangible topic to your audience can come off as dry and uninteresting. This is especially true in terms of marketing where data and lingo play a huge role in meetings. Losing your crowd halfway through the talk can be frustrating, especially if money and real projects are at stake.
Adding visual slides to your argument can grab the attention of your listeners and engage them on a close level. You will be able to keep the crowd interested in your presentation long enough to “get to the point” and come to the interactive part of your meeting.
4. Leveling the Playfield
You are bound to present your projects or arguments to a crowd of mixed individuals every once in a while. This mixed audience can be comprised of professionals from numerous fields with very little in common between them. Add to that the possibility of being paired with overseas investors and business partners who don’t have a good grasp of your native language and your argument will become that much more difficult to get across.
In that vein, visual slides paired with localized content from a platform such as The Word Point can do wonders for your meeting. Visuals are considered a lingua franca in the corporate sphere, meaning that you will be able to visualize some data, products, and services for everyone in the room to get a grasp on the point of it all.
5. Memorizing Complex Ideas
Marketers are often tasked with briefing their business partners or associates about forthcoming plans and projects. This means that they are also in charge of making sure that their audience memorizes any ideas, plans, or roadmap details in regard to the pitch. According to recently collected data, 47% of people agree that the role of a visual presentation is to summarize complex information so that it becomes more digestible.
Visual slides can make even the most complex ideas more memorable and easier to understand. They allow marketers to back their spoken presentation with visual additions which serve to remind the audience of what the current topic is all about. In the end, the focus of the visual slides is to engrave complex, hard-to-grasp ideas onto casual audiences.
6. It’s a Great Call to Action
Calls to action (CTA) are traditionally used by marketers to entice the reader into buying a product. They are also seen on blogs and e-commerce websites when it comes to inviting the visitor to complete some sort of activity.
Presenters can use visual slides to inspire their audiences into doing something about what they just found out. This is a great tool for marketers to ensure that their listeners are fully aware during the presentation and excited about what comes next. Once the presentation is complete, the goal is to further motivate the listeners into doing something about what they just heard from the speaker – thus calling them to take action.
7. It Showcases your Dedication
It’s interesting to note that only 65% of presenters typically design their own presentations. An argument can be made that not every presenter is inherently a designer, even at a base level. However, many marketers opt to outsource their presentation design process to someone who “knows better” in terms of visual fidelity.
Those that opt for hands-on creation can expect a much better audience reception as a result. Visual slides showcase a level of dedication and professionalism that very few spoken presentations can accomplish. It shows the listeners that you took time off of your precious schedule to create visual content for the meeting and thus ensure that it goes as well as it can go.
In Conclusion
It’s easy to see the appeal of visual slides in marketing presentations and presentations in general. While most people are under the impression that high-quality graphics represent a make-or-break element of a presentation, the truth is far from black and white.
Proper wording, speech, and audience engagement will always remain front and center of any meeting or presentation. Visual slides are an amazing tool to have on your side but a tool nonetheless. Don’t make the mistake of relying on visual presentations or PowerPoint slides too heavily in your own experiences. Strike a balance between speech and visualization in order to make the most out of the presentation you’ve created.
Author: Erica Sunarjo
– graduated from South Texas College majoring in Marketing and Creative
Writing. She used her knowledge to make a difference in the realm of business copywriting and invested heavily in traveling and language learning. At present, Erica is fluent in French and Spanish, studying Chinese, and working her way to being a multilingual copywriter. She keeps track of the latest trends in IT and technologies, blogs about efficient strategies in education and business coaching holds educational webinars.