4 Ways an Interactive Presentation Can Help Increase Engagement
A sales presentation can make or break a deal, and the swing from one outcome to the other happens quickly. The audience needs only eight seconds to decide if they like the content, then the presenter only has five minutes to make the pitch. If the presenter fails to convince the audience by then, all the slides in the world can’t save them—unless they switch to an interactive presentation.
Many presenters, in their eagerness to share their message, lose track of their audience. Too much text, complicated charts, endless slides—these are surefire ways to bore an audience. Clients don’t have the time or interest to go through every detail; they want you to get straight to the point.
Two factors will ensure your presentation keeps an audience engaged. First, the length—follow the TED Talk format and keep your presentation at 18 minutes, which should be more than enough time to make your point.
The second and most important factor is interactivity. Surprise and delight the audience with an interactive presentation driven by the conversation and their interests. The audience will be more engaged throughout the presentation, and your content will be more memorable.
What Makes a Presentation Interactive?
Interactive presentations breathe life into an otherwise static medium. Rather than cramming all details and data into slides, an interactive presentation ensures the audience receives the right dose of information every time. Individual slides might initially have a minimal amount of material on display, but clicking on interactive content within a slide such as an image, text or links can open a new window that provides additional information. Utilizing interactive content takes up less space on a slide but lets you include more info in an unexpected way.
Interactive presentations also keep the story flowing in all directions. Instead of following a traditional linear storyline, interactive presentations follow the flow of the audience’s interest, conversation and questions. This ability makes interactive presentations ideal for tackling content-heavy concepts and situations such as sales and marketing decks, onboarding, training and information sharing.
The Importance of Audience Engagement
An engaged audience is more likely to react and interact in ways that fulfill your goals. They’ll ask more questions, visit your website, sign up for membership, attend more seminars and eventually buy your products. This is especially true when they feel your presentation is talking directly to them.
Engagement is the presenter’s ability to make the audience go along with an idea. It’s convincing people that what you say could be the key to solving their problems. A great presentation shows the audience that your company relates to the problems they’re experiencing and that you have the solutions they’ve been looking for.
Getting your audience to this point usually requires a healthy dose of empathy paired with good storytelling skills. Great interactive presentation software brings your ideas to life, illustrates the audience’s challenges in creative, memorable ways and helps you seal the deal.
How an Interactive Presentation Helps Keep Audiences Engaged
What makes an interactive presentation better than your typical slideshow presentation? There are four key ways an interactive presentation keeps your audience engaged:
1) It Makes the Presentation Appear Personalized
Interactivity equips a presentation to anticipate its audience’s need for further information. This shows that the presenter knows their audience well and gives the impression that the presentation was created exclusively for them and their needs. When a presentation feels personalized, the audience is more likely to pay attention. This can be especially helpful for onboarding and training presentations.
2) It Can Help Establish Rapport
Connecting with the audience is a foolproof way to establish rapport. To do this quickly, start with an icebreaker activity or personal anecdote, which will endear the audience to you and set the tone.
Then, launch your interactive presentation with a compelling story related to the meeting topic. Interactivity lets the viewer explore beyond the slide and learn more about certain elements in the presentation. As a result, clients will trust you as a subject-matter expert and feel comfortable sharing their problems and asking questions.
3) It Keeps Your Audience Invested
An interactive presentation that encourages audience participation keeps viewers engaged and inspires emotional reactions. Include interactive elements such as hashtags or quizzes, or have the audience answer a question to determine how the presentation will proceed. This boosts their interest in your products or services, gives them a better understanding of your products and increases the chances of a sale.
4) It Helps Your Audience Retain Information Better
An interactive presentation will always be more memorable to the audience. Give them links to explore, questions to answer and props to touch; inject animation, videos even music into blocks of text. Interactive elements inspire active learning and help your audience learn more about your product or service.
Interactivity also helps the client remember more of your presentation and how your solution meets their needs. By stepping away from standard sales materials, you’ll give your client something they’ll be talking about long after the presentation ends.
Increase Engagement With Ingage
Increase your audience’s engagement levels by giving them more than the usual static slideshow presentation. Ingage is cloud-based interactive presentation software that helps companies deliver their message in a more engaging and compelling way.
The added interactivity in presentations sustains your audience’s interest levels so they’ll hear your message loud and clear. Once you have their attention, they’ll better appreciate your solutions.
Ingage also enables cloud-based collaboration among members of your organization. Even if teams are scattered across the country, they can share and collectively work on a presentation until it meets everyone’s standards. Powerful analytical features also let users track which parts of the presentation attracted the clients’ interest and which sections fell flat, so you can continually improve your sales pitches.
Learn more about how Ingage can help you create interactive presentations that drive engagement and increase sales. Book a demo—we can’t wait to work with you.