120 Presentation Topic Ideas Help You Hook Your Audience Cooking is easy. The puzzle is figuring out what to eat. As soon as you know that, you can get started. The same holds for presentations. The sooner you can whip up a good, informative, and catchy topic, the easier the rest of the process becomes. Pick a good topic that resonates with you and your audience to set a strong foundation. But select the wrong topic, and it becomes difficult to connect with your audience, find mutual interests, or hold their attention. So, let’s learn how to develop thought-provoking and relevant topics for your presentations. You’ll also find some best practices to make your presentation memorable. Table of Contents How to Choose a Great Presentation Topic in 5 Steps 120 Presentation Topic Ideas 5 Presentation Tips How to Choose a Great Presentation Topic in 5 Steps We’ve broken down the painstakingly long process of choosing a topic into five simple and easy steps. Let’s walk through it. Step 1: Begin with the end in mind. Identify the goal of your presentation by asking yourself: What do I hope to achieve from the presentation? How do I want to come across? What do I want my audience to take away from the presentation? By keeping the end goal in mind, you’ll know exactly how to title your presentation. Step 2: Know your audience. Your audience is the...

20 Great Examples of PowerPoint Presentation Design When it comes to PowerPoint presentation design, there's no shortage of avenues you can take. While all that choice — colors, formats, visuals, fonts — can feel liberating, it's important that you're careful in your selection as not all design combinations add up to success. We’re not saying there’s one right way to design your next PowerPoint presentation, but we are saying there are some designs that make more sense than others. In this blog post, you'll learn how to create an awesome PowerPoint deck and then see real presentations that nail it in exactly their own way. What makes a good PowerPoint presentation? A great PowerPoint presentation gets the point across succinctly while using a design that builds upon the point, and doesn't detract from it. The following aspects make for a great PowerPoint presentation: 1. Minimal Animations and Transitions Believe it or not, animations and transitions can take away from your PowerPoint presentation. Why? Well, they distract from the design you worked so hard on — and from your content, too. A good PowerPoint presentation keeps the focus on your argument by keeping animations and transitions to a minimum. That said, you don’t have to eliminate them all. You can use them tastefully and sparingly to emphasize a point or bring attention to a certain part of an image. 2. Cohesive Color Palette It’s worth reviewing color theory...

How to Create an Infographic in Under an Hour Wouldn't it be great if creating infographics was as simple as writing text-based blog posts? Usually, it would take a lot of time, effort, and skill to make them — but that doesn’t have to be the case. Considering the popularity and effectiveness of visual content in marketing today, you shouldn't throw in the towel just yet. That's why we decided to do most of the work for you. With HubSpot’s Free Infographic Templates in PowerPoint, you can create high-quality, professional infographics in under an hour. You can add your own content to premade outlines in a cinch. And if you need a helping hand, we’ll show how to personalize your infographic in PowerPoint in this post. Keep reading to learn how to make a memorable infographic with ease. If you prefer watching, this video shows the process of creating an infographic, step-by-step: 1. Choose your desired infographic template. First things first, you have to choose an infographic template appropriate for representing that data. The important thing is to choose a template that specifically works for the type of data set/content you want to present. As you saw pictured above, you can download our 15 infographic templates in PowerPoint and choose whichever template you'd like. Download for Free Choosing a template before creating a goal for your infographic can speed up your...

The Presenter's Guide to Nailing Your Next PowerPoint Have a presentation coming up that involves PowerPoint slides? Creating the content and design for a new presentation can be a daunting task. Between outlining, deciding on a design, filling it out, and finalizing the details, it's not uncommon for a few questions to pop up. Where's the best place to start? Are some steps better to take before others? How can you make sure you aren't missing anything? And how on earth do you master those essential -- yet slightly technical -- design tricks that can take a presentation from good to great? We're here to make the process a little easier for you. We've talked to some of the best presenters at HubSpot and have included their tips throughout this blog. With the following tips in your arsenal, you'll be able to navigate PowerPoint much more fluidly and give a standout presentation that'll leave your audience wanting more. How to Structure a Powerpoint Presentation 1. Decide on a working title and the main takeaways. Beyond picking a topic, your first step should be coming up with a working title for your presentation. A working title is more specific than a topic: Think "How the Right Nutrition Can Strengthen Your Kids' Bones" instead of "Raising Healthy Kids." Keep in mind that a compelling presentation title is much like a compelling blog post title: short, accurate, and valuable. Once you've got your working title, make a list of the main takeaways...

How to Create a Stunning Presentation Cover Page When you're focused on creating a meaningful, persuasive presentation, it's easy to overlook the cover page. But giving that first page of your deck a little more love can actually go a long way towards grabbing your audience's attention early on and setting the tone for the rest of your presentation. A stunning presentation cover page can intrigue your audience into wanting to know more and increase engagement with the information you’re presenting. On the other hand, a lackluster slide, or even the lack of one, can dampen audience enthusiasm for your presentation, and maybe even your own. You've put so much work into your presentation -- why waste that valuable real estate on the first slide of your deck? In this post, we'll cover the basics of creating a presentation cover page that's informative and attention-grabbing. Let's dive in. What's included in a presentation cover page? A good presentation cover page accomplishes three simple things: It introduces the topic with a straightforward title. It introduces you (and your organization, if applicable) It sets the tone of your presentation. Title We probably don't need to tell you this one, but your presentation cover page should be centered around a title. And ideally, a title that's straightforward, descriptive, and simple. If you're finding it hard to keep your title short, add a subtitle (in smaller print) to clarify what you'll be speaking about. Speaker...

How to Easily Create a SlideShare Presentation You know how hot visual content is, and you want to jump on board to enjoy the engagement, traffic, and leads that follow. But maybe you're not keen on writing a blog post, and you don't have the production resources to create videos. What to do? Create a SlideShare presentation. I know, I know. You may have felt personally victimized by PowerPoint sometime in your career. When you open it up, you're hit with stark black Calibri font on a white background, killing any creative spark you may have felt. It's daunting enough to create a 10-slide deck to report your monthly marketing metrics -- never mind putting together slides that can be seen by the large volume of SlideShare users. Well, there's good news: Creating a SlideShare presentation in PowerPoint doesn't have to be that daunting. With the right templates and tools at your disposal, you could easily create an engaging, visual presentation -- all without fancy design programs, huge budgets, or hiring contractors. How to Create a Stunning  SlideShare Presentation in PowerPoint To help you make a SlideShare of your own, we've created some free PowerPoint presentation templates for making awesome SlideShares. That way, your presentations will look great and be a breeze to put together. Download the free PowerPoint templates, scroll down, and we'll walk through how to use them. When we're done, you'll know exactly how to create a sexy presentation that gets featured on SlideShare's homepage. Ready? Let's...

What is the 7x7 Rule in PowerPoint? Despite its reputation for dry content delivery across virtual and in-person meetings alike, PowerPoint remains the go-to choice for many professionals, even as other options emerge that offer greater usability and flexibility outside of the Microsoft ecosystem. Part of the presentation platform’s popularity stems from its familiarity — many organizations still run Microsoft-first IT software environments, making PowerPoint the obvious choice for straightforward presentation design. Simplicity provides the second part of this popularity permutation since creating a basic PowerPoint presentation on a single topic requires minimal time and effort. The problem? “Simple” doesn’t always mean “effective”. Staff across markets, industries, and verticals worldwide have stories about unbearably long and boring PowerPoint presentations that were long on details but short on value. The 7x7 rule offers a framework to help boost PowerPoint form and function by reducing text volume and improving information impact. In this piece, we’ll break down the 7x7 rule in PowerPoint, best practices, and offer some actionable examples of seven-by-seven solutions in-situ. The PowerPoint Problem To put it simply, most viewers don’t like PowerPoint. While the format has the benefit of speed and convenience — and can conceivably be used to communicate information quickly and concisely — many presentations are overlong and overwrought with bonanzas of bullet points that seem relevant but are really just digital hot air. In most cases, the disconnect between appearance and action is boring at best and irritating at worst. As noted by the...

How to Give a Persuasive Presentation A presentation aimed at persuading an audience to take a specific action can be the most difficult type to deliver, even if you’re not shy of public speaking. Creating a presentation that effectively achieves your objective requires time, lots of practice, and most importantly, a focused message. With the right approach, you can create a presentation that leaves a skeptical audience enthusiastic to get on board with your project. In this post, we'll cover the basics of building a persuasive presentation. Let's dive in. What is a persuasive presentation? In its most basic form, a persuasive presentation features a speaker who tries to influence an audience to accept certain positions and engage in actions in support of them. A good persuasive presentation uses a mixture of facts, logic, and empathy to help an audience see an issue from a perspective they previously discounted or hadn’t considered. How to Plan a Persuasive Presentation Want to make a persuasive presentation that connects with your audience? Follow these steps to win friends and influence people within your audience. 1. Decide on a single ask. The key to convincing your audience is to first identify the singular point you want to make. A good persuasive presentation will focus on one specific and easy-to-understand proposition. Even if that point is part of a broader initiative, it ideally needs to be presented as something your audience can say "yes" or "no" to easily. A message that isn’t well-defined...

How to Create a Killer 5-Minute Presentation Developing and delivering a five-minute presentation seems an easy enough task at first -- until you realize the condensed format actually requires significantly more efficiency, focus, and attention to detail than longer presentation types. When there's less time to get your point across, every second counts more. While short presentations can be unexpectedly challenging to create, when done correctly they can be more impactful than longer presentations. Five minutes is just enough time for you to present a compelling narrative about one topic, without any filler or fluff. The time limit forces you to pack as much valuable information as possible into your presentation while maintaining a coherent structure. The shorter format also encourages audiences to pay more attention. But how can you ensure your short presentation accomplishes everything it needs to within just five short minutes? We've put together an (appropriately condensed) guide on five-minute presentations to help you get started. How Many Words Are in a 5-Minute Presentation? A person speaks on average 120 to 160 words a minute, which means the average five-minute presentation will be anywhere from 600 to 800 words. That means every word should be carefully chosen to support the central idea of your presentation. When constructing a longer presentation, you might be more concerned about transitions and keeping the audience engaged with more extensive narrative elements. In a short presentation, everything you say should directly tie back to your central premise and further advance your...

How to Nail Interactive Presentations, According to HubSpot Experts I can distinctly remember being extremely excited to attend a presentation from a speaker whose book I had read and loved in class. Unfortunately, the speaker was not as engaging as I’d hoped, and I found myself getting bored and distracted. Marketers know better than anyone that capturing audience attention goes hand in hand with keeping people engaged. If people are bored, their thoughts will drift somewhere else, and you’ll miss out on the opportunity to impact their behavior. This is true regardless of the marketing medium, from advertisements to presentations. That being said, marketers need to create effective ways to gain audience attention during their presentations — one of those is interactivity. According to the Oxford Dictionary, interactivity is defined as how two people work together and influence each other. Therefore, creating interactive presentations means using strategies that will capture and hold audience attention. It makes it easier to leave lasting, meaningful impressions about the content you’re sharing with them. This post will outline the importance of interactive presentations and share tips from HubSpot experts for giving engaging, interactive presentations. Why are interactive presentations important? Interactive presentations are those where audience members and presenters feel like they’re in conversation with each other. It’s a pivot away from the lecture and listeners feel, as presenters entice audiences to participate and interact with them. The reason for creating interactive presentations is simple: marketers who make a connection with their audience are...