In situations like these the age old saying ‘a picture’s worth a thousand words,’ comes into play again and again. It’s true, you can talk to a person until you’re red in the face but to really deliver a message and make it stick, you need depth. People receive and react better to things which hold their attention and really make the message pop. Something tangible they can view rather than just hearing a person talk.
An interesting example to point out is the speech young Emma Stone gave her parents. Most of us are familiar with Emma, she played the new Spiderman’s love interest Gwen Stacy and also starred as the quirky Olive Penderghast in Easy A. What most don’t know is that at the age of 14 young Emma put together and presented her parents with a PowerPoint presentation set to the song ‘Hollywood’ by Madonna. She used this to convince her highly business-savvy father to let her move to Hollywood to pursue her acting career. And, of course, we all see how it turned out.
Rising starlets aside, imagine what a PowerPoint presentation could do for your next speech. Research has shown that ideas are more likely to be received and remembered when presented as visuals instead of just words. In fact, after three days people are only likely to remember just 10% of a speech they heard, as opposed to 65% if the speech was also accompanied by a visual. In addition, people typically read faster than they hear. So by the time you start making the best points in your speech, a lot of people might have stopped listening.
When it comes to your next speech or presentation, consider adding in a PowerPoint. It’ll do wonders to boost your audience’s attention as well as make your points really stand out and stick. If you would like to read more PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks, check out our blog.