How to Use Simple PowerPoint Presentations to Generate Qualified Leads and Sales

Presentations are one of the most effective forms of interactive and engaging content on the web.

You can use PowerPoint Presentations to quickly and clearly present your ideas in a simple and interesting way. It’s a great way to move your prospects to the bottom of the sales funnel faster if you do it the right way.

That’s exactly what I’ll show you in this in-depth article.

There’s a myth going around that PowerPoint is an outdated software. If you buy into that baloney, you’ll miss out on the great opportunities of generating qualified leads and sales using simple slide presentations. Yes, PowerPoint presentations can generate massive results for your business.  

PowerPoint presentations help you to engage, impress your customers, and generate more qualified leads for your business—especially when you tell a captivating story.

A recent study shows that after a presentation, 63% of the participants will remember stories, however, only 5% will remember statistics.

The most interesting part is that PowerPoint is easy to learn and easy to use. Anyone can jump in and start creating slides with PowerPoint which you can turn into an invaluable presentation for your target audience. However, to create Amazing PowerPoint presentations that will convert your visitors to leads you need a strategy.

In the rest of this article. I’ll, walk you through what you need to know to create a simple PowerPoint presentation that will increase your leads and of course, boost your sales.

1. Know your audience

Who is your target audience and what do they want?

The truth is, the more you know and understand the background and needs of your audience, the better you can prepare your presentation.

It’s no longer a secret that knowing your audience is obviously the first step in starting any successful marketing campaign in any capacity.

Having a clear understanding of who your audience is, will allow you to make decisions on the appropriate presentation to serve them.

So, how do you actually know who your audience is?

I thought you should know the answer already: Create an audience persona (popularly referred to as buyer persona).

In turn, the target audience persona will allow you to identify their pain points, choose relevant keywords to use in your presentations, and proffer a viable solution.

You can do without an audience persona—it’s one of the best ways to know your audience—thus, giving you a better understanding of your customers.

According to a research by Content Marketing Institute, 41% of B2B and 38% of B2C marketers prioritize better understanding of their customers. Of course, every business should have that as their basic priority.

An audience persona tells you what prospective audience is thinking and doing as they weigh their options to address a problem that your brand promises to solve.

To effectively create a good persona that will suit your business, you’ll need to do a lot of research, however, you can leverage an already existing market research.

Most of which you can find by conducting a random search online.

You can use resources like Think With Google: Marketer’s Almanac, American Fact Finder, and even County Business Patterns. These resources are free to use.

Here’s an example of an audience persona:

Now that you know your audience, don’t waste additional time. Get into the design of your PowerPoint presentation.

2. Design your presentation

Your presentation design should look very appealing. Here are some tips to create a visually appealing PowerPoint presentation that can generate leads and sales.

i). Source and include data, charts, and statistics to drive a lot of results and showcase your expertise. If you want to generate qualified leads, you must consider using data presented in charts and illustrations to drive your message into the minds of your ideal customer.

Also, use illustrations such as the one below to brace your points.

Avoid clustering your presentation with a lot of textual content. Using visual content can create a lot of engagement and get users hooked to your content.

You must have heard of the saying that a picture is worth more than 1,000 words.

It’s so true, especially when it comes to presentations.

More so, recent studies show that the brain processes visual information 60,000X faster than the time it takes for the brain to decode text. Worst of all, text-only presentations are boring and in fact, hard to read.

Here’s an example of a poorly-designed PowerPoint slide. Isn’t it boring?

ii). Allow whitespace: Inasmuch as visuals are powerful, don’t fill up your slide presentation with graphics and texts. Allow whitespace—it’s a good design practice.

What is whitespace?

Whitespace is a design term referring to space that isn’t occupied by text, images or other visible page elements. White space creates balance and improves readability.

Bear in mind that white space doesn’t mean it’s “white” because it can be any color—but it must be blank or negative. For example, here are some good PowerPoint templates with a lot of white space.

You see it’s easier to read. No clustered text. Ensure you add white spaces to your slides.

Essentially, placing your logo at the corner of all your slides is a great way to brand your presentation. Adding your logo to all your slides isn’t rocket science.

All you need do is to add it to  Slide Master. Go to the “view” tab to open up the Slide Master, and then click “Slide Master.” You can think of the “SLIDE MASTER” as the backbone of your presentation.

3. Create compelling content

Content is the lifeblood of your Presentation. If you’ve got nice looking slides with all the best practices but you fail to add compelling content (i.e., text-based), you’ll likely not get results.

That doesn’t sound good, right?

Here are some tips to enable you to write compelling content for your presentation—so that you can convert your visitors into qualified leads.

i). Start with an outline: Although not everyone accepts that you need to create an outline for your content, it’ll make the work easier and rewarding To not create an. The outline is your plan, and of course, if you don’t plan, you plan to fail. Ensure you create an outline that details how your presentation is going to look like.

ii). Inject personality: Customers want to do business with real people, not a bot. Ensure that your presentation doesn’t sound or look like it’s from a bot. Add a human touch to your content. Make it easy for your customers to interact with you through your content.

iv).  Make it fun and engaging: Ensure that your content will be appreciated by your target audience. Execute the best practices we mentioned earlier; use charts, screenshots, illustrations, and other visual elements to drive engagement.

v). Add call-to-action to collect leads: This it the most important factor that determines the success of your PowerPoint presentation. You MUST add call-to-action instructions to your slides (not all the slides).

Do you want your prospects to take the desired action while viewing or after going through your informative presentation? Of course, you do. Otherwise, you can acquire leads or sales.

This call-to-action could be a link to your website, or preferably a landing page so you can capture people’s email address.

In conclusion, PowerPoint is a very powerful marketing tool for lead and sales acquisition. It doesn’t matter how boring your subject is, or how stubborn your target audience might be, you can stand out in the crowd with captivating presentations.

Pro Tip: Upload your PowerPoint presentations to SlideShare, add voiceover to the slides and upload to YouTube and other video sharing websites. You’ll reach a wider audience at no extra cost.

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