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How to Create a Demo Presentation

Presenting a brand-new product or service to an audience can be done in two formats: highlighting its market value or focusing on the technical elements that make it an attractive offer. Today we will cover the second option, commonly known as a demo presentation.

Get to know which slides you should include in your demo presentation, recommended PPT templates, the difference with a product presentation, and much more.

Table of Contents

What is a Demo Presentation?

Differences between a demo presentation and a product presentation, elements of a demo presentation, advantages of demo presentations for software app launches, how to create a demo presentation slide deck, recommended product demo powerpoint templates, final words.

We refer to a demo presentation as a structured demonstration of a product or service, typically in the software industry, showcasing its features, functionality, and value to a specific audience. Unlike other theoretical experiences or generalist overviews, a demo presentation is a hands-on format, including live demonstrations or interactive features, allowing potential customers, investors, or stakeholders to see the product in action.

Sometimes, the terms demo and product presentation are used interchangeably, but in fact, they are different presentation styles. A product presentation focus is broader, covering the overall concept, market positioning, and product benefits. It is marketing-oriented, highlighting why the product is necessary and competitive rather than exposing how the product or service works. Therefore, we can say that demo presentations are more technical.

In terms of audience engagement , a product presentation is delivered at large conferences, live worldwide events (i.e., Apple product releases), or investor meetings, and the goal is to generate interest and excitement about the product. Storytelling and visual communication are key in product presentations as they become the tools to secure interest. Demo presentations, on the other hand, are delivered in more intimate settings, such as client meetings, training sessions, sales pitches, etc. Since they require active engagement from the audience, the venue selected for this kind of presentation has to be better equipped, and the presenter has to keep an active role in moderating questions or requests to see specific features in action.

Although some presenters opt to engage directly in the software demo presentation, we highly recommend following this structure to secure the success of your upcoming demo presentation.

Introduction Slide

Briefly introduce the product, the team behind it, and the purpose of the demo. Set the stage for what the audience can expect.

• Problem Statement

Clearly define the problem that the product addresses. This helps the audience understand the context and relevance of the product.

• Product Overview

This involves a high-level product overview, clearly exposing its main features, benefits, and why it differs from potential market alternatives.

• Live Demonstration

This is the core aspect of your presentation, especially if we talk about a software demonstration. It involves a great deal of logistics, as presenters must ensure the live version of their product/service is fully functional for the features they intend to present (if they deliver an MVP presentation, for instance). Troubleshooting protocols have to be clearly laid out in case of an outage in the live demonstration or in addressing questions from the audience about features that won’t be shown at this stage.

• Interactive Q&A

Unlike other Q&A sessions, the software demos the audience tends to request to see specific features. For that reason, you must clearly state which features are available in the current version you are introducing in your presentation. 

Another approach to the Q&A session is to get feedback from the audience, which can be done orally or by providing a form in which attendees can write their opinions online.

When deciding how to end a presentation for a software demo, you should summarize the key points of your talk, reiterate the product’s value, and indicate the next steps to acquire the product/service or a call to action slide .

We summarized all that’s required for an effective demo presentation in this infographic below.

Demo presentations actively engage the audience by showcasing the product in action, making capturing their attention and interest easier.

Demonstrating the product helps clarify its functionalities and benefits, reduce misunderstandings, and help the audience see its value.

Immediate Feedback

Real-time demonstrations allow for immediate feedback and questions, enabling the presenter to address concerns on the spot and adjust the presentation based on the audience’s reactions.

Credibility

A well-executed demo presentation can build credibility and trust. Seeing the product work in real-time reassures the audience that it is functional and reliable.

Demonstrating the product’s capabilities and benefits in real-time can be more persuasive than static presentations or descriptions, making it easier to convince potential customers or investors of its value.

Memorability

Interactive presentations are more memorable, increasing the likelihood that the audience will remember the product and its benefits long after the presentation.

The first step in creating your demo presentation, even before considering the slide layout, is defining its objectives. What do you intend to achieve with this presentation? Is it for securing investors, closing a sale, or educating users? Answering these questions will help you to tailor the outline of your presentation.

Outline Creation

Include the key sections and points you want to cover in your demo presentation. This will help you organize your thoughts and work with a logical flow when introducing ideas. As we mentioned above, the ideal structure should be:

• Introduction

You can use AI tools like ChatGPT for presentations to help you organize your thoughts and craft a quality outline. 

Creating the Slides

Before starting this step, consider which medium you will use for your live demo. Will it be a video showcasing the process? Is it going to be an MVP version set in a live server? The aesthetics of your product will determine the color palette to be used in your slide deck. 

As a general rule, select three colors: a main color, which should be easy on the eyes for avoiding eyesight strain when looking at the slides, an accent color to highlight sections, and a powerful color for CTAs.

Use the 10-20-30 rule of presentations to define the number of slides needed and the text size for your slides. Alternatively, you can check our article on calculating how many slides for a presentation to help you structure your content. 

Write a script for your demo so you won’t be distracted by the audience when presenting your product’s different features. This script has to be synced with the slides, so practice until you feel comfortable with the flow, allowing 1-2 minutes per section for any last-minute question.

Test your live demo at your presentation’s venue to pinpoint any technical issues. As we mentioned before, it is a must to count on a backup plan, like having a spare server in the cloud, so you can deliver your presentation even if the original plan isn’t working.

In this section, we will cover a selection of Product Demo PowerPoint templates to speed up your design process. Keep in mind that these products are both PowerPoint Templates and Google Slides Templates .

1. Product Demo Presentation Laptop PPT Template

Before you ask what a software presentation is and how I can make one, check this PPT template with a high-end laptop mockup in place, which is ideal for introducing your product in style.

Four slides in an attractive color scheme, with vibrant CTA buttons. Check it out!

Use This Template

2. Smart Wearable Demo Presentation PowerPoint Template

Companies releasing apps for smartwatches or VR can get the benefits of this high-quality tech-inspired slide deck. Seven slides with vector illustrations of different wearables, which can be mix and matched with other PPT templates.

3. Company Software Demo PowerPoint & Google Slides Template

The perfect solution for a software demonstration presentation that has vibrant graphics paired with a clean layout. Presenters can edit the color scheme to meet the requirements of their software demo interface as well as branding identity.

4. Startup Software Demo Presentation

For a sleek and professional-looking presentation aesthetic, work with this slide deck intended for startup companies. We list 19 slides, among which you can find tools for presenting your business model, opportunities, and other relevant slides for both demo and product presentations.

Effective demo presentations require careful planning, clear objectives, and a deep understanding of the audience. Remember to focus on your product’s practical application, demonstrate its key features and functionalities, and encourage interaction and feedback from your audience. With preparation and practice, you can deliver a demo presentation that leaves a lasting impression and drives your desired outcomes.

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How To Prepare a Great Software Demo Presentation in 2024 [With Demo Scripts]

Last week we were at a friend's place for dinner when our friend's 10-year-old daughter appeared from the kitchen wearing her chef's hat and holding a pan with some delicious-looking pudding. She announced, "Look what I have whipped up for you all." And at once, we're all curious! 

Almost all of us asked in unison, "What is it?" She smiled and said, "Why don't you try it yourself?" We all took a spoon and tasted that yummy caramel pudding she had baked for us!

That's what a demo presenter is an expert in —-- to create a great demo experience for their potential client. 

In fact, the famous Pepsi Challenge campaign gained its popularity because the brand asked the same question to its audience. 

In the 1970s, Pepsi grew tired of being the second best to Coca Cola which dominated the soft drink industry at that time. To create a stir, Pepsi took to the shopping malls in America and asked the customers: Why don't you try it yourself? Shoppers were encouraged to taste both Colas, and Pepsi was preferred. The Pepsi Challenge became popular and has been in Pepsi's ongoing marketing campaign for years. 

Software companies can create a similar buzz with their product demos. This article will discuss the different aspects of a great software demo presentation. Plus, there are some free script templates for those who can hang around till the end. 😉 

What is a Software Demo Presentation?

A software demo or demonstration is a visual walkthrough of the software. Sales reps, solution engineers, and AEs heavily depend on product demos to show the product in action to their customers to engage, attract, and persuade them. A software product demonstration includes a complete rundown of its features, selling points, and how it solves the customers' pain points. 

The Anatomy of an Effective Software Demo Presentation

Now that we know what a software demo is, let’s understand the key ingredients of a software demo presentation. 

An Interesting Opening

Start your demo with something that sparks the viewer’s interest. It might be a fun welcome message, an interesting stat tying to their pain point, a success story of one of your customers with a similar problem, an image, or a video. 

Relevance to Audience and Their Problem

Before you start creating a software demo, understand the purpose of your demo. If the purpose of the demo is to solve a customer problem, understand the problem you're trying to solve. Once this is created, you can better focus on your demo. 

A Narrative that Ties Back to the Pain Point

Once you have gathered all the information, map the painpoints with your product features and how they ease your prospect’s painpoint. To maintain viewer engagement with your demo, don't just focus on guiding them through your product. Create a compelling narrative that ties back to the pain points. 

A Strong Demo Script

To build an effective software demo, you need a strong demo script where you can weave in a storyline that engages the customer. For example, a story that starts with a problem and then tells the solution and the product's benefits works best for a demo script.  

Product in Action

Of course, people want to see how your product works, but they also want to see and understand the step-by-step process of which button to click and how to make the most use of each feature button. So pay attention to breaking down the process in a small step-by-step guide. 

Engaging Visuals

Don't make your demo presentation too boring. Add visual elements like attractive title screens, icons, characters, and transitions to make the demo appealing. 

A Clear Call to Action

Your demo presentation should be tied back to the purpose of your demo creation through a strong call to action or CTA. For example, if your purpose is to drive more sign-ups for a free trial, your CTA should say, "Sign up and enjoy a free trial”!  

Track Engagement

Examine the analytics like when the demo was viewed, which screen had the longest and shortest view time, who all have viewed the demo, etc., so your sales team can follow up with the prospect. 

Secondary CTA

Some viewers might not reach the end of the demo. Encourage them to take action by placing a secondary CTA in the middle of the demo. 

What Not To Include in a Software Demo 

No matter how great your software is, if it's not presented well, it will fail to pique the interest of the decision-makers. In this section, you will learn where most sales reps go wrong so that you can learn from their mistakes.  

Curse of Knowledge - The Cognitive Bias

Most demo presenters don't visually emphasize the mouse pointer on the screen and help us see what they're doing on the screen. This happens from the curse of knowledge or cognitive bias that arises when you have used any tool for a considerable period. As a result, the sales rep assumes the software is easy for everyone unless someone points it out. 

How to solve it: Make sure to zoom in on where you're clicking so that everyone can see what you're doing. Highlight and mark important areas in the software so that everyone can see and understand easily. Zoomit.exe is a free tool that you can use for zooming and highlighting. 

Overloading with Features

Your prospective client doesn't want to listen to all the features of your product and how incredible they are. They are only interested in how those features can solve their problem.  

How to solve it: Highlight the features that will be useful for them. Remember to prioritize value over functionality. 

Sticking to the Script

It's always advisable to create a demo script and prepare and rehearse well before going for a demo presentation. But it may look awkward if the prospect asks you any question in between, but you draw a blank simply because it’s not in your script.

How to solve it: Learn to be flexible in using the script. For example, if the prospect is asking some questions, pause and take a moment to respond to the question. 

A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Software Demo Presentation

While you need to think and act quickly on the field while presenting a demo, it’s always helpful to think ahead and structure your demo to keep it under your control. It helps you stay prepared, feel confident, and have a structured flow to your demo presentation. 

Introduce Yourself

The main purpose of introducing yourself is to warm up with the prospect. Once you introduce yourself, give a brief context to your demo. Here’s an example as shared by  Alexander Mackinlay of Qobra: 

“I had planned 45 mins for our meeting today. Is that still okay for you? Do you have a hard stop afterward? What I had in mind for us today:

•  We'll start with a recap of what we discussed last time so that we can readjust if anything has changed.
•  Prospect X and Y *(who were not there at the first meeting)*, this recap will enable you to add your own points of view and to let me know what you are individually expecting from this meeting.
•  I have listed a number of questions I would like to ask you;
•  Then we can move on to the demo;
•  We'll need to keep 20 minutes at the end, where I'd like you to be in a position where 1) either you tell me that you want to move forward with us and we plan a potential next step, 2) you'd prefer that we stop our conversations there.

How does this agenda sound to you?”

Ending the introduction with a question always opens up room for initiating a conversation!

Tie Back the Product Features as the Solution to Their Problem

As we mentioned earlier, don’t stuff your demo with all the features and every little detail your tool has. Instead, focus on the prospect’s pain point and tie back the features as the solution to those pain points. Here’s an example as shared by Gong .  

You: As we discussed last week, it seems that (problem) is one of your major concerns at the moment. Is that right?

Prospect: Yes, that’s right.

You: Great, let’s dive in and allow me to show you how our product can solve your problem. 

Create a WOW Moment

Create a WOW moment that will compel the prospect to remember you and your product. It’s the time for the showmanship and you don't tell but show it to your prospect.

Using an interactive product demo is a great way to create this WOW moment sooner because it lets the prospect try out the tool themselves in a sandbox environment without the intervention of a salesperson.

Here's how Semrush uses Storylane's interactive product tours to showcase their platform👇

Also Read: How Horizon Education eliminated manual sandboxes for product trials with Storylane

Here’s a sample script:

‍ “Now let me show you how you can send emails to your entire email list by clicking this one button.”   

Encourage Them to Ask Questions

Prospects who’re more engaged are more likely to buy. Encourage them to ask questions to ensure they’re still engaged with your demo. Here’s how Gong suggests doing it.  

“I’ll pause here for you to ask questions, if any, before we move on to the next step. 

Is this something you’ll use for [the prospect’s problem]

How do you see you and your team using this tool?”

Next Step and Close

Reiterate the message at the end of the demo presentation and close it with a CTA or the next step. Do you want the prospect to sign up a form, schedule a follow-up meeting, or move into the final stage of signing the deal? Whatever may be your next step, add it to your demo script and communicate it clearly before ending the presentation. Here’s a sample:

"How does this compare to your current process?"

"You previously mentioned one of the things you are looking to solve is X. I just showed you how our platform solves that. On a scale of 1-10, how well do you feel we address your issue?"

Keep the question open-ended and be specific. That will encourage the prospect to speak. Avoid questions like “Do you have any questions?” which will mostly lead to a no, in most cases, especially if the prospect has already lost interest in the product. 

3 Software Demo Presentation Templates

 DEMO START

Recap customer's issues and ask to validate again. Then ask if things have changed or if we missed anything last time. Ask those who were not there prior to this meeting for their challenges and expectations for this meeting. Ask all questions you might need answers to before starting the demo.

DEMO SCRIPT

During the demo, ask validating questions after each feature presentation. 

For example, if the prospect says, “My current pain point is X,” your script should say, “Based on X pain that you mentioned, this is how the feature Y solves it.”

Here’s another example. 

If the customer says, “I’m concerned about data security,” your script should say, 

“Y is a SaaS Cloud-based platform with SOC2 certification. This means that your data is very secure.”

CLOSING THE DEMO

At the end of the demo, don't say, "Do you have any questions?" which will only lead to a "No, that's okay.” Prospects who lose interest during your demo won’t usually tell you what they think unless you ask them. Add a personal touch. You’d better say:

“What about this is most interesting to you?”

“How do you see this helping with [challenge or goal they shared during discovery?”

“Was there anything you were hoping to see on this call that you didn’t?”

“Was there anything you saw on this call that didn't meet your expectations?”

If everything goes as planned, these questions above should then naturally take your prospect to set up the next step around pricing and ROI with decision-makers.

- As shared by Alexander Mackinlay , Qobra

While scripting for a product demo, one of the most important things to highlight in the product demo is what is in store for the end user in the form of a value proposition. Missing the focus on the key benefits and only explaining the features is the biggest demo mistake one does in a product demo. 

The script should be organized in this sequence 

• Pain points your solution solve
• How that problem is solved
• What is the value added to the customer? 

Here’s a sample script template

‍ “In our last meeting, you mentioned how vendor management is one of your biggest concerns at the moment. Our product just solves that! We have built an integrated solution that [ tell how it solves the problem].

 One of our customers has been able to streamline their vendor management by [incorporate the result they have achieved here] and you can do the same”

- As shared by Disha Thakkar, PMM Expert

The first thing to understand is that a software demo is just an opportunity to understand prospects better and show how your software solves their challenges.

The actual software and its functionality - things everyone wants to show is irrelevant. No one can really follow someone quickly jumping from screen to screen demonstrating features (that can't sell) and any questions come only from some past experience with other software.

When you carry on a conversation based on features, it's hard to sell. So here is a sales-oriented software demo scenario below. 

💡Note: You have to insist on more decision makers to be present on the very first demo because usually different people in business have very different ideas about their needs and you can win by catering for different needs.

1/ Ask questions and be inquisitive to understand what is the problem they want to solve.

2/ Ask what they see as a perfect solution

3/ Ask what software they are using currently (used in the past) to achieve that

4/ Ask what is not working or is annoying (chances are that your software does it as well, but at least you know what the person dislikes before showing proudly what your solution can do - you can annoy them that way too)

5/ Only then jump into screen sharing and this is where you have to be innovative and do a demo from the perspective of a solution this person is seeking. It's important to understand that whatever is cool about your software is only interesting from the perspective of solving their challenge and nothing else. Therefore showing features that they don't ask for is nice ... but is not a reason why they will buy. Why? Because your wonderful features often sound as "too good to be true".

6/ You have to show enough that they "buy" the idea and express their feeling that that's what they need. Do not proceed to discuss the pricing until you reach this point in the conversation.

7/ When there are no more questions they have and you answered them all, I recommend asking “if it's OK to talk about money now.”

After a positive response provide a clear, easy-to-follow pricing structure and ask how they wish to proceed. 

If you did 1-6 right at this point any objections are about price and it's hard to object because they just stated they are happy and interested. Then there are special techniques to handle price objections.

- As shared by  Assia Salikhova , Managing Director, Smarketing Lab Limited, author of "7 Keys to Successful Cold Calling" course.

Top 5 Tips to Keep in Mind While Creating a Software Demo Presentation

1. know who you’re presenting to.

Are you presenting to an employee (who's perhaps going to use your tool) or a decision-maker in the company? 

Research and do your homework to learn as much as possible about the person. 

What are their pain points? 

What kind of solution they're looking for? 

Knowing the finer details can help you stay prepared for all meeting scenarios. 

For example, if the person is reserved, you need to prompt them with questions to initiate a conversation. If you get to know the person will ask many questions, come prepared with answers and customer stories to back them up. If the person is a multitasker and attending the demo while working on the phone or laptop, grab their attention by making a bold statement or humor that can grab their attention. 

2. Prepare a Script and Practice

Always prepare a demo script, especially how you will deliver the humor, punch lines, or Twittable sound bites ( a short sentence or phrase in audio or video format that can be Twitted to give an essence of your message) that can grab the audience's attention. 

Once your script is ready, practice and rehearse until you're comfortable delivering the demo. You can practice in front of a peer or a family member. Or, if no one is available, record your demo speech and review the flow by hearing the recording. While you don't need to memorize the whole script, you should know in detail each of the points and be able to speak in a conversational tone. 

3. Support Your Claims with Use Cases

If you have solved a similar problem in the past, begin your demo with the same problem and how your product overcame that problem. Emphasize how the prospect can too achieve a similar outcome. Supporting your claims with a use case makes a strong case for you, and the prospect can better relate to your product. 

4. Customize Your Demo

Not all audiences are the same, so you need to customize your demo accordingly. For example, if you demo a CEO, your demo should be customized with relatable use cases. Highlight the features that will be most relevant to the prospect. 

5. Follow Up

Don't assume they will remember everything once the demo is done. A good practice is to follow up with a thank you note. Share a link to the automated demo so they can see it again internally, share relevant documents and brochures, and give them an actionable next step. 

Elevating Your Software Demo Presentation with Storylane

Storylane is an interactive product demo software that lets you create effective demo presentations. The platform has some advanced features like analytics, personalization tokens, unlimited sharing, auto update of the demo when there is a new release, integration with CRM and Slack and many more. 

Do you know that G2 has recently recognized Storylane as the Demo Automation category leader? Book a demo today to empower your sales teams to perform better.

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Must-Have Demo Presentation Templates with Examples and Samples

Vaishali Rai

Hey there, fellow presenters and aspiring product demo gurus! Let’s face it: we've all been there at some point in our lives – the nerve-racking moment before a presentation. Did you know that 89% of people suffer from "Presentation Dread" at some point? That's right! Have you also ever struggled to create a jaw-dropping demo presentation or wondered how to make your product gleam like a gem? Don’t worry! Help is at hand.

Learn beyond the ‘whats,’ ‘hows,’ and the ‘whys’ of project execution. Explore our Top 10 Logic Model Templates to conceptualize and demonstrate your project structure.

Demo templates that’ll  make, not break, your pitch!

Now, we all know what a PPT is. It's like a ready-made canvas for your ideas, a shortcut to a stunning presentation that doesn't require you to be a professional designer. Whether you're wooing investors or potential clients or just want to create buzz among your audience, your demo presentation must be on point.

And this is why we are here! SlideTeam’s game-changing Demo Presentation Templates will ensure you’re armed with the knowledge to create presentations that will take your demos from so-so to spectacular!

With these well-researched and expertly-designed templates, you can invest more time perfecting your content rather than wrestling with formatting issues. These ensure consistency, professionalism, and bring that "wow" factor to your PPTs that makes your audience stick around!

Oh! Did we mention that our templates are 100% customizable and editable, providing you with both structure and a starting point? You also get the capability to customize the presentation to the audience profile.

Let's get started and get the knowledge flowing!

This template bundle of success shows how the art of segmentation can turn your buyer personas into profit. Click here to learn more!

Template 1: DEMO Enterprise Implementation Requirement Product Essentials Engagement

This is the one template that sparks and ignites the adventure of bringing software to life in the corporate world, ensuring that all the characters (team members) are on the same page for this digital transformational journey. This cover page serves as the introductory section of a comprehensive document that outlines the essential requirements and details for implementing a specific software product within an organization. The inclusion of the company name on the cover page helps to identify the company as the author of the document and creates a sense of brand identity and consistency. The choice of color and fonts used creates a sense of energy and excitement. This document sets the stage for effective communication, collaboration, and project management, and solicits commitment to successfully deploying the software product in the enterprise environment.

Download now!

Template 2: Checklist for Enterprise Software Demo

This template is your go-to tool for curating a flawless presentation of enterprise software solutions. It ensures that every critical aspect is addressed during the demonstration, such as– the analysis of  business opportunities that require strategic planning. Other components are – Insights into the company's history and market reputation, Unique Selling Proposition (USP) of the software suite, potential risks, and ERP implementation failures, highlighting transparency and preparedness. The template also covers hardware compatibility, the ERP’s ability to meet the firm's challenges, data security, integrity, seamless data migration, training and support requirements, and software scalability and flexibility. This checklist leaves no room for oversight, allowing you to confidently showcase your software's capabilities.

Template 3: Checklist for Product Demo Essentials

This checklist paves the way to finding your soulmate in the business world. This structured guide that doesn’t just tell your audience about your product's features; it shows them! It encompasses critical components, including curiosity generation, demonstration of Unique Selling Points (USPs), showcasing key product features, ensuring brand credibility, highlighting the return on investment, and emphasizing the potential to increase conversions. This template provides a systematic approach to crafting a compelling product demo that informs, engages, and persuades the audience. Grab your copy now!

Bonus tip: Start with a bang by telling a compelling story, asking a provocative question, or sharing an interesting statistic

Template 4: Four Steps for Effective Product Demo

Is your audience suffering from information overload during product demos? Follow these four steps in the template below to provide reliable solutions. Start with the "Customer Engagement" step to test your product thoroughly and become the soothing mediator that eases customer concerns. The "Finding Angle" step lets you creatively present standout features as solutions to your audience's problems, winning over competitors. "Focusing at Buyer" helps you precisely address client needs and doubts, offering a customized remedy. Ultimately, "Looking at the Bigger Picture" invites you to acknowledge the expansive scope of your product, prescribing a vision that cures the most stubborn pain points.

Template 5: Key Essentials for Enterprise Software Demo

Implementing Enterprise Software Should Be a Breeze, Not a Brain Tease! This is why this template provides a structured framework for presenting enterprise software solutions. It covers critical components like data security, scalability, training, and risk management, ensuring a comprehensive and transparent demonstration. Highlighting the software's unique selling points and the vendor's reputation adds credibility. This template is essential for conveying vital information during software presentations aiding potential clients in making informed decisions about software adoption.

Template 6: Product Demo with Features Icon

Imagine your product is a delicious pizza. This Features Icon Template is like the toppings on your pizza in which you can choose the toppings that best represent your product's features and then arrange them in a visually appealing, easy-to-understand way. Once you've created your presentation, you can show it to potential customers. It might include enticing features like– a title slide, key product features with descriptions, unique benefits of your product, use cases, testimonials, and a call to action slide.

Template 7: Product Description in Demo with Several Features

This one isn't just informative – it's an unforgettable experience that leaves your audience wanting more! Packed with potent ingredients like showcasing the product’s USPs and spotlighting key features, it ignites curiosity to keep your viewers on the edge of their seats. That's not all; it explains how your product helps boost conversions, cement brand credibility, and unleash the golden path to return on investment (ROI). Get access to the template now to take your product presentations from ordinary to extraordinary!

Template 8: Ways for Effective Product Demo

The template emphasizes the importance of clear and concise communication, ensuring that crucial product features and differentiators are highlighted. Moreover, it covers the significance of understanding the client's needs and aligning the presentation with their requirements.

By acknowledging the long-term scope and vision of the product, this template makes it easier for the presenters to establish a connection between the product's current capabilities and its future potential, making the presentation more enticing to potential clients. Ultimately, it plays a pivotal role in crafting an engaging and persuasive product demo that captures the audience's attention, addresses their concerns, and leaves a lasting impression.

Template 9: Demo Proposal Deal Sales And Logistics Process With Connected Boxes

This sales and logistics tango is an ice-breaker that allows you to pop up the right questions and ask your clients to marry your business. The template provides a structured approach to the sales and logistics process, presenting essential steps– lead qualification, demo, proposal, first meeting, workshops, and closing a deal for successful payment processing.

The significance of the template lies in its ability to streamline and clarify the sales process, making it easier for both the presenter and the audience to understand and follow the sequence of events. By visually connecting the boxes representing each stage, it offers a clear overview of how sales and logistics are interconnected. This helps maintain consistency and ensures all essential steps are accounted for, leading to smoother sales operations.

Template 10: Desktop Demo Depicting Productivity Management Platform Working

This Template is like a magic wand that lets you show off your productivity management platform. It's the perfect way to give your potential users a front-row seat to features, workflows, and capabilities that make your platform a productivity powerhouse.

With this template, you can:

• Provide a clear and engaging visual representation of how your platform works on a desktop, making it easy for your audience to comprehend and appreciate its usability.
• Demonstrate features such as analytics, virtualization, and additional incremental capabilities so users can see the platform's value and potential impact on business productivity.
• Capture your audience's attention and help them envision how your productivity management platform can benefit their organization.

Bonus tip: While demoing your platform, give a shout-out to any unique or innovative features of your product that set it apart and help users stay on track.

Get access to it now!

Demo templates that will make your audience forget all about their phones!

As we wrap up this tour of demo presentation templates, let's remember that your next presentation is not just a slideshow; it's the fertile ground where your ideas spring. With these templates in your pocket, you'll be well on your way to turning a dull, monotonous presentation into a compelling journey that leaves your audience thoroughly impressed.

Never be the presenter stuck in the past, drowning in bullet points and bland backgrounds. These digital tools are capable enough to steal the show, whether you're pitching a groundbreaking idea, teaching a class, or wowing potential clients.

Start crafting your next presentation today, and let the world see what you're made of!

P.S. Don't forget to add a dash of your personality to your demos. After all, people do business with people, so let yours shine through!

Don't let the trouble of putting together a demographics presentation hold you back. Download these Top 10 PowerPoint Templates to start cooking up a sales pitch that will make your audience drool!

Related posts:

• Must-Have Route to Market Templates with Samples and Examples
• Top 7 Product Owner Templates with Samples and Examples
• Top 10 One-Page Product Announcement Sheet Templates to Create a Buzz!
• Why Product Management Templates Are a Must for Every Business in 2021

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Post online

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The benefits of interactive slides

🗣️ Active participation An interactive slide deck gives your audience cool things to click on and discover, boosting learning and engagement.

👂 Multi-sensory experience Audio, video, animations, and mouse interactions make your content immersive, entertaining and accessible.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 People-friendly format Pop-ups and embeds condense more material into fewer slides so you can break information down into digestible chunks.


🎮 Gamification Games, quizzes and puzzles make information more memorable and enable you to gather feedback and check understanding.

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Genially in a nutshell

How do I make a presentation interactive and how does Genially work? Find the answers to all of your slide-related questions here!

What’s an interactive presentation?

Interactive slides contain clickable hotspots, links, buttons, and animations that are activated at the touch of a button. Instead of reading or watching passively, your audience can actively interact with the content.  

Genially’s interaction presentation software allows you to combine text, photos, video clips, audio and other content in one deck. It’s a great way to condense more information into fewer slides. 

If you’re a teacher, you can share multiple materials in one single learning resource. Students can create their own projects using digital media and online maps. For business or training, try embedding spreadsheet data, PDFs, and online content directly in your slides. 

An interactive slide deck is more user-friendly than a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation or Google Slides document. That’s because you can break information down into chunks with pop-ups, labels, voiceovers and annotated infographics.  

The other benefit of interactive content is increased engagement. It’s easier to keep your audience’s attention when they’re actively participating. Try Genially’s presentation software and free slideshow maker to see how it’s better than other presentation websites. You won’t go back to standard presentation apps!

How do you make a clickable slide?

The best way to make slides clickable is to use Genially’s free interactive presentation program. Design your slide then apply an interaction. In a couple of clicks, you can add popup windows, hyperlinks, close-up images, games, animations, multimedia and other content. 

Choose from the library of hotspot buttons and icons to show people what to click on. Go to Presenter View to get a preview and see how your content will appear to your audience.

How do I create presentations that look professional?

You’ve got a deadline looming and you’re staring at the screen with a blank presentation. We’ve all been there! Starting a presentation design from scratch is tricky, especially if you’re short on time. 

Genially’s free online presentation maker has over 2000 ready-to-use templates for professional slide presentations, photos slideshows, and more. Each slide design has been created by our team of top graphic designers. No need to worry about fonts, centering images, or designing a matching color scheme. It’s all done for you. 

Start by browsing our layouts and themes for education, business and then customize with your own text and images.

How do I share or download my slides?

Because Genially is a cloud based presentation software, you can simply share the link to your slides. Like other online presentation tools, there are no files to download or store on your computer. Everything is saved online.  

When you publish your slide deck, it gets its own unique url, just like a website. Share the link with others to let them explore the content in their own time. If you’re presenting live, just click the Present button. 

You can also embed your presentation on your website, company wiki, or social media. Genially is compatible with WordPress, Moodle, Google Classroom, and other platforms. If you use an LMS, you can also download your interactive design slides in SCORM format.

For slideshow videos and slideshows with music, share online or download as an MP4 video. Check out our free slideshow templates for ideas.

Can I make a free presentation in Genially?

You bet! Genially is an easy-to-use slide maker, with a free version and paid plans. The free plan allows you to create unlimited slides with interactions and animations. Subscribe to one of our paid plans for more advanced features.

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Your Guide to Preparing a Great Software Demo Presentation

What is a software demo presentation?

5 key elements for an effective software demo presentation, a step-by-step guide to creating a software demo presentation, tips to keep in mind when creating a software demo presentation, 3 common ways software demos can go wrong, create software demos your prospects will absolutely love.

Updated on June 27, 2024.

We believe congratulations are in order!

If the rumors are to be believed, word on the street is that you’ve successfully scheduled the demo . 

Your prospects have shown great interest in your SaaS offering and are looking forward with excitement to getting to know it better during the software demo. 

All that’s left for you to do is blow them away with a demo presentation that’s more riveting and engaging than a Martin Scorcese film.

Goodfellas ? Pfft. If you thought that was good it’s because you haven’t yet seen this demo.

A live software demo is a tool that sales teams use to showcase a SaaS product to their buyers. 

Let’s say you walked into a store to buy a pair of pants. Would you let the salesperson describe the pants to you and then buy them without seeing them? We didn’t think so.

So software customers also need a way to see the product, understand how it works, and check out its features and benefits before they decide to buy it. That’s where the software demo comes in.

The software sales demo acts as a way for the marketing and sales teams to give your buyers a chance to experience your product. While it is most commonly used during the sales demo phase of the buyer journey, an interactive software demo created with a tool like Walnut allows you to send prospects links for them to engage with on their own at any point throughout the sales experience.

Learning to create an interactive product demo is the easy part, especially on a platform like Walnut. The harder part is making the demo amazing.

Do you want to create a software demo that will leave your customers bored and confused?

The best way to create a boring software demo presentation is by using a slide deck or a video. You should also be as generic as possible and spend your time focusing on how cool your product’s features are. This is bound to leave your prospects with a bad taste in their mouth and inexplicably sleepy.

But if you want to knock the socks right off of your prospects, we recommend making sure your demo includes the following 5 elements:

1. Personalization

The first thing you should ask yourself when creating your software demo presentation is:

Who is the prospect and what do they need?  

Focus on the solutions your product can provide to match their specific needs. Adding small personal touches to the product demo , like the prospect’s name and company logo, can also let them understand that this demo was made with them in mind. 

When you create your demo presentation for your prospect, you need to make sure it tells a story. Ask yourself:

Why is the prospect coming to this software demo?

Create an interactive sales experience that will leave the prospects feeling like they understand your product flow, the value it brings, and how it can easily integrate with their current workflow. They aren’t there to be blown away by the functionality of your product. They are there because they want to solve a pain.

3. Interactivity

Your prospects don’t want a show. Ask yourself:

Would you buy anything without trying it out yourself first?

Give your audience the link to their personalized software demo and let them try it by themselves. Keep them engaged by having them click through the product so that they can see how it works and the value it can bring them.

4. Engaging content

Don’t be boring. That’s it. That’s the post.

Ok, that’s not the whole post. When creating content for your demo and working on your demo script , ask yourself:

How can I keep the prospect engaged?

Use GIFs, humor, sales memes , rich text, movie references, sports references, or whatever the prospect is interested in to spice up this demo. Be professional but also be yourself and build a genuine connection with your audience.

5. Strong CTAs

The goal of a good software demo is a closed deal. So ask yourself:

What’s the next step that you’d like the prospect to make?

Include clear CTAs throughout your software demo so your audience knows what’s the next step in the process.

In order to nail your software demo presentation, it’s a good idea to plan ahead and create a structure. This will allow you to present the right product story and make sure that you feel confident during the presentation.

With this in mind, here are the steps you need to follow to craft your presentation.

Step 1: Make introductions

One of the worst ways you can kick off your demo presentation is by getting straight down to business. 

You want to warm up the prospect by making a brief introduction. You should share how long the meeting will take and check if the prospect has a hard stop at some point. 

Ideally, you should start with a recap of anything you spoke about last time, any outstanding questions from the last interaction, and then explain that you’ll move on to the demo. And that this will be followed by next steps. 

You can end the intro by asking if the prospect has any questions. 

Step 2: Highlight 1-2 features as the solution to their pain points

Less is more when it comes to your presentation.

Think back to your earlier conversations with the prospect to identify their main pain points. Then you can pinpoint the feature that will allow the prospect to tackle this issue. 

Step 3: Let the prospect ask questions

There’s a much better chance that prospects will buy your product if they’re engaged. 

That’s why it’s crucial to encourage them to ask questions so they remain engaged with your demo presentation.

Step 4: Break down the next steps

To close your demo presentation, recap your main message.

Then, it’s time to go over the next steps. Think about what action you want the user to take next. Whether you want them to fill out a form, schedule a follow-up call, or move to the closing stages of the deal, make sure you add it to your demo script and convey it clearly to the prospect.

When you’re getting ready for your demo, there are two things you should make sure to do.

1. Get to know your audience

The first thing you need to make sure you have down when preparing for your software demo is understanding who you will be speaking to.

Learn their names.

Don’t underestimate how effective it is to engage your audience by calling them by their first names. 

Before you get on that call, make sure you know who you’ll be speaking to. Ask your champion exactly who will be attending the meeting so that you can know in advance and prepare.

Write down each of their names and have it by you when the presentation starts if that’ll help or take a few minutes to read their resume on LinkedIn before the meeting. This way, you can speak more directly to each member of your audience.

Learn their roles.

Next, learn the positions they hold within their company. 

If a feature you are showcasing is relevant to a specific role, you’ll be able to say, “Hey Salvador. You may be interested in this. By clicking here you can solve all of your problems so that you can finally curb that horrible drinking habit.” 

…or something like that.

Learn their needs.

Each team member has specific pains that they want to resolve. Sometimes they may not know that there could be a better way.

It’s your job to make sure that you explain to them how your product can provide value to them as a team and to each of them individually. You can only do this by having an extremely firm understanding of their aims and objectives.

2. Create a memorable experience

Make sure the demo experience is not boring. 

Remember, we are competing with Martin Scorcese over here. 

Create an interactive product demo that prospects can click through on their own or show teammates after the call. 

But you can also make your demo engaging by preparing questions to ask your prospects. Take the beginning of the demo to create a conversation to make sure you don’t spend the next chunk of time in a monologue. After all, nobody wants to be spoken at. 

As much as possible, try to create a human and personal connection. By creating real relationships you’ll make sure your prospects remember you and respect your advice.

And, whatever you do, don’t be boring!

3. Craft and refine your narrative

Develop a compelling script that flows naturally. Include memorable soundbites and strategically placed humor. 

Practice extensively – record yourself, rehearse with colleagues, or present to family. Aim for a conversational tone that feels both prepared and spontaneous.

4. Leverage real-world success stories

Bring your software to life with relevant case studies. 

Start by presenting a problem your product has solved, then showcase how it can deliver similar results for your prospect. 

This approach builds credibility and helps your audience envision the practical benefits.

5. Personalize the experience

One size doesn’t fit all. Customize your presentation to resonate with your specific audience. 

For a CRO, focus on high-level impacts and ROI. For end-users, spotlight features that will streamline their daily tasks. Always highlight the elements most relevant to your viewers.

6. Always follow-up

The demo is just the beginning. Send a thoughtful follow-up that includes:

• A sincere thank-you note
• Access to a demo for internal sharing
• Relevant documentation and marketing materials
• Clear, actionable next steps to maintain momentum

By implementing these strategies, you’ll create memorable, impactful software demo presentations that resonate with your audience and drive results.

When you’re this close to closing a deal, every interaction is crucial. So when it comes to the software demo, you need to make sure you’re not making any of the classic errors.

Here are a few of the sales demo mistakes that many sales reps find themselves making.

1. Feature dumping

A friendly reminder that PROSPECTS DON’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT ALL YOUR PRODUCT’S FEATURES.

Sorry for yelling. But we feel passionate about this. 

Stop telling them about what the feature can do and start telling them how that feature can help them. 

Talk about value, not about functionality.

2. Talking at people, not to them

You want to make sure your prospects are engaged. Do you know how to make sure they are bored out of their minds? Go on a monologue about your product while flipping through slides. If they stay awake during the whole call it’ll be a miracle.

Instead, use interactive sales demos and engage your audience. Speak to them by name. If you’re demoing over Zoom, stop sharing your screen for key moments so that they can see your face in big. Put questions in the chat so you can gauge their interest in specific features.

3. Sticking to the script

Have you ever seen the Saturday Night Live bit of Jacob, the bar mitzvah boy? The gist of the gag is that Seth Myers asks him questions but all he does is continue with his prepared speech.

Here’s a clip:

We know that you created a demo agenda and a demo script and want to stick to it. But you also need to respond to the questions and concerns that are being asked presently. 

If you want to take your software demo presentations up a notch and win more deals, you need to make sure you are showcasing your product in the best way possible.

Start creating interactive demos that prospects can engage with themselves and give them the chance to understand your product thoroughly. Better demos will lead to more engagement, which in turn will lead to more sales.

So what are you waiting for? Book a meeting with us now by clicking that “Get Started” button on the top of the screen.

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The Top 7 Tips for Pulling Off a Great Demo Presentation

Demo presentations are a powerful tool for running and growing your business. When done well, a demo presentation allows clients, investors or potential customers to see and feel how things will be better for them if they buy or invest in your company or product. Often generic demo presentations do just the opposite, leaving the meeting participants bored and disinterested. Here are seven tips to pull off a great demo presentation.

What is a demo presentation?

A demo presentation is a visual demonstration of a product or service for current or prospective clients. A great demo presentation will grab your audience’s attention right away by clearly communicating what they care about and by using reliable, high quality video presentation tools.

Step one: determine who you are presenting to 

In order to deliver an effective demo presentation, you must know your audience. Do your homework and find out all you can about your prospects so you can tailor your presentation to them and be prepared for different meeting scenarios. This is vital in deciding how you’re going to best convey everything you need to get across in your presentation and what use cases you will share that directly relates to them. Here are four common types of meeting participants and how best to deal with them. 

The Wallflower

Do you know the person you’re presenting to is reserved? The wallflower may need you to prompt them with questions or ask them for their input to really spark a conversation. Having an open dialog with meeting participants will help you connect with them and personalize the presentation. As you continue your software demo, refer back to the participants’ contributions to continue to make them feel included in the presentation.

The Questioner

If you anticipate your audience asking a lot of questions, come ready with answers and customer examples to help back you up. If the questions are not adding value to the demo presentation or become too disruptive, politely ask the audience to hold questions until the end of the presentation.

The Combative

Going in knowing it’s going to be a tough sell? Do all your research beforehand and anticipate what their push back might be. No matter what, don’t get flustered during your demo presentation. When the audience senses your frustration, it’s likely to be a distraction, and it will not result in a positive outcome. Always remain professional throughout your presentation no matter how your audience behaves. If necessary, ask the audience members to hold questions and comments until the end of the meeting. 

The Multitasker 

Presenting to people who are using their phone or laptop during your demo? In order to grab their attention, start your presentation with a bold statement, humor or question. Continue to engage your audience by making your presentation interactive and relatable to pull them away from their devices. 

Three types of product demos

Pitching in your office.

This is the ideal place to host your presentation because you have home-court advantage. The Florida State football team won 37 games in a row at home for a reason: it’s an advantage. When presenting in your own office you get to use presentation tools that you’re comfortable with, limit distractions, control the environment and set the tone for the presentation. 

Pitching in their office

When you are presenting in an unfamiliar environment, it’s important to know which presentation tools are available so you can prepare in advance. Arrive early to the meeting to get set up, familiarize yourself with their presentation tools and practice a run-through of your demo to make sure everything runs smoothly. Also, arriving early gives you the opportunity to meet and connect with some of the people in the audience to help tailor your demo and customer stories to their experiences. 

Pitching remote

In order to save time and travel cost, doing a demo presentation over a video conference call is a great option. Make sure you use a high-quality, easy-to-use video conferencing solution. Don’t give off the wrong first impression by having a poor connection or pixelated video. Lifesize’s video conferencing technology will help you put your best foot forward to really wow clients with stunning 4K video quality and full motion 4K presentation sharing. 

Three ways sales demos can go seriously wrong

Confidential messages get shared on screen.

We’ve all been in meetings where the presenter’s private work and personal messages start popping up on screen and disrupting the meeting. To save yourself embarrassment and major distractions during your presentation, make sure you only share what is relevant to your demo.  Silence all notifications on your laptop and other smart devices before the start of your presentation.

Your video software flakes out

Technical snafus in the middle of a presentation is one of the most common ways demos go wrong. This not only looks bad for you and your company, but it has the potential to completely derail the entire presentation. Make sure you use a reliable video conferencing solution and test it out before the start of the presentation. Sometimes issues are outside your control, like a bad internet connection, so have a backup plan for your demo presentation.

Directly reading your notes or slides

Nothing is less engaging than a presenter directly reading from their notes or slides during a demo. Bring notes just in case you need to refer to them, but don’t directly read your notes or slides during your presentation. Your slides should contain just a few words or short sentences to set the tone of the topic you’re discussing but ovoid cluttering your slides with wordy paragraphs.  Practice your pitch until you can consistently and comfortably talk about your new product without reading from your slides or notes.

Seven tips for a winning demo presentation 

1. prepare a script.

Start off by preparing a presentation outline or script that follows a logical flow. Keep each section short, precise and easy to understand. If possible, try to work in bold statements, humor or simple tweet-able soundbites to really capture the audience’s attention. 

2. Practice and rehearse

Since you will not be directly reading your script during your presentation, practice memorizing and saying your script until you’re comfortable with it. You do not have to memorize your script verbatim, but you will need to be familiar enough with it that you can speak about each point in a conversational tone. Presenting to coworkers or family members is a great way to practice your demo and you can also record your demo presentation  to review the content and get comfortable with the flow.  

3. Anticipate questions

Each audience member will come to your presentation with different experiences and backgrounds so be prepared for a variety of questions. Try to anticipate possible questions and how you will respond to each one. When practicing your demo for coworkers or family members, ask them to help you come up with an exhaustive list of all the different questions that may be asked during your presentation.  

4. Tailor for specific audiences

Every audience is different, and your demo presentation should be too. The presentation should be built specifically for the prospect to reflect their unique business processes and include data that directly relates to their company. In addition, you should tailor how you conduct your presentation for each audience as well. An effective demo presentation for an HR manager may not go over as well for a CEO. Some prospects may be more interested in the details and appreciate graphs and diagrams while others may get more out of watching a video or live demonstration. Research the company and decision makers you are presenting to and find ways to make your demo engaging for them.

5. Provide use cases

One of the best ways to make your demo presentation relatable to your audience is to find examples of customers similar to them that have successfully used your product or service. Start with the pain points your customer was facing and give specific details of how your product or service solved those issues. Demonstrate how your audience can have the same positive outcome as the customers in your use cases. 

6. Have reliable video conferencing

Even if most of your audience is in the same room as you, video conferencing enables remote participants to get access to critical nonverbal communication elements. For virtual attendees, the quality of your video service will set the tone for your presentation. Partner with a solution that makes it easy for remote participants to join the demo presentation without having to download an app or install software.

7. Share slides & follow up

After you’ve completed the demo keep the conversation going by sharing your slide deck and following up with your audience. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that, if they heard a pitch once, they understand it. Chances are they didn’t get it all the first time so you must tell them again. In your follow up message, thank the audience for their time, reinforce the value your product or service can provide them and give them an actionable next step.

“Presentation time with potential clients is a precious and limited commodity so it’s important to make the most of it.  The more details you know about your prospects before the meeting, the better you can tailor your sales demo to speak to them as individuals. A generic presentation won’t stir up an emotional response.”

— Jeremy Wycherly, Senior Director, Inside Sales at Lifesize

How Lifesize demos products

Face to face.

To save time and travel costs, a face-to-face video conference call is a great option for demo presentations. The human element of face-to-face communication provides a more natural experience and helps you connect with the audience. Lifesize video and audio clarity makes you feel like you are in the same room as your audience and lets you present your business in the best light and make an unrivaled first impression.

Wireless screen sharing

From sharing your laptop screen to playing full-motion videos, Lifesize Share™  makes it remarkably easy to wirelessly present in the meeting room. You don’t have to waste time trying to find and pass along the right dongle or cord. Share your screen in real-time, play a video and control your presentation right from your mobile device or laptop with Lifesize Share.  

Full motion content sharing

No one enjoys sitting through a presentation with pixelated and poor-quality video. Lifesize’s 4K full-motion content sharing ensures that the quality and fine details of the product or service you’re demoing are maintained during your presentation. Prospects feel more confident purchasing a product or service when the presentation visuals are crisp, clear and realistic. The unmatched Lifesize full-motion 4K content sharing and stunning 4K video quality brings your demos to life.

You can have a great product or service but if your demo is not winning your audience’s attention, then you’ve wasted their time and yours. As you gain experience and become more confident doing demo presentations, you will soon approach them as an exciting opportunity to win new business rather than a daunting challenge. Communicating clearly, focusing on the things your audience cares about and using reliable, high quality video presentation tools will greatly improve your chances of closing the deal. Don’t give off the wrong first impression by having a poor connection or pixelated video. Lifesize video conferencing technology helps you put your best foot forward to really wow potential clients with stunning 4K video quality and ultra-high definition full motion content sharing.

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Improving the Video Conferencing Experience in the Era of Remote Work

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past six months, it’s clear that remote work and distributed teams are here to stay, even after the pandemic recedes. While some workers will gradually find their way back to in-person (office or otherwise) workplace settings, this is just the on-ramp to the highway of working from anywhere for many others.

Written by Thomas Maurer • January 14, 2020 • 9:04 am • Hardware , Microsoft , PowerShell , Speaking , Thomas Maurer , Visual Studio , Visual Studio Code , Windows , Windows Server • 9 Comments

How to Create Great Tech Demos and Presentations

I didn’t keep track of the exact number, but I did many presentations at different conferences around the world. Since I am doing a lot of tech presentations and demos, I am always looking at how I can improve and get better. I start to realize that there are a lot of things you need to consider when delivering tech demos during presentations, to make it better for the audience. I started to work on my demos a lot, and I realized that these things also work when you are recording demo videos or screencasts. That is why I came up with the idea to write this blog post with tips and tricks on how you can create great tech demos and presentations.

Create and tell a story, make sure people can see the result 🎬

People have a short attention span, so if you are switching to your tech demo, and in the first couple of seconds, your audience is already lost because they cannot read what is on the screen or they have no context at all, you lost them for good. You need to make sure you create and tell a story, and you show them how to solve a specific challenge. A tech demo is not just good if you can show how you address a particular challenge, but people need to understand it. For example, I have seen many tech demos, that tell you here is the problem, here is the setting to solve it, and done. They didn’t complete the full demo and showed that it is now working. Yes, of course, sometimes showing the setting is enough, but a lot of times you want to show here is the challenge, it is not working now, I do this, and now you can see it is working. This gives attendees a way better experience and understanding of your demo.

Create video recordings of your demos 📽

Live demos are great, but sometimes it is just not possible, or the experience of the attendees isn’t great. For example, if you start a task that takes 5-10 minutes to complete, you don’t want to wait for it to complete as your time is limited in a session. Which leaves you with three options. The first option, you prepare an already finished scenario to jump on like they do in cooking shows. Secondly, you show something else and let the task complete in the background, and jump back to it once it’s done. And the third one, you cut a video before and use your video editing skills to make the waiting time shorter. While option one and two, often work, I realized that jumping away from a specific scenario or using another object which already completed, may confuse people, they lose context and doesn’t give them a great experience. Recording a video can help with that. For example, one of my demos is replicating a virtual machine named VM1, and these can take 30mins to even a couple of hours. I could have prepared a VM2, which would have been already replicated and move on with that one. However, during a lot of presentations, I realized it makes it easier to follow for people if I can use the exact same VM name, during the whole demo.

Creating videos also has an advantage when you run into issues. This can be due to lousy conference Wi-Fi or something just broke out of your control. Even if you plan to do the demo live, it is always great to have a backup, especially if you are doing a demo-heavy presentation, where things build on top of each other.

Resolution and Scaling 💻

You can have the most fabulous demo of all time, but if people can’t see it, it doesn’t matter at all. Rule number one, if you have to ask if people can read it, people can’t read it. So make sure that you are 100% sure that people can see what is going on. My recommendation is, please set your screen resolution to whatever the projector supports. Most of the time, this will be Full HD 1080p (1920×1080) resolution.

Presentation Demo Screen Resolution and Scaling

Early in the days, we didn’t have scaling in Windows, so people were using lower resolutions to make everything appear bigger. Guess what, Windows 10 supports scaling, so I usually use Full HD (1920×1080) and 150% scaling , this makes an excellent size to see what is going on the screen but also makes the picture sharp and not blurry. Most of the applications can handle it, and most of the web portals also work the ways they should. That said, I know that not all applications and scenario scale very well. Depending on what you are showing, you need to decide how you want to present it.

Use ZoomIT, and use it wisely 🔎

One of the most excellent tools for presentations is Sysinternals ZoomIT by Mark Russinovich (not PowerShell this time, sorry Jeffrey 😉). ZoomIT is a screen zoom and annotation tool for technical presentations, and as the name says, it lets you zoom. This helps you not just to make things more readable, but also to highlight a specific part of the screen, to show people where they need to focus on.

ZoomIt is a screen zoom and annotation tool for technical presentations that include application demonstrations. ZoomIt runs unobtrusively in the tray and activates with customizable hotkeys to zoom in on an area of the screen, move around while zoomed, and draw on the zoomed image. I wrote ZoomIt to fit my specific needs and use it in all my presentations. ZoomIt works on all versions of Windows and you can use pen input for ZoomIt drawing on tablet PCs.

While ZoomIT is excellent, you need to know how to use it right. Place the mouse where you want to zoom and then zoom in, don’t move the mouse too much after you have zoomed in, you don’t want people to become sick 😵. As you can see, ZoomIT also allows you to do screen annotations, to mark specific things on the screen. Again, use this feature wisely before you start painting on the screen. The great thing about it, you can also use a pen, like the Surface Pen , to draw on your screen.

Font Size and Editor Light Theme 🔠

Okay, one of the many problems I see with many tech presentations is happening when people show code. Coming back to what I said earlier, if you have to ask the audience if they can read it, they can’t read it, so please use a font size they can easily read. Even in Notepad and Terminal, you can easily zoom these days with CTRL + Mousewheel.

Notepad Zoom

If you are showing code in an editor or even in a web portal, a dark theme makes you look cool. However, it is horrible to read. So please help the audience and use a light theme in your editor like Visual Studio Code or in the Azure portal.

Light Theme Editor

By the way, I am not saying that you only should use light PowerPoint slides. Dark PowerPoint slides can be a very powerful tool if they are used right. However, for editors, it is just very simple and way better to view if you are using a light theme. One of my favorite Visual Studio Code themes to present is the PowerShell ISE theme. This theme gives you a simple and light theme, with great color options for syntax highlighting.

You want to make sure that people in your presentation and during your demonstration are focusing on the right thing and don’t get distracted by any clutter. So before your presentation, make sure you clean up:

Close all unnecessary applications

Especially any messengers like Microsoft Teams or Slack, you don’t want to receive any notifications at all during your presentation (Except you are showing Microsoft Teams demos 😉). By shutting down all these applications, you also make sure that you have enough resources like Memory available.

Turn off notifications

Focus assist

In Windows 10, you have a feature called Focus assist, and this allows you to pause all notifications on your PC.

Hide all icons from your desktop

Hide Desktop Icons

Yes, there is an option for that! Right-click on your desktop -> View -> Show Desktop Icons.

If you are doing a demo using a browser, make sure your browser is also cleaned up, hide your Favorites Bar, and any additional browser extensions, which might take the focus away.

Keep your taskbar clean, you don’t want people to focus on all the icons there and the program you have installed. You want to make sure there is as little distraction as possible.

Hide System Icons and Time

Windows 10 Turn system icons off

This might not always be needed, but if you want to make it cleaner and especially during video recordings, you can also hide the system icons and time. If you are opening the settings app and search for system icons, you can go and hide them.

Full screen

This is a simple one, but if you do a presentation, you don’t want your windows overlapping each other and be confusing, so run your applications in full screen. Exception for this is when you want to show two things in comparison to each other.

Use the Azure Mask browser extension for your Azure demos

If you are doing demos in the Microsoft Azure Portal , you want to have a look at the Azure Mask browser extension . This is a browser extension that will mask GUIDs (such as Subscription IDs), email addresses, keys, and connection strings with a blur. The extension intends to make it easier to do screen recordings without revealing sensitive personal account information that may show up on the screen. It will only run and apply against Azure portal URLs. It’s available in Chrome, Firefox, and also works with the new Microsoft Edge (Chromium) .

Virtual Desktops to switch to your tech demo 💻

I am a huge fan of the Virtual Desktop feature in Windows 10 . This basically gives you unlimited desktops on your Windows 10 PC, which is excellent for productivity. But I am also using Virtual Desktops during presentations, for example, for switching between the PowerPoint deck to a demo. One the first desktop, I keep my PowerPoint presentation in full screen open, and with CONTROL + WINDOWS + ARROW RIGHT/LEFT, I can switch to other desktops where I, for example, already have my demos ready. You can create new Virtual Desktops by pressing WINDOWS + TAB. This makes switching between PowerPoint and demonstrations, less messy.

Virtual Desktop

If you are presenting somewhere, where you can plug in two devices, you can also use the display switch to switch from your presentation machine to your secondary demo machine, which will have a similar effect. However, a lot of smaller events, don’t have that setup. By using the Virtual Desktops feature, you can clean up the process of switching to different technical demonstrations.

Change Desktop Backgrounds and console colors 🎨

Use different Colors

If you do a presentation with multiple systems or consoles, you want to make sure people can follow on which system you are working. For example, if you have two different systems deployed to servers, you want to make sure people can easily identify which server runs which application. For example, you can change the color of the terminal or desktop background of VM1 to blue and the one of VM2 to red. If you are working with Windows, you might also use Sysinternals BgInfo , to write the name of the system on the desktop wallpaper.

The mighty Mouse pointer 🖱

Mouse Pointer

If you want to explain something and point to something on the screen, the mouse cursor is a natural option. However, you can also do a lot of damage by using it wrong. First, make sure people can see the mouse pointer. In Windows 10, you can change the size and color of the mouse pointer, so people can easily identify it on the screen. Next, don’t move it fast and don’t go crazy. Move the mouse cursor slow and don’t try to circle things or jump around the screen with it; people will go nuts.

In many cases, it is better to use a tool like ZoomIT , to annotate on the screen.

Laser pointer in PowerPoint 👉

PowerPoint Laser Pointer

Many people use PowerPoint for their presentations. However, not many people know that PowerPoint can be an excellent presentation tool. It comes with a lot of features people don’t even know about, and with many of them, it is with any tool in the world; if you are using it wrong, it will not help you at all. One of the tools I want to highlight is the laser point feature in PowerPoint. If you are a presenter, you might have these remote presenters with a laser pointer on it, where you can point on a wall or projected screen. However, in many cases, that is not a good idea. Often the laser pointer is too small for people to see it or in some locations, you have multiple projectors, and you can’t point at all of them at once. PowerPoint can help you with that. You can use a simple on-screen laser pointer to highlight parts of your slides. This comes handy when you show a large technical diagram, which we often try to avoid, but in some cases, it is necessary.

Get prepared 🔧

To deliver great demos, you will need to practice them. First of all, you need to make sure that they actually work, but also that the timing is right. No one wants to wait and watch at the screen for five minutes until something has completed. I usually run through the demo at least twice before my presentations, to make sure that the demo also works multiple times. I usually also run through it a couple of minutes or hours before I go on stage. Especially with demos running in the cloud, I want to make sure that they are still working. It is not just about cloud technologies that can change fast; for example, I also saw software and container images expire.

What if something goes wrong? 👻

Even if you did prepare like crazy, there can always something go wrong. Don’t worry, people understand that things can break. As long as you are prepared, handle it the right way and have a backup plan, you will be fine. If something doesn’t work, you can try to troubleshoot it quickly. But don’t spend too much time on it and move on to the next one, because the audience doesn’t want to see you troubleshooting for minutes. In some cases, the audience can’t even see or doesn’t even realize that the demo didn’t work. In that case, don’t point it out, just move on if the demo is not essential to your presentation.

Conclusion to create Tech Demos and Presentations 😎

I hope you enjoyed my tips on how you can create great technical (tech) demonstrations (demos) and presentations. Let me know what your favorite tips and tricks for great tech demos are!

Email address:

About the Author / Thomas Maurer

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9 Replies to “How to Create Great Tech Demos and Presentations”

Thanks bro!

you are welcome :)

Excellent summary, plenty of things I have yet to try out and even consider!

Big thank YOU!

Thank you for some excellent tips. I never thought about dark mode, good one!

Thanks, You’re welcome :)

Thanks for the blog post. I tried to find the Azure Mask browser Chrome Extension, but it wasn’t in the Chrome Web Store. Wonder why it was pulled?

Azure Mask – ⚠ This is currently not available in the Chrome Web Store because of trademark infringement on the name. It has been updated with a name change (az-mask) to comply but has been in a status of “Pending Review” since April 2019. If you know of a way to get this resolved please hit me up ⚠.

Any other extension or tool that can be used?

Bests Regards, Kasam

Great blog post Thomas Thank you

You’re welcome :)

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About Thomas Maurer

My name is Thomas Maurer. I am a Principal Program Manager & Chief Evangelist for Azure Hybrid at Microsoft. I am part of the Azure engineering team (Cloud + AI) and engage with the community and customers around the world. Opinions are my own.

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20 Great Examples of PowerPoint Presentation Design [+ Templates]

Published: August 06, 2024

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.

In this blog post, I’m sharing some of my favorite PowerPoint tips and templates to help you nail your next presentation.

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What makes a good PowerPoint presentation?

Powerpoint design ideas, best powerpoint presentation slides, good examples of powerpoint presentation design.

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In my opinion, a great PowerPoint presentation gets the point across succinctly while using a design that doesn't detract from it.

Here are some of the elements I like to keep in mind when I’m building my own.

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 content you worked so hard on.

A good PowerPoint presentation keeps the focus on your argument by keeping animations and transitions to a minimum. I suggest using them tastefully and sparingly to emphasize a point or bring attention to a certain part of an image.

2. Cohesive Color Palette

I like to refresh my memory on color theory when creating a new PowerPoint presentation.

A cohesive color palette uses complementary and analogous colors to draw the audience’s attention and help emphasize certain aspects at the right time.

Image source

Mesmerize your audience by adding some neon colors and effects to your PowerPoint slides. Adding pops of color to your presentation will create visual interest and keep your audience engaged. 

What I like: Neon will add personality and depth to your presentation and will help the information you're providing stand out and be more memorable. 

2. Use an interesting background image.

Do you have some interesting nature photos from a recent road trip? Or maybe a holiday passed, and you have gorgeous photos to share? If so, consider incorporating them into your PowerPoint. 

What I like: PowerPoints don't have to be stuffy and boring. They can be fun and a unique or interesting background will enhance the experience of your presentation.

3. Or be minimal.

Have you ever heard of K.I.S.S.? Not the band! I mean, Keep It Simple, Sweetheart. If you're worried too many colors or visuals could take attention away from the message of your presentation, consider going minimal. 

Pro tip: Stick to no more than three colors if you're going for a minimalist design in your slides. 

4. Incorporate illustrations.

Illustrations are a great way to highlight or break down a point in your presentation. They can also add a bit of whimsy and fun to keep viewers engaged.

5. Use all caps.

Using all capital letters can draw your audience's eyes to where you need them, helping cement your message in their minds. It can also just be aesthetically pleasing.

Pro tip: If you choose to use all capital letters, use varying fonts so readers can tell which information is important and which are supporting details.

6. Alternate slide layouts

You don't want readers to grow bored with your presentation. So, to retain visual interest, use alternating slide layouts. The example above shows PowerPoint slides alternating between vertical and horizontal layouts.

This keeps things interesting and ensures your presentation isn't monotonous.  

7. Inject a little humor.

Humor is a great way to drive a point home and help people remember the information you're presenting. People remember a good joke, so if you have a funny pun to connect to a concept in a presentation, why not use it in a slide?

Pro tip: Remember you're in a professional setting, so keep your jokes appropriate. If you're worried a joke can get you a meeting with HR, then keep it to yourself. 

8. Use duotones.

Duotones (or gradience) can take the aesthetic of your PowerPoint to new levels. They can provide a calming energy to your presentation and make viewers feel relaxed and eager to stay focused. 

9. Include printed materials.

Let's say you have a PowerPoint you're proud of, but you want to go that extra mile to ensure your audience understands the material. A great way to do this would be to supplement your presentation with printed materials, as such as:

• Pamphlets 
• Printed slides
• Short quizzes on the material

10. Keep it to one chart or graph per slide.

This is both a design example and a warning. Graphs and charts are an excellent way of displaying quantitative data in a digestible format.

However, you should have no more than one graph or chart per slide so your presentation doesn't get too confusing or muddled. 

11. Use a large font.

Just like capital letters, a large font will help your shift your audience's focus to key points in your presentation.

Pro tip: You can combine large fonts and capital letters to boost its effectiveness. 

12. Include videos.

Embedding a video into your PowerPoint can help you expand on a point or effectively break down a complex topic. You can either embed a video from a platform like YouTube or TikTok or use HubSpot's Clip Creator to make your own.

Pro tip: Try to keep videos short, like, under a minute, and don't use more than one or two. 

13. Use GIFs.

GIFs add more visual interest, and they can be a great way to add humor or personal touch to your PowerPoint presentation.

14. Use contrasting colors when comparing two ideas or arguments. 

Contrasting colors can convey the difference between two opposing thoughts or arguments in a way that is visually appealing. 

15. Add a touch of nature.

If you want your presentation to exude a calming energy to your audience, including images of trees, flowers, and natural landscapes can do the trick.

PowerPoint Theme Ideas

Atlas (theme).

Covering a more creative subject for a younger or more energetic audience? I’d recommend using the cover slide design below. Its vibrant red color blocks and fun lines will appeal to your audience.

This simplistic presentation example employs several different colors and font weights, but instead of coming off as disconnected, the varied colors work with one another to create contrast and call out specific concepts.

What I like: The big, bold numbers help set the reader's expectations, as they clearly signify how far along the viewer is in the list of tips.

10. “Pixar's 22 Rules to Phenomenal Storytelling,” Gavin McMahon

This presentation by Gavin McMahon features color in all the right places. While each of the background images boasts a bright, spotlight-like design, all the characters are intentionally blacked out.

What I like: This helps keep the focus on the tips, while still incorporating visuals. Not to mention, it's still easy for me to identify each character without the details. (I found you on slide eight, Nemo.)

11. “Facebook Engagement and Activity Report,” We Are Social

Here's another great example of data visualization in the wild.

What I like: Rather than displaying numbers and statistics straight up, this presentation calls upon interesting, colorful graphs, and charts to present the information in a way that just makes sense.

12. “The GaryVee Content Model,” Gary Vaynerchuk

This wouldn‘t be a true Gary Vaynerchuk presentation if it wasn’t a little loud, am I right?

What I like: Aside from the fact that I love the eye-catching, bright yellow background, Vaynerchuk does a great job of incorporating screenshots on each slide to create a visual tutorial that coincides with the tips. He also does a great job including a visual table of contents that shows your progress as you go .

13. “20 Tweetable Quotes to Inspire Marketing & Design Creative Genius,” IMPACT Branding & Design

We‘ve all seen our fair share of quote-chronicling presentations but that isn’t to say they were all done well. Often the background images are poor quality, the text is too small, or there isn't enough contrast.

Well, this professional presentation from IMPACT Branding & Design suffers from none of said challenges.

What I like: The colorful filters over each background image create just enough contrast for the quotes to stand out.

14. “The Great State of Design,” Stacy Kvernmo

This presentation offers up a lot of information in a way that doesn't feel overwhelming.

What I like: The contrasting colors create visual interest and “pop,” and the comic images (slides 6 through 12) are used to make the information seem less buttoned-up and overwhelming.

15. “Clickbait: A Guide To Writing Un-Ignorable Headlines,” Ethos3

Not going to lie, it was the title that convinced me to click through to this presentation but the awesome design kept me there once I arrived.

What I like: This simple design adheres to a consistent color pattern and leverages bullet points and varied fonts to break up the text nicely.

16. “Digital Transformation in 50 Soundbites,” Julie Dodd

This design highlights a great alternative to the “text-over-image” display we've grown used to seeing.

What I like: By leveraging a split-screen approach to each presentation slide, Julie Dodd was able to serve up a clean, legible quote without sacrificing the power of a strong visual.

17. “Fix Your Really Bad PowerPoint,” Slide Comet

When you‘re creating a PowerPoint about how everyone’s PowerPoints stink, yours had better be terrific. The one above, based on the ebook by Seth Godin, keeps it simple without boring its audience.

What I like: Its clever combinations of fonts, together with consistent color across each slide, ensure you're neither overwhelmed nor unengaged.

18. “How Google Works,” Eric Schmidt

Simple, clever doodles tell the story of Google in a fun and creative way. This presentation reads almost like a storybook, making it easy to move from one slide to the next.

What I like: This uncluttered approach provides viewers with an easy-to-understand explanation of a complicated topic.

19. “What Really Differentiates the Best Content Marketers From The Rest,” Ross Simmonds

Let‘s be honest: These graphics are hard not to love. I especially appreciate the author’s cartoonified self-portrait that closes out the presentation. Well played, Ross Simmonds.

What I like: Rather than employing the same old stock photos, this unique design serves as a refreshing way to present information that's both valuable and fun.

20. “Be A Great Product Leader,” Adam Nash

This presentation by Adam Nash immediately draws attention by putting the company's logo first — a great move if your company is well known.

What I like: He uses popular images, such as ones of Megatron and Pinocchio, to drive his points home. In the same way, you can take advantage of popular images and media to keep your audience engaged.

And if you want more templates and examples, you can download them here .

PowerPoint Presentation Examples for the Best Slide Presentation

Mastering a PowerPoint presentation begins with the design itself.

Get inspired by my ideas above to create a presentation that engages your audience, builds upon your point, and helps you generate leads for your brand.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in March 2013 and has been updated for comprehensiveness. This article was written by a human, but our team uses AI in our editorial process. Check out our full disclosure to learn more about how we use AI.

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20 Ways to Create an Interactive Presentation That Stands Out

Written by: Chloe West

When you’re putting together a presentation, you want it to be engaging. Whether you’re presenting it live or embedding it on your website, you want to keep your audience entertained.

The best way to do that is by creating an interactive presentation that holds audience's attention and even allows them to participate.

Sitting in a boring presentation where the speaker simply talks at their audience can make eyes glaze over and cause the speaker to lose their listener.

Adding interactivity to your presentation is the best way to spice up your speech, engage your audience and stand out from other presenters. The best part is, it doesn't have to be more work!

With these 17 ways to create an interactive presentation, you’ll be sure to grab your audience’s attention and keep them entertained throughout the entire presentation.

Here’s a short selection of 10 easy-to-edit job presentation templates you can edit, share and download with Visme. View more templates below:

• An interactive presentation is a dynamic type of presentation that supports increased engagement and interactions with the audience.
• Try integrating media techniques like video clips, audio narratives, music, and interactive quizzes.
• Involve your audience by polling them, encouraging movement, getting them to ask questions, letting them lead the direction, and asking them to share with a hashtag for social interactions.
• Play with non-linear and other creative transitions, animations, and even props.
• Include animated data visualizations and stories to enrich the interactivity in your presentation.

Before we jump right in, let’s explain what an interactive presentation is

What is an Interactive Presentation

An interactive presentation is a dynamic type of presentation that supports increased engagement and interactions with the audience. It involves using interactive elements to create a more personal and engaging experience with your audience.

Whether you’re doing a live or pre-recorded presentation, there are various interactive tools for presentations and interactive ways to present information. It could be as simple as embedding audio and video in your presentation. Or, it could take the form of using charts, surveys, navigation, transitions, hyperlinks, hotspots and other elements in your presentation.

If you ever wondered how to make a presentation interactive, this is your opportunity to try out a variety of techniques. Implement one or two ideas first and see how it fits with your brand guidelines.

Remember that any interactivity you add to your presentations must make sense with the rest of the content, otherwise, it could be distracting instead of engaging.

If using Monday.com , create and share your presentation and collaborate easily inside your workspace using our account integration. Also, take advantage of our wide range of integrations to boost productivity.

Here’s how to make an interactive presentation

1 Start your interactive presentation with an icebreaker.

The first step is creating a rapport with your audience. You can do this by helping them to get to know you a little better and get to know each other as well.

The way you go about this will depend on the size of your audience. If you’re presenting in a small group setting or workshop, you can easily go around the room and have everyone share a bit about themselves.

However, if you’re speaking with a crowd or at a conference with a larger audience, it would make more sense to simply have your audience introduce themselves to a neighbor or two before you dive in.

You could ask the audience to answer a question out loud or to their neighbor, ask them to prepare a few questions about your topic or a list of things they'd like to learn or put together a fun icebreaker game.

Visualize the icebreaker question on a slide using text animations. Your Visme editor offers a variety of eye-catching movements for your textual content. Choose from options like typewriter, rise up, ease in and more.

Here are just a few icebreaker games you can choose from for your next interactive presentation. Also, read this article on how to start your presentation and 12 ways to keep your audience hooked.

2 Use video clips in a slide or two.

You don’t have to be the only one talking during your presentation. Videos are one of the most effective interactive learning tools for presentations.

Embed a video into one of your slides to switch up your audience’s focus. With Visme's animated presentation software , you can easily embed a YouTube or Vimeo video into your slide for your audience to view on their own or for you to feature during your interactive slideshow. Here's how you can do that.

Simply go to the Media tab in the left sidebar of your Visme editor and click on Insert Video.

Add a video from anywhere, your computer or your phone. Download the Visme iOS app and add videos to your presentations in minutes. Edit your presentation effectively by resizing, placing into shapes, trimming with the timeline editor and selecting playback settings.

Sharing video clips can be a great way to further emphasize your argument by bringing in other opinions or even to just add a break for your audience during longer presentations. You can also share a video of yourself demonstrating how to do something.

If you’re embedding the slideshow on your website, adding a video to a slide or two allows your audience to take a break from reading and jump into a different way of consuming your content.

There are so many other types of content you can embed into your presentation with Visme as well, like quizzes, surveys and more!

3 Add Animated Icons

Create interactive slides with unique touches like animated icons. Using vibrant design elements like beautiful icons that move your audience’s attention to the areas you want them to notice. Also, using icons instead of text offers white space for the viewer to feel a sense of balance on the slide.

Here’s how to do it:

Choose a slide where you’d like to add an animated icon. In terms of options, you have two; use the native, animated icons or animate static icons with the animation tools.

On the left toolbar, click on graphics and select the icons you want. The animated ones are at the bottom next to the animated illustrations, customizable characters, avatars and 3D arrows.

Place the icon and click on the Animate button on the top right. Select the style of animation and duration for each icon and ensure everything is balanced and not overdone. You might not need more than one or two repetitions for each icon.

4 Add Pop-Ups with Extra Info

A great way to inspire your audience to interact with your presentation is to add popups with extra info using hotspots. This is how you can do it.

Click on a text, shape or object you’d like to add a popup and hotspot to and click on the Actions button on the top right. Add an action and choose the function; it can be another slide, or a popup that you can design from scratch.

Add visual hotspots as markers for the audience to know there is something special going on.

Watch this video to learn how to create interactive pop up effects in Visme

Make your popups more interesting by using AI-generated graphics prompted by your visual brand guidelines.

5 Make your interactive presentation non-linear.

Not every slideshow you create needs to simply flow from slide to slide. Get creative with it and see if it makes sense to add in a non-linear flow. So, what exactly is a non-linear presentation?

When you create links between slides so you can click around different areas of your presentation, you’re putting together a non-linear presentation.

You’re not going from slide one to slide two to slide three, and so on. Instead, you’re creating an interactive way for you and your audience to jump around your presentation.

You can create a table of contents page and link it to the slides that start each section. If your presentation is embedded, this allows your audience to navigate in their own preferred order.

It also gives your presentation a different edge from the regular flow, and can keep readers intrigued about what’s coming next.

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6 Have a Q&A session.

Want to get the audience involved? Ask them questions! This is a must-have interactive tool for presentations.

It’s also one of the most popular ideas for interactive presentations.

While many presenters always plan to host a Q&A at the end of their presentation for the audience to ask questions , it can go both ways.

You can easily put together a few slides where you’re asking your audience questions throughout your presentation. Before you move onto the next section, ask your listeners what they think first.

Don’t make it intimidating, like a pop quiz. A simple “What do you think about..?” can work wonders.

You can also take several breaks throughout your presentation to give the audience a chance to ask you questions. If you had them write down a few things they want to make sure they learn from you at the beginning of the presentation, this is a great time to ask.

7 Create an interactive quiz.

Take it a step further and actually create a quiz in your interactive presentation. This engaging presentation idea works well for both live and embedded presentations.

In Visme, you can link elements in your slide together so that one element appears when another element is clicked. So ask your audience a question, gather their answers and then click to expose the correct answer.

If you’re embedding the presentation, make sure you include a button that says something like “Click to see if you’re right!” so that your viewer knows they’re able to interact with the slide.

While you don’t necessarily want to use this as a way to sneakily check if your audience has been paying attention, it can be a fun way to gauge expertise in your audience and understand how much information you should cover.

Struggling to generate content for your quiz? Use Visme’s AI writer to generate high-quality content for your presentation, quiz or other aspects of your presentation.

8 Add a Flipbook Effect

Add another dose of interactivity for the audience’s viewing experience by using Visme’s flipbook effect . Mixing a physical “flipping” action with a digital document or presentation makes it easy for the audience to swipe from slide to slide. It’ll also create an emotional association with magazines and books, these are generally positive associations.

All presentations made with Visme, when shared via a live Visme link, will be viewable as a flipbook. You can turn the option and off in the sharing settings.

Flipbook isn’t just available for presentations, any document and even whiteboard can be shared as a digital flipbook. All your audience has to do is swipe and the slides/pages will flip like a magazine.

Like Kimberly Barrett, Wellbeing Consultant at Ameritas says, “You can do everything within Visme, you don’t have to use multiple tools to get something completed and delivered. Everything is just in one place, and it’s all-encompassing.”

9 Bring props along to your interactive presentation.

Want to really grab your audience’s attention? Want to really grab your audience’s attention? Props are also useful interactive tools for presentations.

Bringing props along with you to help you demonstrate and visually tell your story can be a great way to keep people watching and listening.

The first thing to keep in mind when deciding which props to help convey your story is that they need to be relevant. Don’t bring random props that are interesting but are a huge stretch to fit in with your content.

Instead, bring props that intrigue your audience but still make sense with the information you’re sharing.

Here’s a great example of a prop that definitely secured the audience’s full attention. Bill Gates released a swarm of live mosquitos into the audience during his TED Talk on Mosquitos, Malaria and Education.

Sanitary? Maybe not. Attention getting? You bet.

10 Tell your audience a story.

One of the most interactive ways to present information is storytelling. It’s an undeniable strategy for drawing your audience into your presentation. Even if your topic covers a lot of data, facts and statistics, your speech doesn’t have to be dry.

There are many different ways to incorporate stories into your presentation effectively.

A good story helps to create an immersive effect , bringing your audience in and making them feel like they’re a part of your presentation. It taps into their emotions, causing them to hang onto your words, making your presentation much more memorable in the long run.

Here's a great example of a presentation filled with data that still hooks the audience in with great storytelling.

11 Add an audio narrative.

You don’t have to speak the entire time. Much like videos, audio and sounds are helpful interactive tools for presentations.

In fact, sometimes, it can be nice to give yourself a break and pre-record some of your slides. This is also a great strategy to include for embedded presentations.

With Visme’s presentation maker , you are able to upload audio files that play in your slideshow. You can also record your own audio directly inside the Visme editor.

Some Visme users even create pre-recorded webinars using the software.

Adding audio into an embedded slideshow can be a great way to create an interactive presentation experience. You can add music or sound effects to slides to make them stand out. Or you can add an audio narrative that talks about your slide content in even more depth than your slide design allows.

12 Poll your audience.

Looking for other activities for presentations to keep your audience engaged?  Get your audience involved in your presentation by polling them. Give them multiple choice options to see which one is the most popular. Ask them to raise hands.

You can even use a polling software and have your audience input their answers via their smartphone and watch the results come in live on your screen.

Have fun with it. Ask your audience about their favorite football team, which ice cream flavor they’d choose between vanilla and chocolate and more. This is a great way to do icebreakers, as well as break up your presentation with some mindless fun.

Of course, you can also have polls relevant to your presentation topic . Consider all of the ways you can use a poll in your next interactive presentation.

13  Include discussion questions.

If you’re still searching for how to make a PowerPoint presentation interactive , consider adding discussion questions in. You can break your audience into small groups to discuss your questions or simply have them discuss it briefly with their neighbor.

Seminar presentations are the perfect setting for discussion questions, and this can also work well if you’re putting on a presentation to a group of people that are sitting at tables.

All you need to do is put a discussion question up on the board and ask your audience to go around their table with their answers. This creates an interactive environment with very little effort on your part.

14  Encourage movement in your audience.

Another way to create an interactive environment is by encouraging movement within your audience.

This can be as simple as taking an intermission during a longer presentation or giving your audience a few minutes to get up and stretch their legs.

Other methods include asking your audience yes or no questions and having them answer by raising their hands or standing up, having your audience move to different seats and introduce themselves to new neighbors, or calling people up on stage to participate.

15  Get your audience asking questions.

As I mentioned earlier in this post, having your audience take time at the beginning of your presentation to list out their questions on your topic is a great idea.

It’s a proven technique to make your PowerPoint presentation interactive.  

Several times throughout your presentation, take a pause to ask for audience questions. Allow your listeners to ask questions about the slides you’ve already covered and the ones that may be coming up.

Getting your audience to ask questions, and letting them know that there will be several opportunities to do so, is a great way to ensure they continue to pay attention, take notes and write down potential questions throughout. Make sure you set some time aside at the end of your presentation for the rest of their questions.

Worried that people won’t speak up? Have a few allies in your audience that start the question asking.

No, this is not sneaky or shady. Sometimes people need a bit of encouragement, and asking a friend that you know will be attending to start off the questions can help.

16  Let your audience decide the direction.

Again, your presentation doesn’t have to be linear. You can have a slide setup with your four (or however many you have) main points and ask your audience which one they want to hear first, second and so on.

This makes it fun for the audience because they actually get to participate in the order of your presentation.

While this means you need to be extra prepared for whatever route your presentation may take, it creates a fun, interactive setting that your audience will remember for years to come.

Try a unique presentation structure like this, or one of these seven that your audience is sure to love.

17  Share a hashtag for social interaction.

If you’re speaking at an event that already has a branded hashtag, encourage your audience to tweet about your presentation using that hashtag. If you’re hosting a standalone presentation, come up with your own hashtag for your audience to use.

Your viewers can then share tidbits from your presentation as well as use the hashtag to ask questions for you to monitor and answer throughout.

Not only does this help to get your audience engaged, but it even helps to get their audiences engaged, learning about who you are, and interested in your content and presentation.

18  Add music to your interactive presentation slides.

Create a different ambiance by adding background music to your slides. Or get your audience pumped for new and exciting information with a pop song transition.

With Visme, you can easily upload audio files, including music clips, so that you can create an interactive experience for your audience. Your entire presentation doesn’t have to be centered around the sound of your voice. Adding in a music clip is a great way to refocus your audience on your content.

Plus, it can be a nice added touch in an embedded presentation.

19  Play with transitions and animations.

There are so many different ways to animate your slides , each more exciting than the next. You can animate different elements in your slides, like in the animated slideshow below.

You can also create seamless transitions between your slides by having each one of your elements slide in on its own, like in the presentation example below. To see the effect in action, click on the arrow buttons to transition to the next slide.

You can even add animated graphs and charts to your presentation slides . Animation should be fun, and toying with different ideas can make for great interactivity.

This is actually a big mistake that most people make while creating a presentation. If you're using a software like PowerPoint, you might go overboard with all the different options you have. Use a tool like Visme so you can access handpicked, proven animation and transition styles, like in the examples shown above.

Just remember to be consistent with your animations and transitions. Keep the same look and feel throughout your entire presentation rather than a million different animation types.

20  Use data visualization in your interactive presentation.

Last, but certainly not least, use data visualization to showcase your information in an engaging and easy-to-understand format.

Whether you’re a data expert, business leader, or trainer, interactive data visualization is a staple. It’s one of the most interactive ways to present information, especially when detailing with figures and statistics.

Data visualization can be anything from a chart or graph that visually represent actual statistics and numbers to an icon or graphic that represents words.

Visualizing your points can be a great way to argue your point, and creating charts, graphs and other figures helps your audience digest your content that much quicker and more easily.

Plus, Visme offers tons of ways to visualize data within your presentation slides.

Choose from one of our many data visualization tools, such as animated charts , graphs and data widgets, to start visualizing your facts and figures in a more interactive format.

Once you’re satisfied with how your presentation looks, you can share it online using a live link or download it in multiple formats, such as PPTX, PDF, PNG, JPG, MP4 and more. Also you track the performance (views, unique visits, average time spent and completion) of your presentation using Visme analytics .

Interactive Presentation FAQs

Q. why is interactive content better.

Interactive content is more effective because it grabs attention and provides an engaging and immersive experience that keeps users hooked on your content. This attribute makes it a brilliant strategy for educating your audience, increasing audience participation, boosting engagement, and improving their overall learning experience.

According to a DemandGen report , up to 90% of marketers admit interactive is effective in educating buyers but other marketers use it for lead generation (58%), brand awareness (57%) and conversion (49%).

Q. What Is the Best Interactive Presentation Tool?

There are many interactive presentation tools out there. Visme is the best, primarily because it offers a user-friendly interface, a full suite of animation and interactive tools, multiple customization options, an extensive library of templates and much more.

You can access animated 2D and 3D graphics, icons, illustrations and special effects that level up your visual content, as well as, animated enter and exit effects for your text and other design elements.

In addition, you can create a clickable menu or interactive table of contents, ink slides, pages or content blocks to objects on your canvas, and create hover effects or clickable pop-ups that reveal information when users take action.

The best part? Visme offers a variety of interactive templates and ready-to-use graphics that help users save time and create high-quality presentations quickly.

Q. Which Type of Presentation Is the Most Interactive?

When it comes to interactive presentations, there are several types that can be quite effective.

However, one of the most interactive types of presentations is one that involves the audience directly in the discussion and allows for active participation.

This can be achieved by using interactive presentation examples and tools such as videos, live polls, quizzes, Q&A sessions, interactive games, and hands-on activities. By engaging with the audience in this way, presenters can create a memorable experience that not only educates but also entertains.

Q. How Do I Make My Presentation Stand Out?

There are a few things you can do to make your presentation more memorable.

First, make sure you have a clear and concise message you want to convey to your audience. This will help you stay focused and avoid getting sidetracked during your presentation.

Next, use visuals like images, graphs, and charts to help illustrate your points and break up the text on your slides. Don't be afraid to use humor or storytelling as well, as these can help engage your audience and make your presentation more entertaining.

You can also consider adding animations and interactive elements to your presentation to make it more engaging. Interactive elements, such as quizzes, polls, or games, can also help to engage your audience and keep them interested in what you're saying.

Animations can be used to bring your content to life and keep your audience's attention focused on the screen. For example, you can use animations to highlight key points or to add a bit of visual interest to your slides.

Finally, practice your delivery and try to be confident and enthusiastic when you present. This will help you connect with your audience and leave a lasting impression.

Q. Are Interactive Presentations More Effective?

Interactive presentations can be more effective than traditional, static presentations because they engage the audience and keep them interested throughout the presentation.

When the audience is hooked, they become active learners and are more likely to retain the information.

Interactive presentations can also be customized to meet the specific needs and interests of the audience, making them more relevant and impactful.

Overall, incorporating interactive elements into a presentation can help to create a more dynamic and memorable experience for the audience.

Q. Is an Interactive Presentation Different From Interactive Content?

Yes, an interactive presentation and interactive content are two different things.

An interactive presentation is a type of content that conveys engaging information using multimedia elements such as videos, animations, and interactive graphics.

Interactive content, on the other hand, refers to any type of content—such as quizzes, polls, and games— that requires your audience to participate actively rather than consume the information passively.

Visme: The Best Interactive Presentation Software

Before now, you were probably thinking of which option you would use for your presentation to engage your audience. Before now, you were probably thinking of which option you will use for your presentation to engage your audience or how to make presentations interactive.

So now you see? Your next presentation doesn’t have to be boring and predictable. By incorporating these interactive presentation ideas , your audience will be engaged and their phones will be put away.

Visme offers tons of interactivity features right within our presentation software . Sign up and create a free account today to start trying them out. And if you’re running out of time, you can use AI Presentation Maker to create your presentation in minutes.

Beyond presentations, Visme offers an all-in-one visual content platform. You can use our infinite online whiteboard to brainstorm and build projects collaboratively, create marketing material, schedule and share it on social media right from the editor and access tons of design elements and tools to create powerful content.

Try Visme today and make your presentations interactive, entertaining and successful.

Did you find this article helpful? Which interactive presentation feature is your favorite? Let us know your thoughts and questions in the comments below!

Put together beautiful interactive presentations with Visme

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About the Author

Chloe West is the content marketing manager at Visme. Her experience in digital marketing includes everything from social media, blogging, email marketing to graphic design, strategy creation and implementation, and more. During her spare time, she enjoys exploring her home city of Charleston with her son.

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