If you find that your presentations are not quite hitting home — perhaps failing to fully engage the audience — visual storytelling is an effective way to make them more engaging and, as a result, more persuasive. It lets you draw the audience in and make a far bigger impression on them.
Many studies have shown that a well-crafted story is more memorable and persuasive, so it's no surprise that visual storytelling is a powerful tool when delivering business presentations. It helps the audience engage on a deeper level and leaves a far greater impression on the listeners.
Visual storytelling is a relatively new concept in the world of business presentations and is not widely understood. For years, simple slideshows have accompanied presentations, but these often lack true visual engagement — large chunks of text with a few graphics and basic animations to liven things up.
When putting together a presentation you no doubt have a narrative running through it — and that is the story. It captures the audience's attention and helps them connect to your key points and the message you're conveying. It's essential the story be told in a way the audience can relate to.
Visual storytelling takes that narrative to the next level by adding visuals that support the story — it can be as simple as adding notes to an image. Avoid overloading any one picture with colour, activity, or multiple types of content. Stories develop as they're told, and your visuals should too, relaxing complicated concepts into easy-to-understand pieces.
Research has found that people recall information far better when it's accompanied by visuals. Studies show people remember around 80% of what they see and do, 20% of what they read, and just 10% of what they hear. A text-heavy, old-style presentation leaves an audience having engaged very little and remembering even less.
It's a slippery slope when using content to present your ideas — don't overload slides with images or text. Simple is almost always better. Convey the relevant information as succinctly as possible so your message gets across quickly and sticks.
If your message is technical, get it across by abstracting the story and emphasising the messages, choosing the right layout and composition, or combining simple, relevant pictures. Icons and infographics work wonders. If a slide gets too cluttered, break it into a few more — better to run a minute over than lose your most critical information.
The extra work required to incorporate visual storytelling is never wasted. You'll have a far better chance of your audience fully engaging with the topic, enjoying themselves, and leaving having retained all the important information.
90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, processed 60,000 times faster than text. A picture really is worth at least a thousand words.