7 Ways to Structure Your Presentation to Keep Your Audience Wanting More (At a Glance)

The most successful and memorable presentations have one thing in common.

They all have a story to tell.

No matter how many facts or charts need to be presented, incorporating stories into a presentation will keep your audience focused and intrigued. Using stories to support data is a well-known technique in all aspects of public speaking, from motivational talks to in-company sales pitches.

In this guide, we will look at 7 ways to structure your presentations using storytelling techniques to keep your audience engaged until the very end. Look closely at each one to see which fits your presentation’s purpose best.

Planning Your Presentation Structure: Like Building a Lego Model

Is it easier to separate the correct pieces before you start building? Or is it better to search in a big bucket with mixed parts for every new piece you need?

We’re pretty sure you will pick the first option. In the beginning, it might seem like this option would take longer, but the opposite is true.

The first step to a successful presentation structure is to brainstorm your ideas and combine them into a rough draft. But first, consider the message you want to relay to your audience.

The Message

What is the message you want to convey with your presentation?

A good starting point is to decide if it will be informative, entertaining, inspiring or persuasive.

In a business setting, you might want your presentation to do two of these things: inform and persuade. If you are a mindset coach for companies, then you might want to entertain and inspire.

The main message should be easy to grasp from the title on your first slide. Think of an appropriate way to word what you want to give your audience in one or two sentences. This can of course be changed later, but having a preliminary title will help get your ideas in order for what comes next.

Once you know which direction your presentation will take, it’s time to jot all your ideas down on paper to create an outline and rough draft of all the points you will cover.

7 Ways to Structure Your Presentation

Now that the brainstorming and rough draft are out of the way, it’s time to start structuring your presentation. This is the moment when we introduce the storytelling aspect into the equation. All the information you have gathered and organized in your rough draft now needs some attitude to really get your message across.

We are going to look at 7 different styles of storytelling structures that work great for presentations. They all have a different style of delivery and cadence. Choosing which one works for your presentation will depend on your message and on who your audience is.

Fact and Story

The first structure we will look at is Fact and Story. The premise is that the presentation moves back and forth between facts and stories. Presentation guru Nancy Duarte wrote about this presentation structure in her book “Resonate.” She suggests that mixing storytelling with the relay of facts can help your audience stay interested until the end of your presentation.

According to Duarte, this type of structure should start off with an initial setting of the present reality: the “what is.” From there, an invitation to adventure is presented and the first instance of “what could be” is told as a story to illustrate how the initials facts can be improved.

This comparison of presenting the facts as what they are at the present moment with stories that show how things could be improved is what keeps your audience interested and waiting for more.

The conclusion should end at a high point, considerably higher than where it began. The audience should feel like they learned something and, at the same time, inspired to change.

This structure maintains a level of suspense and excitement, perfect for presentations that need to inspire AND inform.

This TED talk by David McCandless about the The Beauty of Data Visualization is a perfect example of the Fact and Story structure. He presents a collection of data visualizations which he created himself, along with a story of why he chose each particular set of data.

The topics he chose were extremely relevant to our present day and the audience related to all of them. The personal stories added to the intrigue and the audience left feeling like data visualizations are not only beautiful but also quite important.

The Explanation

According to Gavin McMahon, co-founder of fassforward Consulting Group, the presentation structured labeled as The Explanation is meant to teach new insights and abilities. Its main purpose is to inform about a process or plan to either fix a problem or learn something new. A good way to incorporate storytelling into the structure is to show the progression of the facts along with the progression of a story.

The presentation progresses in an upward motion following these steps:

1. The Lay of the Land shows how things stand right now, what the destination is and how you plan to get there. The point is to get the audience excited and on board as quickly as possible by showing them the entire process straight up. Tell a story that relates directly to the introduction. Better yet, start with a story.
2. The Roadmap is a visual map of how you will get to the final destination and reach the resolution. Set the audience on the right track.
3. The First Step begins the adventure to get where you want to go.
4. The Next Steps is the middle section of the presentation, where all the steps are laid out one by one.
5. Almost there is the catharsis where you look back at how much has changed and progressed since the first step.
6. The Arrival is the celebration of the end of the journey. The audience should feel like they have learned something new and gained new knowledge.

The Explanation structure can be used for presentations by consultants that want to teach new ways of doing things inside a company or department. It could also perfectly fit in a sales meeting where a presenter can explain their process of a masterful sales plan.

This TED talk by Amy Cuddy about how your body language shapes who you are is a great example of an Explanation structure. She tells us about her experiment on power poses and how they can affect the outcome of a difficult situation. The presentation starts off with a discussion on the natural animal and human condition of power and ends with a personal invitation to change your life with a 2-minute practice of power posing.

If you are a lover of the show “Grey’s Anatomy,” this is the idea behind the power pose that the neurosurgeons do before a big procedure.

The Pitch

As you know, a pitch in the business sense is when a presenter uses the power of a presentation or speech to convince the audience of something he/she believes will improve a system or solve a problem, according to Gavin McMahon, co-founder of fassforward Consulting Group.

The Pitch presentation structure is like a climb uphill that takes you over a hurdle and on to a positive resolution. The storytelling technique in The Pitch is used to show how the presenter’s idea can really improve a situation. By using a real and relatable story, the pitch makes more sense and feels more important.

1. The Wind Up is a quick summary of what’s going on right now to presents the facts in a way that is easy to grasp and relatable to the audience.
2. The Hurdle presents the problem that needs to be solved. Relay the problem with a story so that the emphasis is doubled.
3. The Vision presents a glimpse into the main idea on how the problem can be solved.
4. The Options is the moment when two different options are laid out as possibilities to solve the initial problem. The idea is to give an average option first, followed by a great option second. If there have already been tests and experiments to prove these facts, then these are the story.
5. The Close is the point where the ideal option is presented as the best and only option.
6. The Fine Print tells the audience exactly how the problem will be solved, the steps that need to be taken and the tasks to be resolved.
7. The Hook is the uplifting conclusion to the presentation which relays an added bonus to the solution of the problem.

Use The Pitch presentation structure when you want to convince someone that your idea is the best for their problem. This structure also works when a new startup is looking for new funding or sponsorship opportunities.

This TED talk by Enric Sala about how to turn the high seas into the world’s largest natural reserve is a great example of a Pitch structure. He starts off with a story of how a group of fishermen revived an area of the ocean by stopping all the fishing there and turning it into a natural reserve.

Ten years later, that piece of ocean makes more money from scuba diving tourism than it ever did from fishing. He continues to talk about the same problem at a larger scale, the diminishing supply of fish and the destruction of the oceans. His pitch to solve the impending problem is to turn the high seas into a natural reserve. He finishes by telling the audience that the plan is being pitched to the UN and that every individual can help their country abide by the new agreement if it goes through.

To read about the other four ways to structure your presentation, visit the original version of this post. For more engaging and helpful content, visit Visme’s Visual Learning Center.