Stop using slide titles: why basic titles are bad

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Project Overview. Company Revenue. Q4 Outlook. Next steps.

You might recognize these phrases from the top of a slide in nearly every presentation you’ve ever seen.?

And they are bad. Every time.

With just a small tweak to your approach, you can break out of the sad and ineffective world of standard slide titles and explore the wide open possibilities of story-driven headlines.?

Titles vs. Headlines: what’s the difference?

Before we get into why traditional titles aren’t the most effective option, let’s get on the same page about the topic itself.

When we say titles, we’re talking about the larger/bolded line of text that appears at the top of a slide. They are typically called titles because that’s how PowerPoint labels them and prompts the user.

But beyond just the location, for our purposes we’re defining a Title as “simple text that describes the type of content that’s on a slide.”

Examples of titles:

• Quarterly Revenue
• Results
• Next steps

If you’ve sat through any number of presentations, you’ve probably seen these exact titles in use. You can often see the same style of title anywhere from a student’s first presentation all the way up to work presented by C-level execs.

In contrast, a Headline is more akin to what you see in a newspaper or at the top of an advertisement: it’s bolder, with more personality, and is intended to grab attention.

Examples of headlines:

• Our quarterly revenue exceeded estimates
• We saw mixed results from our launch
• How we’ll win Q2

We’ll go into more detail about the difference and why it matters below. But the difference is clear even in these brief examples.?

A title simply describes what content is on a slide. A headline supports or adds to it.

Titles don’t add value for your audience

Because so many presenters have defaulted to using simple descriptive text in this section over the years, it’s become common to rely on the “titles” approach.

And we understand why. If you aren’t comfortable with writing, it’s a lot easier to just tell people what’s on the slide than it is to come up with an original line that draws the audience into the content.

But a PowerPoint slide is much like a slide in a microscope in that it puts intense focus on one thing. With that level of attention, you need to work to ensure that your slides are doing everything they can to have your message heard clearly.

At best, a title is redundant of the content on your slide. If your content is even halfway thought out, it should be clear enough that a descriptive title simply isn’t necessary. And at worst, a descriptive title is distracting, in the sense that it’s drawing attention away from the content that actually matters.

If you want to make the most of your slides, start writing headlines instead of titles. Here’s how you can do it, even if you aren’t a writer.

Titles tell you what you see – headlines tell a story

Descriptive titles just tell the audience what is on the slide, but nothing about why they are seeing that content.

So as you are beginning to use a headline style for your slides, look for ways to make your headline communicate the reason that slide is important.?

Here’s an example:

On the left, you can see a standard title. Pretty dull.

On the right, you can see that we updated the headline to add additional context and information, and without adding a ton of extra words.?

In this case, the audience already understands several key points before the presenter even begins talking to the slide. It’s a much more rich and nuanced way to communicate the content on the slide.

This approach also adds context. Now the audience knows what was happening before, and has a sense of how this information matters relative to the bigger picture.

If you apply this approach to an entire presentation, the difference becomes even more clear.?

With titles, you have a series of individual slides that may be telling a larger story, but it requires the audience to figure that out on their own. Headlines allow you to highlight the elements of a story – intro, body, conclusion, narrative tension, exposition, etc. – and weave them together to create something that works as a unified whole.

Focus on benefits

Another way to elevate your slides above the descriptive level is to focus on showcasing a benefit.

It can be daunting to craft a creative but clear headline for a slide that also works with all the other slides to tell a story. So don’t get caught up in overthinking how tightly everything is tied together, or whether your headlines are “creative” enough. Instead, try to find a benefit to highlight in your headline, something that explains how your content will help the audience or drive change.

Here’s an example of what we mean.

On the left, we have a basic descriptive title. It tells you what the presenter is talking about, but not why you should care.

On the right, we are still introducing the product, but we’re surfacing the key benefit that it offers to the audience: in this case, the fact that it can empower retail employees to delight shoppers with technology experiences.

Now, instead of your audience simply knowing what you’re telling them about, you are explaining why it matters to them.

Conclusion

Titles are an easy thing to fall back on for a good reason: they don’t require you to think.?

But we feel pretty comfortable saying that if you aren’t thinking deeply about your content, you’re doing it wrong. And if you are thinking deeply about your content, you definitely want to make sure that your hard work pays off in the form of clear messaging and an engaged audience.

With a little guidance, anyone can write strong headlines for a presentation, and the difference will be clear immediately.

Want more tips and advice on better business communication? The presentation experts at VerdanaBold are here to help. We offer presentation design and storytelling services, corporate presentation training, and a huge library of free educational content that’s always being updated. Contact us to learn more about how better presentations can elevate your business communications!