Content is Key

Good content is the key to success. And not only in online marketing, but also in presentations. The winged sentence "content is key", however, is often misunderstood. Because here it does not concern quantity, but around quality!

Who prepares a presentation, would like to mediate something to its public. It often happens that as much information as possible is stuffed into the presentation. Finally one would like to use its time well and accommodate as much as possible of its knowledge, its products or services. Is it basically comprehensible, but is it also the best way to convey your message?

Not guaranteed! Because until it's finally the turn of the listeners to see the interesting part, they've already switched to the "pull-through" mode. They digress mentally and are probably already on their next working day, with the children, in the yoga studio or on their eagerly awaited summer holiday. The simple reason? You are overwhelmed. And that from the flood of information presented.

The jam Paradoxon

The jam Paradoxon comes into play here! One could also call it the "Who has the choice, has the agony" phenomenon. Thus Sheena Iyengar & Mark Lepper (2000) found out in an experiment that a particularly large selection of offered jam samples drastically reduces the customers' desire to buy. The fear of making a wrong decision increases immediately with a larger selection and the customer prefers not to make a purchase.

This is how tasting stations were set up in a Californian delicatessen where customers could taste jams. Once, six different varieties were presented to the passing customers for tasting, once twenty-four. Of the customers who strolled past the table with the XL selection, sixty percent tried at least one variety, but only two percent bought a glass. The small selection attracted only forty percent of potential customers, but in the end twelve percent bought a glass of jam.

The same applies to the audience at a presentation. If it is bombarded with an enormous amount of numbers, data and facts, it is simply overwhelmed with the abundance of information. If, on the other hand, you serve your audience small, fine, selected snacks, they can be easily digested and recorded. In other words: Decide on the absolutely most important content for your presentation and forget the rest!

The right content

How do you find the right Präsi content now? In order to be clear about the optimal content, you should definitely put yourself in your audience's shoes and ask yourself the following questions:

• What is the occasion and what is the topic of the presentation?
• What is the goal of the presentation?
• What information should reach the audience at the end?
• What is the audience's prior knowledge?
• What are the audience's wishes, problems and interests?
• Wherein is the benefit of the presentation for the participants?
• What time limits are available for the presentation?

The sum of these answers finally results in the content of your presentation!

By the way, the optimal content also requires the right pictures! Why visualizations are almost as important as content and how to find the perfect pictures, we will tell you HERE!

Further tips for successful presentations can be found HERE!

Literature: Iyengar, Sheena & Lepper, Mark (2000). When choice is demotivating: Can one desire too much of a good thing? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 995-1006. (Stangl, 2019).