storytelling tools powerpoint presentation

Storytelling in presentations: Creating compelling content

• Written by: Hannah Harper
• Categories: Sales messaging , Visual communication
• Comments: 1

The Great Gatsby , To Kill a Mockingbird , Star Wars – epic stories that we go back to time and time again. Whether they’re in books, on TV, in films, or even on a podcast, we devour them and are still hungry for more. Compare that to the last presentation you saw. Did it have the classic logo slide? Or how about the one that shows you where all the offices are? Were there walls of text that you needed a telescope to read? Being such story-driven creatures, it’s hard to understand why we don’t imbibe storytelling in all aspects of our lives – work included – presentations included. It’s a mystery. But over the course of this article I hope to get to the bottom of it. We’ll delve into what makes stories so impactful for humans, and then look at how you can include storytelling in presentations to make them engaging, persuasive stories that leave your audiences clamouring to sign on the dotted line.

How to use this article

Much like a great story, we’ve got a great beginning, a compelling middle, and a killer ending, but we realise you might want to skip to the last page to find out who did it. Use the links below to navigate to your favourite section, or start at the very beginning – we’ve heard it’s a very good place to start.

The science of storytelling

Using storytelling to boost engagement and inclusion, storytelling: the persuasive tool, how storytelling makes things more memorable, how to include storytelling in presentations, impactful presentation openings, making your data memorable, telling a story with graphs and charts, crafting a compelling call-to-action.

Humans have been telling stories for a long time, but did you know stories engage us, they persuade us, and they make things more memorable? You probably did – I mean whether it’s Jane Eyre or Air Force One stories have power. But let’s pop the hood and figure out how this works in practice, and then see how we can apply it to our presentations.

Storytelling is a great way to stimulate engagement in your audiences and the reason for that comes down to a chemical in the brain called oxytocin. According to Paul Zak , whose lab is responsible for the discovery and much of the research to do with oxytocin, we produce the chemical when ‘we are trusted or shown a kindness’. It helps us to cooperate with others by heightening the empathy we feel.

Zak and his team did a few interesting experiments with oxytocin. In one they found that character-driven stories cause oxytocin to be produced, which in turn increased the subject’s willingness to help others. In another , they found that character-driven footage (that crucially had no narrative) did not generate the same chemical or emotional response in subjects.

Zak’s conclusion is that in order to generate this empathetic response in us, a story must grab our attention by developing tension. It’s that tension that audiences tap into and that leads them to empathise with the characters. And what do we know about stories that begin with tension? Well they’re like every great and engaging story out there – all that employ ‘the dramatic arc’ : the introduction is followed by a rise in tension, there’s a climax, and it all falls away to an ending.

It’s easier than you might think to apply the dramatic arc to your presentations. Instead of starting your presentation with a list of where your offices are, start by painting a picture of the challenges your audience faces. Immediately you introduce the tension that opens the door for your audience to get emotionally involved in your story. More on exactly how to do that later.

‘These aren’t the droids you’re looking for’, instead can I interest you in this great solution we’re offering at a fraction of the price? Wouldn’t it be great if Jedi mind tricks worked in the real world!? Sadly, the force is not with me. But there is a different tool I can use to persuade prospects instead: that’s right, a good story.

Storytelling has huge persuasive powers, as demonstrated by a couple of really interesting studies. Penn State College of Medicine found that medical students were much more sympathetic and open to helping dementia patients after taking part in an exercise whereby the patient told stories based on images they had been given. The University of Massachusetts Medical School monitored two sets of patients at risk of high blood pressure . One set was treated as per the normal method, the other set watched three videos that presented the stories of real patients dealing with high blood pressure. At the end of the study, it was the second group that demonstrated better blood pressure results.

Both of these examples show that our response to certain situations can be affected by storytelling. Stories persuade us out of indifference, they involve more of our brain and make us connect on a deeper level. According to the team over at Pressboard when we read something dry and fact-based the only part of our brain engaged is our language processing centres. But stories activate so many more parts in our brain – the sensory cortex, the motor cortex, the hippocampus – it’s all fair game when you’re telling a story.

We all want to be remembered, don’t we – whether that’s from an Oscar-winning performance many years from now, or just from a highly competitive pitch when the shortlist is being drawn up. But how do we make our content memorable? Well, it could be argued that you can be very memorable with an audacious pitch – just read about this situation our director Joby encountered – so maybe a better question is how can you make your content both memorable and relevant?

We’ve all done the trick where we have to remember a list of items, first by just trying to remember them in order, then by turning them into characters on a journey – think Sherlock and his memory palace. Stories help us remember things much better.

Nick Morgan, the author of Power Cues argues that all the information we class as important in the business world – things like facts and figures – this stuff just doesn’t stick in our minds at all. It’s actually stories that create ‘sticky’ memories ‘by attaching emotions to things that happen.’

So by telling stories in your presentations you better equip your audience to leave remembering what happened and, as we read earlier, more persuaded to buy your solution.

The trouble is that though the science may be true, few of us are blessed with the storytelling ability of J.R.R. Tolkien or Phoebe Waller-Bridge. So just how do we go about including more storytelling in presentations? Here are three practical examples where we can use the science we’ve just learned to make sure our presentations are more engaging and impactful, thanks to a healthy dose of narrative.

As we saw earlier, the attention span is a cruel mistress. It can so quickly jump from the presentation you’re watching to what you had for lunch, or to coming up with a pithy comeback from an argument you had seven years ago. This is why any presentation that starts by telling your audience who you’ve worked with, where your offices are, how many employees you have, and how your team is structured, just isn’t going to scratch their itch.

The team at Pressboard dug into this a little. They studied over 300 brand articles and measured them all against certain engagement criteria. They found that if the brand was brought up too early – before there was any semblance of a story in the article – the reader was far less engaged. Readers responded best when the brand was brought in as a character in the story a little later on.

So if you jump in too soon with all of that ‘who we are’ information, evidence suggests you’re going to turn off your audiences before you’ve even really got started. Instead, if we’re to follow Pressboard’s example we should begin with a story, and then introduce our brand or product as a character in that story after we’ve built up a little tension.

And how do we build up tension? Well there’s another character you can add into your story. Your audience. Stories generate empathy within us – we’re used to putting ourselves in the place of the main character – so you should craft your story so your audience can see themselves sleep-walking into huge losses, or stumbling into an unskilled workforce, or not noticing that change is on the horizon.

I think you’ll agree outlining the imminent doom your prospect is millimetres away from avoiding is more attention-grabbing that showing them an inspirational quote from your CEO.

It feels familiar doesn’t it – unsuspecting person inches from disaster, suddenly saved by chiselled superhero. And that’s exactly how we teach people to craft their presentation introductions. And just to get really meta, we’ve written a story about how it all works. Watch it unfold in the video below!

Telling stories throughout your presentation

Okay, so we’re off to a flying start with your story-rich presentation. What about the main body of content? You can still weave stories throughout these slides. Think of them like episodes in a series. The presentation (or series) might be about saving you from relying on paper records and switching to a digitised solution, and one slide (or episode) could be about the dangers of data protection and maintaining records safely and efficiently.

Just like you set up the challenges and hero over a few slides in your introduction, you can set up the shorter story in the same way, just using clicks and animation to talk about the ‘before’ and ‘after’.

Here’s a video of how the slide story from earlier might play out over a slide.

But often a roadblock for people is data – statistics, bar charts, line graphs, percentages – so many numbers that feel like they’re a key character in your story (often a character the higher-ups want you to include regardless). So how do you tell a story with data? First, there are some things you should know:

Purpose: The first question you should always ask yourself when including data in a presentation is ‘what is the point of it?’ Broadly it might fit into one of these categories: persuasion, dissuasion, reassurance, shock. And then you can take it a level deeper and add your story: we’ve got a number that will dissuade the audience from relying on paper records, let’s use it at the beginning of the slide where we talk about data breaches. This should stop you using numbers just for the sake of it. First build your story, then add your evidence.

But ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. Never was a truer phrase spoken about using data to persuade people. Think about this stat:

According to the World Health Organization there are 1.1 billion smokers worldwide.

Hmm… 1.1 billion is a big number. That must be bad, right? But hang on, there are nearly eight billion people in the world, so maybe it’s not so big after all.

Here’s some human nature: if you put 1.1 billion on a slide and make it really big – well that means it’s bad. If you put 1.1 billion on a slide quite small next to a far bigger number – say 8 billion – well that means it’s actually quite good.

Then with a liberal smattering of words like ‘only’, ‘almost’, ‘nearly’, ‘over’ – you’ve totally convinced your audience.

Well, not quite. It all seems a bit manipulative, and audiences don’t like feeling manipulated. To avoid this, you guessed it, you’ve got to start with your story and then use your stats as evidence that support the point you’re trying to make.

Let’s pull back our slide from earlier. We’re talking about how a digital solution helps you maintain records safely and efficiently. A good supporting stat might be the number of companies nationwide that have declared data breaches due to records being kept on paper. Let’s say the number is 64%. That’s nearly two thirds – let’s not just rely on a big number, let’s make this a visual part of our story too.

See how the stat supports the story – it’s much more compelling than just putting a big number on a slide – and it engages more parts of the brain.

But sometimes you just need to have a graph on your slide. A number cleverly woven into your story won’t do. What do you do in this scenario? First, you still make sure it’s there for a good purpose, and that it’s in the right place in the presentation according to the story arc.

Second, you tell a mini-story with your graph. Think of it like a short film: establishing shot, introduce the characters, increase tension, happy resolution. Easy. Grab a graph, and open up the animation ribbon – you’re gonna need it.

Establishing shot: Or context setting. For a film it’s things like location, time of day, season, for a graph it’s your axes and labels.

Introduce the characters: In your graph these are the data points. Animate in your bars. But wait.

Increase tension: If you animated both bars in at once your audience switches their processing power to the graph and ignore you as the presenter. You’ve given them a problem to solve – what does the data mean – and they’re busy trying to reach the correct conclusion. So increase tension. Bring in one data set first and call out a couple of points (the ones you want to direct audience attention towards for the big reveal later on). Pause.

Happy resolution: Bring in the second data set. The points you called out should have the most drastic difference.

If the story isn’t clear, go back to the purpose – try to summarise what the data is telling you in one sentence. Set the scene, create the tension, and then bring in your punchline. If there isn’t a clear punchline, then there probably isn’t a clear purpose for the graph in the first place. Be brutal, don’t bother your audience with it.

But what about your happy ever after? All good stories need great endings and presentations are no different. There are two parts to this: structure and call-to-action.

Novelists don’t often just start writing without a plan: J.K. Rowling came up with the main story arc for all seven Harry Potter books before she put pen to paper with the Philosopher’s Stone . In the same way we need to think about the structure of a presentation before we begin writing speaker notes and creating slides.

Presentations need to be structured around a value proposition – for help with that, head to our guide here – but why has that got anything to do with the structure? Having a tight structure means that your presentation will never fizzle out, and it gives you a great way to summarise your main points and get them locked down in the minds of your audience. There’s no flabby appendix full of the content that isn’t important enough to go earlier. It’s to-the-point, memorable, and leaves your audience eager for more.

Call-to-action

When a good story ends, it leaves a small hole in your heart. You were drawn into different worlds full of heroes and villains and good and evil. You’re left wanting more, but there is no hand reaching out to you from the dust cover to pull you inside. This is where books and presentations differ. In a presentation you finish by extending a hand and inviting your audience to take part in the next chapter of the story. If you tell a compelling-enough story, then why wouldn’t your prospect want to jump in?

A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland is the most boring book I have ever read. Never have I had greater disinterest to visit a place than after reading that book. The ironic thing is that I have visited the Western Isles of Scotland, and I’d go back in a heartbeat, but the book – the story – did nothing to excite my wanderlust. My point being that even if the product is great, the way you sell it – the story – can make or break your sale. No-one will take you up on your call-to-action if your story is rubbish.

And finally, a note on the call-to-action itself. Keep it short. Keep it simple. Keep it snappy. Think of it as a sample chapter of the author’s upcoming novel – enough to whet your audiences’ appetite, but not so much that they forget the great story they’ve just finished reading.

Further reading

If you’re still hungry for insights on storytelling in presentations, check out some of the links below:

• If you’re a fan of books and want to read about the inspiration you can get from flicking through a picture book, have a read of this article .
• If you have your story and you need help turning it into a compelling visual presentation, then check out this how-to guide .
• The Pressboard team did a half-hour webinar on ‘the science of storytelling’ , if you’re looking for something to dig into on your lunchbreak.
• If you want more information on telling stories with data visualisation, we have the perfect how-to for you – check it out here .
• If you’re looking for some extra help getting storytelling in presentations, take a look at our persuasive storytelling training on our Services page.

Hannah Harper

Principal consultant, related articles, how to level-up your presentation visuals.

• Visual communication
• Comments: 2

Relationships are everywhere and if you can crack how to show relationships effectively on your slides then you’ll have your audience swiping right instead of left.

How to improve your data visualization

In our information-rich world, we like to gorge ourselves on data. There are stats and facts for just about any topic you can imagine, just a Google search away. But are data on their own informative enough? When you’re presented with a wall of numbers, are you able to easily decipher the context, background and ramifications of all that information? Probably not – which is why data visualization is becoming increasingly important.

How to write scripts for webinars, videos and eLearning

• Sales messaging / Effective eLearning
• Comments: 3

Webinars, videos and eLearning are excellent ways to push your content out to a wider audience. It’s really important, therefore, that the content we send out is engaging, and your script is going to do a lot of the heavy lifting. Here are five best practices to create compelling scripts.

Thanks for explaining how storytelling can leave an audience to better remember a presentation and to be persuaded. My wife and I want to do something fun and are looking for ideas on how we can improve our business. We should go to a storytelling presentation sometime, and if we like it we should consider how to incorporate storytelling in our business meetings.

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First of all the deck looks great, once again you guys have done an outstanding job. Second, I’d like to comment on the quality of the training provided by your colleagues - quite simply it was exceptional. I have spoken to the whole team and that view is unanimous. Please pass this on. James Bagan MyLife Digital

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Structure Your Presentation Like a Story

• Nancy Duarte

To win people over, create tension between the status quo and a better way.

After studying hundreds of speeches, I’ve found that the most effective presenters use the same techniques as great storytellers: By reminding people of the status quo and then revealing the path to a better way, they set up a conflict that needs to be resolved.

• ND Nancy Duarte is a best-selling author with thirty years of CEO-ing under her belt. She’s driven her firm, Duarte, Inc., to be the global leader behind some of the most influential messages and visuals in business and culture. Duarte, Inc., is the largest design firm in Silicon Valley, as well as one of the top woman-owned businesses in the area. Nancy has written six best-selling books, four have won awards, and her new book, DataStory: Explain Data and Inspire Action Through Story , is available now. Follow Duarte on Twitter: @nancyduarte or LinkedIn .

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PowerPoint Storytelling: How McKinsey, Bain, and BCG use the SCQA framework to create elite presentations

By Paul Moss

Join 100k+ subscribers on our YouTube channel and enjoy highly engaging lessons packed full of best practices.

Big name consulting firms like mckinsey, bain, and bcg all do one thing really well: they create amazing presentations for their clients. but it’s not just the formatting and design that makes these presentations so special. it’s the stories they tell..

In this article you’ll learn the PowerPoint storytelling techniques major consulting firms like McKinsey, Bain, and BCG use to build elite presentations. You’ll see how these storytelling experts build presentations with clear takeaways, compelling insights, and an engaging narrative. I’ll walk through each step of the storytelling process in detail, and show you some examples of what this looks like in the real world.

But first, if you’re new to this blog make sure you check out our advanced PowerPoint and presentation design courses . Or, sign up for our free 5-day email course below and get instant access to our most popular download: the Top 50 PowerPoint for Consultants cheat sheet.

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When building a presentation, regardless of who the audience is, you have one primary goal: to make it as easy as possible for the audience to understand what you’re trying to tell them. And this can be difficult – business presentations tend to have a lot of data and information, and it can be hard for the audience to grasp the key insights right away. Especially if they’re trying to also listen to the speaker and think about what they’re gonna say in response.

So when building your deck, it’s especially important to make sure it’s structured in a way that makes it clear, insightful, and engaging. It’s something top consulting firms do really well, thanks in part to two important concepts: the SCQA framework and the Pyramid Principle .

Table of Contents

SCQA Framework

In simple terms, SCQA is just a framework for presentations that allows you to craft a story around the information you’re trying to present. It stands for Situation, Complication, Question, and Answer.

Every presentation is an answer to some question, such as “should we acquire this company?” or “How did this marketing campaign perform?” or even “What did you find in your research?” – and the SCQA framework just allows you to provide context for that answer.

Practically speaking this means that your main deck is used to show your answer, and the situation, complication, and question are how you provide context for that answer.

Lets consider an example…

Disney Case Study

Let’s say you’re on a consulting case for Disney and the executives have asked you to make a recommendation for where they should build their next theme park. 

The main part of your presentation will be the actual recommendation and all the supporting details. But then the situation, complication, and question will form your introduction slide. 

The situation is how things are right now. The complication represents a change in that situation and is the reason why the presentation is needed. The question is what gets raised by the complication (and what needs to be solved). Then the answer is the resolution. 

So here, the situation might be something like, “Disney is looking to grow revenue by opening a new park”. The complication could be, “they need to decide where to open this park”. Which then leads to the implicit question which is, “where should Disney open its next theme park?”

Then the main part of your deck answers this question. 

And notice how this brings the presentation to life. It puts the presentation in context, and it tells the audience why they should care. Instead of just dropping them in the middle of your data, you’re leading them along and creating a narrative. Remember, your goal is to make it as easy as possible for the audience to understand what it is you’re trying to tell them.

Now, an important rule here is you don’t want your introduction to have anything new or controversial. It should all be something your audience already agrees with, so you can focus on the answer. All you’re doing is establishing relevance, and making sure you and the audience are on the same page.

BCG Example

Here is a great SCQA example from BCG .  

The presentation is for a non-profit organization that invests in open education resources (or OER) – which are basically education resources that are made available to everyone. 

“The Open Education Resources ecosystem” BCG, June 2013

They’ve titled the introduction slide “context of the work”, because ultimately that’s what it is. They’re just giving context before diving into the presentation. 

The first line says, “Since the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation began investing in open education resources in 2002, the field has grown significantly: the past decade has seen an influx of OER and increased awareness and adoption”.

And notice how this just clearly and plainly explains a steady-state situation. How things are right now. This is the situation.

Then the next line says, “However, more work remains to push the OER movement from the sidelines of mainstream education into the center of the classroom”. This line essentially tells us that things are looking good for OER, but more work remains. This is the complication.

And already you can see how this is setting up the presentation. The situation leads to the complication, and the complication very naturally leads to the question, which is the next line:

“The Foundation engaged the Boston Consulting Group in late 2012 to evaluate the state of the current ecosystem in the United States and to help understand how to measure the movement’s progress towards a sustainable, mainstream end-state”.

Now although they don’t state the question explicitly, you can see it in the text. The question is “What is the state of the current ecosystem in the US, and how can we measure the movement’s progress?”

And now we have the right setup for the presentation, and we’re ready to hear the answer. Everyone is on the same page, and the audience is ready to go. 

It might seem like a small piece of the presentation, but all the major consulting firms use this PowerPoint storytelling technique to turn what otherwise might be a dry presentation into a persuasive story with a clear narrative. 

Pyramid Principle

If you’ve watched our other videos, or taken some of our advanced courses , you’ll know that we talk about the Pyramid Principle a lot – especially as it relates to slide structure. But here I’m going to focus on how it applies to storyboarding and the presentation as a whole. 

Put simply, the Pyramid Principle is just a method of communicating information where you start with the main idea, and then provide the supporting details and data of that idea. Going back to our Disney example, the main idea would be on top, then the two supporting points would be below that. 

If you recall, the question is, where should Disney build a new theme park? 

Let’s say that your answer is that Disney should build a new theme park in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Two supporting reasons for that answer might be that Rio is a major tourist destination, and that the Disney brand is strong in Brazil. And if you wanted, you could continue creating additional layers to your pyramid with more supporting details and data. 

In a presentation, the way you would communicate this is from top to bottom. And the reason why that approach is so effective is because you provide the audience with context first, before giving them more granular detail. Plus it helps the audience know exactly what you’re trying to tell them, and how you’ve reached each of your conclusions. Remember, your main goal is to make it as easily as possible for the audience. 

If you were to turn each of these ideas into its own slide, you would rearrange them with the highest level ideas coming first, then the supporting details following each idea. Then throw your introduction slide up front, and voila! you’ve got yourself a story.

And this is the exact PowerPoint storytelling technique they use at every major consulting firm to build client presentations that are incredibly clear, compelling, and persuasive. 

Final Thoughts

Unfortunately, PowerPoint storytelling doesn’t always happen this smoothly. In practice, there are lots of factors that can influence the final version of deck. Not to mention other slides that I didn’t mention like an executive summary slide, next steps slide, or the appendix. But generally speaking, this approach works really well.

In fact, did you notice it’s the same approach I used for this article. I started by stating the situation: I said that when you build a presentation you want to make it as easy as possible for the audience. Then I introduced a complication: business presentations tend to have a lot of data and information, so making it clear can be difficult. The implicit question then became, how can you make data heavy presentations easy to understand. 

Then I moved on to my answer, which was to provide a clear structure to your presentation, using two key concepts: the SCQA framework, and the Pyramid Principle. And I used this structure to then build out and explain my answer. 

The end result is an article that’s clear, easy to follow, and insightful (I hope!).

You can watch a video version of this article on  YouTube .

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Home Blog Presentation Ideas The Power of Storytelling in Presentations: A Guide to Captivate Your Audience.

The Power of Storytelling in Presentations: A Guide to Captivate Your Audience.

Presentations happen daily in corporate meeting rooms, hybrid sessions, fully remote summits, seminars, and weekly check-ins. What was once referred to as “Death by PowerPoint” has become “This could have been an email.”

In a survey about the current work state, 91% of workers admitted that they daydream during meetings . They’re creating stories in their minds because they’re not concentrating on the meeting or the presentation on their screen. 

Nobody wants meetings that go nowhere; aim for efficiency and less time wasted. Mindful communication and some good old storytelling techniques are the best ways to reach that goal. On the other hand, stories present a different point of view on how to tell a story to an audience and disclose large chunks of data without losing the audience’s interest.

Research by the Journal of Neuroscience (2019) discusses the importance of using storytelling in business presentations to disclose information to the public in a more accessible format. Our brains are wired to process stories more effectively than raw data or facts. When we hear a story, our brains release oxytocin, a hormone associated with empathy and trust, which helps us connect emotionally with the speaker and the content. Hence, the importance of curating the script to deliver your story to the audience as stories have the power to inspire, worry, heal, and even to attract a negative impact, as suggested by the American Psychological Association .

You can harness this phenomenon in your presentations regardless of their scope. In this guide, we share storytelling techniques you might not have thought of and reinforce the classics with new ideas. This article is for weekly report presenters, sales agents presenting to clients daily, and anyone looking to improve their PowerPoint storytelling training skills. 

Let’s get started.

Table of Contents

Benefits of Using Storytelling in Presentations

Understanding the audience and tailoring the story to their interests and needs, data storytelling, storytelling structures for crafting a compelling story for a corporate presentation, practical techniques to improve storytelling in presentations, how storytelling enhances the effectiveness of the presentation.

• The Power of Visual Metaphors and your Stories

Strategies For Overcoming Storytelling Challenges in a Corporate Setting

The power of storytelling.

Communication through storytelling is the intersection between informing, connecting, and persuading. Stories have been the foundation of human connection since the beginning of human history. Before the advent of written language, history was shared through spoken storytelling. Then came books, plays, movies, and storytelling modalities that united people through communication.

Findings demonstrate that storytelling is essential for presenting innovative ideas and gaining interest and support from others. In any scenario, from academic to corporate, when people are engaged with a story, they are more likely to pay attention, ask questions, and participate in the presentation. This engagement can lead to better outcomes for the presenter and the audience.

Storytelling breaks the ice through empathy and relatability. Short, rapid-fire associations help overcome communication obstacles and connect the speaker to the audience, especially when the presenter doesn’t know the audience personally. 

Imagine that you’re about to present to a college audience of students, scholars, and teachers. Tap into what they can all relate to: the room you’re in, the event you’re all attending, the weather, and create a quick story or comment about it. If you’re a visual storytelling master, tie it into your presentation’s intro.

Stories motivate. It’s what they’re most appreciated for. Stories help people understand complex ideas or data by providing context, relatability, and a structure familiar to the human brain.

Using stories improves the memorability and strength of the message while creating a connection between the speaker and the audience. Practicing storytelling in presentations increases confidence in the speaker and, therefore, the audience. 

Research by Stanford University suggests that people remember stories better than simple facts, and incorporating stories into presentations can lead to better retention. A story also has the potential to turn a presentation into a conversation, opening up the possibilities of communication even further. 

Incorporating Storytelling into Corporate Presentations

The average corporate worker is involved in presentations at least twice a week. Incorporating storytelling into those presentations, no matter how small, improves efficiency and results. 

But simply telling a random joke isn’t going to cut it; your content has to be tailored to the audience, finding the right balance between story and data and incorporating structures for storytelling slides , and visual, textual, and auditory storytelling techniques. Storytelling techniques span from small touches like quotes, GIFs, or memes to a full-scale story spanning every presentation slide.

Corporate Storytelling is the branch by which we apply storytelling techniques to business environments, which can happen in the format of writing mission & vision statements, presentations, marketing, sales proposals , product design, etc. Its company-wide application ensures that communication is clear across all levels but also reflects on overcoming obstacles with real-life applications of what the corporation is producing. 

Audiences can be vertical or horizontal. Vertical audiences are people with more or less knowledge than you. Horizontal audiences have the same knowledge as you. This distinction matters because it directs your decision-making toward the terminology and story arc you incorporate into a presentation.

For example, the communication is horizontal in a small meeting with your peers where you present a roadmap for a project launch. You can use industry jargon freely because they’ll all understand. Here’s a possible storytelling technique for a roadmap presentation.

• Create avatars for each team member with a funny accessory or cool background. Place each avatar on their tasks and move them along every week when you have check-ins. Make it fun and build a story around it. Your plan succeeds if people are talking about it outside the meeting room.

In a hybrid orientation session with new employees and interns . There’s less room for jokes than in a horizontal team environment. Use storytelling to train and inspire 50+ people in a hybrid setting.

• Open the presentation with real success stories of employees who came into the company and thrived over time. Don’t just show this employee at work doing tasks; also show them in situations where they enjoy themselves and feel a sense of accomplishment. 
• Incorporate dialogue simulations into the presentation. Choose participants randomly and ask them to have a guided conversation about something they might encounter at work. 
• Separate the audience into break-out rooms and ask participants different “what if” questions. Afterward, have a group discussion and create possible user stories from the answers.
• Your storytelling plan succeeded if at least ¾ of the audience participated and there was some laughter and enjoyment during the session.

Presentations to large audiences, like keynote speeches and TED talks, are the easiest to add storytelling techniques to. Communication is typically a combination of vertical and horizontal in these cases. Here are some PowerPoint storytelling training ideas:

• Tell a story that happened to you that ties into the content you’re sharing. Use unifying and stringing techniques to bring the idea from the story to the content and vice versa. 
• Separate the presentation into parts and tell one story per section . Select tales that people can relate to, like overcoming obstacles, reaching goals, and surviving traumas. Everyone can relate to those.

Some scenarios present a particular challenge for presenters: how to implement storytelling if the presentation heavily relies on data? Certainly, text cannot replace factual information, not visual metaphors, so in such cases, we highly recommend you follow a methodology like the one exposed in our article about data storytelling .

A storytelling structure will always help create better presentations by captivating your audience’s attention and engaging them more deeply. Sequential steps build a sense of suspense, transforming mere information into a compelling narrative that resonates. By learning how to structure your presentation like a story , you can effectively convey your message and leave a lasting impact. Here are some of the most effective storytelling techniques tailored to their specific scopes:

SCQA – Situation, Complication, Question, Answer 

The SCQA framework is an essential tool for analytic storytelling in presentations. It’s a practical tool in business communication that audiences relate easily to. As it follows a logical flow to present a situation and the steps to its resolution, it is one of the easiest methodologies for implementing storytelling in presentations. In our detailed case study, we shall expose a step-by-step process for applying this framework.

These are the sections of SCQA:

• Complication

We introduce this case to quickly represent this model: A furniture exporter has found customer complaints regarding the parcel delivery system. Using the SCQA, they can pinpoint the story behind the situation: some third-party vendors don’t use the platform-approved parcel delivery service, which implies an extra charge for the vendors, and opt instead for their own systems. In turn, some orders get lost, and customers cannot retrieve information on the shipping status until it’s delivered.

SCQA offers the advantage of helping presenters to structure complex concepts in a story format, which benefits situations like technical or scientific presentations as jargon can be reduced to easy-to-relate life situations.

Story Mountain

The story mountain or story arch is a literary structure for telling stories. It also works for medium size business presentations. It is a visual metaphor that illustrates the path to transit a mountain, from one point to the other end, and lists key points along the road, as well as the differences in the pace for each stage.

These are the stops in a story mountain:

• Opening: Start by introducing the main characters, the setting, and the context of your story, which, in terms of business situations, reflects the company, product, or service, then the problem your organization intends to address.
• Build-Up: This is the core problem to resolve. It should be disclosed in a manner that builds expectations and drives interest from the audience on which solutions are proposed and how they will work.
• Climax: The Climax can also be interpreted as an inflection point by which a direction change is introduced after an action is taken. This can be represented in the form of speaking about a strategic management shift that led your company into a successful path or an innovative solution later presented as a product or service that solves the core problem.
• Resolution: In this section, we illustrate how the core problem is solved due to the selected solution that arose from the Climax stage. Using testimonials is a great method to validate your authority on the topic and break the barrier between theoretical models and actual solutions. Other alternatives can come from case studies or introducing fact-based data.
• Ending: We conclude the story mountain structure by summarizing the key takeaways on the path to the mountain and highlighting how the organization solved the problem. Implement CTAs in this section, as it is where you should encourage prospective buyers to acquire your product/service. In the case of academic/scientific presentations, list down your contact information for possible collaboration projects.

We can showcase this model with a case like this: A manufacturing company producing paint cans is looking to implement production monitoring software on its shop floor. The aim is to increase efficiency, track real-time production, and better understand error codes.

• Opening: The company acknowledged its production needed more efficient, identifying hidden gems in their production process. They decided it was time to implement production monitoring software to take its production rates to new levels.
• Build-Up: As the company looks for different technology solutions, it can categorize the options offered by factors such as cost, features, and ease of implementation. They also ran an audit to get insights on which technology suits their production line the best.
• Climax: After a careful evaluation, the company chose a production monitoring software solution within its needs and budget. They opted to run a pilot on a limited number of machines, comparing the output results after 3 months. The implementation phase is handled by the software provided in terms of software, access points, and hardware required.
• Resolution: Over the first three weeks, the company observed significant improvements in its production process. They could locate bottlenecks that hindered the throughput rate, making the required changes to address them. This led to increased efficiency and brought cost-saving benefits to the company.
• Ending: The production monitoring software became an integral part of the company’s daily operations, influencing when maintenance tasks should be scheduled, providing insights about hidden production potential, and helping operators understand the consequences of each action taken more clearly. Due to the quick implementation process and the reports on cost-savings, especially from the scrap count reduction and energy-saving perspective, the company opted to install this production monitoring solution across all machines on the shop floor.

The Hero’s Journey 

The Hero’s Journey is a storytelling technique that fits neatly into a long-form presentation or keynote speech. This framework became popularized by Joseph Cambell’s book “The Hero with a Thousand Faces ,” it’s longer than the previous examples and can get quite elaborate. We can identify these sections in the Hero’s Journey:

• The Call to Adventure: The challenge/opportunity that initiates the path to the journey.
• Resisting the Call: The hero’s inner struggle to embark on the journey out of fear of failure or inadequacy.
• Meeting the Mentor: The encounter between the hero and a wise figure who provides advice on the journey.
• Crossing the Threshold: Moving from the comfort zone into the “Unknown,” walking into danger or uncertainty.
• Quests, Allies, and Enemies: The hero must transit obstacles and interactions to gather experience to face the key challenge of its journey.
• Approaching the Cave: In this stage, the hero faces the story’s main conflict.
• The Abyss: Where the hero experiences an internal crisis, inducing a transformation as it faces its deepest fear or a life-or-death choice.
• The Reward: After emerging victorious from The Abyss, our hero gains a valuable element (tangible or not) relevant to transit the rest of the quest.
• The Road Home: This stage represents the path back to their daily life, but finds new obstacles or challenges.
• The Rebirth: A final challenge emerges, where the hero is confronted with its greatest fear and must put all the knowledge to the test. This point showcases how much the hero has truly changed throughout the journey.
• Return: The hero is now back in its ordinary life, with the gained knowledge and a better understanding of the world. Now, that newfound knowledge is applied to benefit others.

That is a basic outline of the steps to cover in this road. If you wish to know more about this storytelling technique, we recommend you check our guide on The Hero’s Journey and its application.

Some presentations encompass various styles, functions, and objectives, each catering to specific communication goals. Internal and external presentations serve distinct purposes, requiring tailored approaches to effectively convey information. To enhance your storytelling prowess within presentations, here are some ideas that incorporate PowerPoint storytelling examples :

On Presenting Projects, Plans, Reports, etc.

Suppose you regularly present plans, project roadmaps , and reports to higher management. In that case, you can tap into what you intend to produce from the project and craft a success story, presenting the winning moments and obstacles your organization had to transit. Say, for example, a laptop manufacturer is presenting their newest model release plan. One of the main points to highlight in the marketing strategy is why this model is a flagship for the company. Well, since the product is due to be released in Q3 2023 and there were major differences in previous laptop designs by this company, the marketing team can build a narrative on how the Pandemic affected the initial design they had in mind due to the microchip shortage, the restrictions to work in shopfloor, and how they were presented with a new paradigm in terms of work. Those learnings were applied after noticing what customers needed regarding power and portability to work from anywhere in the world, not just a shared office. And that’s the background why this new laptop model is the solution for digital nomads and a brand new concept in the company’s strategy.

Introducing an Ideal Persona

For OKR sessions with newer employees , tell stories to inspire team members to feel invested in their objectives and key results. You can create one “ideal employee” model and craft a narrative around it to present common challenges, what objectives to aim for, and the benchmarks by which the company shall measure the new employees’ success rate. Express how this “ideal employee” came to the company fresh out of university, heading for a trainee role. How asking the mentors for advice helped the employee better understand their strengths and weaknesses and how to adapt them to perform at a greater level. Then, you can use this same narrative to cultivate the constant-learning mindset, as the “ideal employee” joined for extra-hours workshops that coach how to work with new frameworks, a well-paid sacrifice as it helped the employee to land an in-company promotion in less than 1 year. Use examples of other teams in the company and expose how they overcame new challenges or set new success metrics by collaborating as a team while staying true to your company’s mission & vision.

Strategies for Sales Meetings

Your best storytelling tactic for those presenting during external meetings like sales and proposals is the trusty “get to know your audience” technique . If it’s a big group, study the average person in attendance and direct your stories toward them. For smaller groups, research the client and mention things they’re interested in. Tie it into your presentation with stories, analogies, and metaphors. As an example of this tactic, let’s place ourselves in a sales professional’s shoes, presenting robotic vacuums to a group of investors and guaranteeing higher profits than they would make if investing in competitor brands like iRobot. The sales professional must gather information about the audience’s background, their individual investing profile, which projects similar to this product caught their interest, their expected ROI, and their threshold for risk. Then, the sales professional has to craft a narrative that attends to the needs of the average member in the meeting, with juicy details to spike the interest of the best 3 potential investors in the room. You can ask then what happens if there’s a conflict of interest in contrasting expectations. Step 1 is to stay true to your facts: do not present information your product or service cannot produce. Step 2 is to debate which position is more favorable to your interests and who is your ideal investor candidate. Step 3 is to calmly expose the facts that may drive the interest away from one/several investors and how your proposal aims to solve the problem in a different format than they expected. If, by chance, no consensus is reached, move towards Step 4, which is thanking the investors for their time and wishing that you can reach a business deal in another project.

Repurposing Customer Testimonials

In some cases, users crave tangible results from an innovative product. Talk to the customer satisfaction team at the company and ask them to tell you stories from the customers they talk to. Take notes of those experiences, remembering to write down the name in case you opt to cite a customer and need to ask for permission. 

By working with your customers’ testimonials, your organization can learn about flaws your product or service may present. Such information can later be repurposed as the ground research of a new product line and even be used in the product presentation as a punch line when to introduce “Why did we create this product?” – it is a powerful resource to count with, and automatically validates your efforts by working on suggestions made from real-life customers on what they expect from a product or service.

This approach is also used in the format of surveys held by the customer satisfaction team, as we count on valid insights to work from.

Creating a Dialogue

Turn the presentation into a conversation . Incorporating storytelling into a conversation can feel more manageable than in a speech. This process can be done by following these steps:

• Simplify the language: Avoid any unrequired jargon when transforming the presentation into a conversational format. If you must use industry-exclusive terms, introduce them in the context and with an explanation as if speaking with a colleague. Overly format language should be discarded as the aim is for a conventional business conversation, as it would happen in a coffee break during an event.
• Structure the narrative: Make it a back-and-forth conversation where questions and comments can be added by any of the two interlocutors (the presenter and, in this case, the audience). Write down any aspect of the conversation that you feel might be left out if you don’t follow a strict outline.
• Use examples: As you would in any normal conversation, have some references at bay. Working with your case study in the presentation as an example can help in most cases, as you are already familiar with the ins and outs of that example. If not, opt for an example that is relevant and easy to structure for your talk.
• Be adaptable: It is not a presentation format but a more relaxed take on delivering a topic. With this, we imply unexpected changes can emerge like a member of the audience raising a series of consecutive questions or making it a lengthy monologue to express an idea. Go with the flow and only return to your speech if you divert too much from your intent.
• Highlight key points: Don’t dwell too much on specific details that may consume much time. Instead, push the key points into the conversation early on so you can reference them later as the conversation goes on.

Case Study of Storytelling in a Corporate Presentation

A software provider for the retail industry, TechEase, seeks to win a large contract from a potential client, a major retail chain, to implement a new inventory management system. The client, MoreIsLess, has expressed interest in TechEase’s software but has yet to make a final decision. 

TechEase knows they are competing against several other software providers and must make a compelling sales presentation to set them apart.

First, the TeachEase team concretizes the client’s pain points to use them as a basis for a compelling story. TechEase must show how its software will meet the requirements to ease the client’s unique pain points.

• MoreIsLess needs an inventory management software solutionthat is more effective than the one they use now. 
• The current software is unstable and is constantly making employees frustrated. 
• It has also created issues with inventory data, making the company lose clients from its e-commerce platform due to undelivered orders and product sorting and packaging mistakes.
• MoreIsLess managers have previously had a negative experience with a software implementation project and are hesitant to take on another project that could potentially disrupt their operations.
• The client is concerned about the software’s complexity and whether it would be easy for their employees to use. 

To address these challenges, TechEase’s sales team develops a sales story that will resonate with the client. One easy way to understand this problem is by implementing a metaphor. In this case, TechEase interprets the inefficiency in the system used by MoreIsLess as a bottleneck problem, given that new orders are added to the queue. However, unresolved/failed orders still hang there, altering the inventory data. In graphical terms, it resembles a car jam on a high-traffic road, where at a certain point, all elements get stuck.

Using the SCQA framework, the team sets up a structure for their sales presentation with the client company. They’ll build a compelling story with this as the foundation. The slides follow this outline and the structure for a sales presentation. Our SCQA Slides Template for PowerPoint is used to illustrate this case.

• Situation = MoreIsLess needs an inventory management software solution that will be more effective than now.

• Complication = Their current system creates bottlenecks in the supply chain, causing behavioral and financial problems. MoreIsLess managers are worried about disrupting operations to implement new management software. They are also worried about the software’s complexity.

• Question = How will TeachEase offer an inventory management solution that will solve the bottleneck issue quickly and efficiently without disrupting operations? How will they ensure timely employee training?

• Answer = TechEase offers to implement the new software over one weekend and train all involved employees within a week. Bottlenecks will ease within two weeks with a full-scale fix at three weeks max. The TechEase team also works with the customer success team to inform customers of the changes when necessary. They will offer a discount code to clients as an incentive if they have any issues in those two weeks.

The story uses a visual metaphor, the bottleneck. In this case, a long-term inventory bottleneck with mistaken shipments and unsent orders is caused by the current software.

Ineffective inventory management software = a traffic bottleneck on a highway intersection

Everyone hates it when traffic becomes a bottleneck that makes drivers change routes, get lost, arrive late to their destination, etc. TechEase’s software solves the problem by creating more efficient inventory systems that relieve bottlenecks by “creating different lanes and making some of them wider.” 

TechEase uses the bottleneck visual metaphor in the presentation slides by turning an inventory flowchart into a traffic bottleneck. In the following slides, the bottleneck eases up, and the presenter explains how the software solves that problem. During the conversation, they use analogies and metaphors that tie back to the idea of the traffic bottleneck.

Storytelling can be a powerful tool for persuasion. A well-crafted story can help the audience relate to the presenter’s point of view and see the value in a proposed solution, idea, or product. Using the bottleneck visual metaphor, TechEase connects with the audience in a plane beyond what they’re immediately discussing. 

Finally, the TechEase team mentions a previous client with a similar issue. In a quick story, they explain how the software eased its bottlenecks without affecting daily productivity.

Tying the metaphoric story with a real story brings the idea home, from fiction to reality.

Resulting in MoreIsLess closing the deal and implementing TechEase’s software.

The Power of Visual Metaphors and Your Stories

Data and storytelling have many ways of working together to incentivize creative communication. One particular technique we’re fond of is visual metaphors and associations.

Relevant visual metaphors help you add storytelling to data without confusing the audience. It tends to do the opposite. Say you intend to represent what’s missing from a process to satisfy the customer’s needs. We can represent this situation as the following case study: a language learning application intends to compete on the same tier as top-industry solutions like Duolingo. They found out that users struggle to improve their pronunciation levels in some languages due to their way of pronouncing vocals and consonants in their native language. Take a look at this slide for a gap analysis. The broken road over a crevasse is the visual metaphor for the gap. It’s simple, it makes sense, and it’s effective. Using the gap analysis, the company can represent how the current state of their app is not helping users overcome pronunciation mistakes, as there’s no system to evaluate that in the app.

In another example, a company faces communication issues due to workers creating immense email threads due to the “Reply All” function. Instead of replying to the team members who should be aware of the answer, workers keep replying to all, creating email chains of over 20 emails that may not be relevant to the members listed in the initial email, as the current messages include specific instructions for one team. Instead, a wiser solution would be to reply only to those who find that communication pertinent or create a new email thread with the members interacting. Using the 3D square peg metaphor, we can represent how the “Reply All” option is forced into the organization rather than opting for individual email threads per topic or testing communication solutions like Microsoft Teams or Slack. This slide has an adaptable visual metaphor for explaining that something isn’t working as it should and that you’re forcing a solution where it isn’t fit to work.

The funnel is a classic and highly effective storytelling technique in marketing and business. We can drive the attention from hard-to-understand data into visual cues. Instead of using numbers to express how a media channel brings users to our company and turns them into prospective buyers, we can represent the funnel and categorize from contacts through the next filtered stage of qualified leads, then to prospects, and finally, opportunities. And we can also filter out the users who partially meet the criteria, reformulating solutions to their needs. Make yours unique by using colored dots, icons, and a legend to pinpoint where your team needs to work harder and what areas are strong.

As we’ve seen, there are multiple methods to implement metaphors to tell a story . The problem lies in pairing the aesthetic of your visual slides with the rest of the content you are delivering; otherwise, it feels disconnected. A tool like the SlideModel AI Presentation Maker help to bridge the gap by creating an entire slide deck based on a pre-selected design style and theme.

Overcoming Challenges in Storytelling for Corporate Presentations

There are always challenges and obstacles when using storytelling in corporate presentations. They’re the reason why so many presentations could have been emails. And also why deals aren’t closing, sales aren’t being made, and internal meeting presentations are unproductive. These are some of the most common:

• The company doesn’t have a brand story, no corporate storytelling strategy, nor does its communication culture have any stories to tell. This foments a culture of basic communication that doesn’t inspire action and growth.
• Everyone just keeps doing “what works.” When faced with something new, they say, “We’ve always been doing it this way.” If a new idea for a presentation comes up, they say, “We’ve used this report presentation template for the past year. Why change now?”
• It takes time to craft relevant stories and practice them. Many presentations must be finished fast and then presented at a meeting nobody wants to attend.
• Sometimes, a story used means nothing, and the effort is wasted .

The number one strategy to overcome storytelling challenges is to understand and share that storytelling is worth the time it takes to implement.  

Here are some strategies for overcoming storytelling challenges in a corporate setting.

• Hire a brand storyteller to build a story from which the entire company can build more stories.
• Build detailed user personas and create stories around them.
• Hire a creative director to lead important presentation projects and client communication.
• Challenge your employees to get creative when building presentations and think of other ideas to implement instead of reusing the same report template every Friday. If your company has a brand story, share it with them. Involve the Learning and Development department and offer storytelling workshops for everyone to build their skills.
• Don’t create a story for each presentation. Keep a folder of potential stories to use in the future and reference it regularly. 
• Make the stories mean something. Stories that don’t relate to your audience are as good as nothing. 

Be ready for every situation; you never know when your in-person presentation will turn into a hybrid session at the last minute. If you practiced a presentation for a stage, with some walking around and eye contact, you’ll have to bring it all in and adapt it for the camera. 

In a few steps, you can adapt the storytelling from an in-person meeting into a hybrid session. 

• Set up a camera to record the front of the room where the presenters will be.
• Connect it to the webinar or meeting software and test it.
• Send attendees a digital copy of the presentation slides.
• When the session starts, don’t just show the front of the room to the virtual attendees; change views and show the slides fullscreen, especially those with the visual metaphor.
• During the session, have someone in charge of the chat box and motivate attendees to participate in the discussion.

The power of storytelling is undisputed. It differentiates between a presentation considered “this could have been an email” and a presentation that positively impacts the audience. 

Stories in a corporate setting are the glue that humanizes business meetings, making them more entertaining, effective, compelling, memorable, and successful. 

In this guide, we shared some storytelling techniques you can incorporate at different levels of your organization. Try them out and see what works better. Part of getting to know your audience is trying out stories with them and seeing how they react. Check out our storytelling templates for PowerPoint to create your next presentation.

Here’s to much better presentations in your future.

Zacks, J. M., Speer, N. K., & Reynolds, J. R. (2009). Segmentation in reading and film comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 138(2), 307–327. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015305

Source: Zak, P. J. (2014). Why inspiring stories make us react: The neuroscience of narrative. Cerebrum: The Dana Forum on Brain Science, 2014, 2. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4445577/

Green, M. C., & Brock, T. C. (2000). The role of transportation in the persuasiveness of public narratives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(5), 701–721. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.79.5.701

Hinyard, L. J., & Kreuter, M. W. (2007). Using narrative communication as a tool for health behavior change: A conceptual, theoretical, and empirical overview. Health Education & Behavior, 34(5), 777–792. https://doi.org/10.1177/1090198106291963

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15 Actionable Storytelling Tips for PowerPoint Presentations

• PowerPoint Tutorials
• Presentation Design
• April 23, 2015

Great storytellers do two things very well. First (obviously), they tell stories.

Second, through their stories, they get people to act.

You might be thinking, “That’s great if you’re Steve Jobs and introducing the iPhone, but what do I do with all of my everyday dry and boring content? How do I turn that into a story, let alone a gripping one?

Well today I’m going to help you out with 15 insanely actionable storytelling tips and tricks to get you into the storytelling mindset, regardless of what type of material you’re working with.

If you are looking for ideas for how to start your presentation, see our guide here.

You might be thinking, “That’s great if you’re Steve Jobs and introducing the iPhone, but what do I do with all my everyday dry and boring content? How do I turn that into a story, let alone a gripping one?

Well today I’m going to help you out with 15 insanely actionable storytelling tips and tricks to get you into the storytelling mindset, regardless of what type of material you’re working with.

Once you have these story telling tips down, you can see  how to start a presentation here .

How to start a story?

Getting your story started is oftentimes the most difficult part of the storytelling process, especially when you are in a professional setting.

You might know what your story is about and the point you want to make during your presentation, but getting it started can feel weird or awkward.

Don’t overthink it, just dive in and get started.

And if you feel stuck, use one of the following lines to jump start your story (and then don’t look back).

“Before we get started, I want to tell you about…”

Great for a smooth start, kick off your story (and the presentation) with this phrase and then tie it into your presentation message.

“That reminds me of the time…”  

1. Find your characters and make them the focal point of your presentation

1. Break down your topic into the people (or characters) involved

Look at your material and simply ask yourself “who” until you have some people to work with.

99% of the time, someone’s actions, needs, vision, goal, etc., lies behind the point you are trying to make.

Very little happens in the world without people’s involvement. As such, this is one of the best storytelling techniques for business presentations.

For example:

• Your company’s quarterly earnings = hard-working employees or loyal customers;
• Your new product or service = a new demographic of consumers;
• Your data points = the people who did something to create those data points;
• Your school’s new program = the students benefiting from the new program or the representatives who fought to fund the program.

2. Pick a representative to follow

If you end up with a group of people from step #1 (for example, baby boomers getting ready to retire), try to narrow your group down to a representative individual you can talk more directly about.

Because if you’re talking about retirement products, it’s more interesting to hear about 62 year old John who is looking forward to driving his camper van across the country when he retires (cool)…

…rather than financially stable baby boomers getting close to retirement (yawn).

How this will improve your story

Stories need characters to move forward, and whereas objects and data points don’t have a story, the people behind those objects and data points do.

Simply re-orienting your presentation around the people involved in your topic (who they are, what they are doing, etc.), even if only briefly, will naturally create a story that your audience can begin to follow.

Seriously, the next time you watch a politician speak, see if they don’t break down their topic into individual people whose actions back up their point.

It’s a simple storytelling tip, but it’s one of the most impactful…especially for business presentations which are often data and product focused, instead of people focused.

2. Set the stage by describing where you are now and where you want to be in the future

1. Describe where things are now (the undesired now)

What is (or was) the “undesirable now” about your topic that drove the first action?

Set the stage for your knight in shining armor.

• Are credit card companies preying on college graduates by extending them credit and encouraging them to spend it, even if they don’t have any income?
• Are employees given limited and risky options to build their nest eggs to get to retirement?
• Is it common that people who spent all day on their feet develop blisters between their toes…regardless of what kind of shoes they wear?

Tip:  Make sure your undesired state counts and is something people care about, otherwise you will lose your audience.

Your goal here is to get your audience invested in your topic.

As a bonus, highlight how you might feel about it. How painful would it be to walk with blisters between your toes?

2. Describe where things want to be (the desired future)

Now that your audience is on board about the situation, what are you going to do about it?

Now is your chance to paint the picture of the desired future that we all want to be a part of.

• College graduates are extended credit based on their actual earnings to avoid long-term financial disaster.
• Employees are given multiple options to safely build their nest eggs for retirement.
• People who spend all day on their feet can wear microfiber toe socks that eliminate 99% of all toe blisters.

Paint a picture of what the future would look like where everyone’s needs are met. Describe it in vivid detail.

Again as a bonus, describe how someone might feel about it. Does a college graduate who has avoided a mountain of credit card debt feel ‘just okay,’ or are they ‘pumped up about life’ and exited for the future?

It’s the change and/or transformation that happens within your story that is going to capture your audience’s attention. Typically the change or transformation in your story is based around unmet needs, wants and desires (something that is not as it should be) that then brings forth some kind of action or sequence of events that result in meeting those needs (potentially your product or service).

If you find that your topic doesn’t have a change or transformation associated with it, moving from an undesired state to a desired state, rethink the angle of your presentation topic to come up with something that does.

To learn more about this specific storytelling technique and see how effective it is, see Nancy Duarte’s TED Talk,  the secret structure of great talks  or read a  free multimedia version of her popular book “Resonate ” online.

3. Describe what needs to be overcome and highlight why this will be difficult

1. Brainstorm two or three obstacles or challenges that are in the way

What is it about your presentation topic that is difficult to overcome or why can’t the characters in your story (see Tip #1) have what they want (see Tip #2)?

If there is nothing standing in the way then you don’t have much to talk about.

Common challenges include time, money, connections, proof, education, a competitor, a market, a county, natural disasters, the economy, etc.

2. Narrow down the obstacles to focus on your situation

With a few obstacles in mind, think about how they are unique to your situation or maybe particularly hard to overcome in this specific scenario.

Narrowing down your challenges to the specifics helps to create intrigue and curiosity about your topic, especially if your audience feels that they are already familiar with the broader obstacles in question.

Instead of writing you off, your audience will be interested to know how these obstacles impact your own unique situation, and how you will try to overcome them.

Stories are rooted in conflict and tension, and it’s the process of encountering obstacles and then overcoming them that propels a story forward.

Without any obstacles to overcome (and therefore, conflict and tension), you don’t have the basic foundation of a story.

People want to know what you are up against and what you are going to do about it. This is why including the specific challenges you are facing is such a great storytelling technique for drawing your audience into your topic.

4. Emotionally invest your audience in the struggle (define failure or the status quo)

1. Think about what failure means in your presentation

What happens if nothing works out and you fail at your endeavor? What are the short-term and long-term consequences of failure?

Or what would happen if we stayed with the status quo?

Put another way, think about what you are trying to help people avoid or solve with your presentation and why it should matter  to your audience .

2. Describe that failure in human terms that your audience can relate to

Set the stakes by describing what failure looks like in human terms that your audience can relate to.

For example: If your presentation is about saving for retirement and you are trying to push young people to start planning, paint the picture of what retirement looks like when you are short on cash and forced to continue working?

Bonus Step: Focus on the emotional aspects of the failure

How does your character feel (or should your audience feel) emotionally about that possibility of failure?

What does the stress or regret feel like for having not started planning for retirement earlier?

How painful could it be if it negatively impacted your children, forcing them to take care of you financially when you got older?

Setting the stakes of what’s involved lets your audience know whether they should pay attention to your presentation or get their cellphones out and check email.

If nothing is at stake within your presentation, then you will have a difficult time getting your audience to care and invest themselves in what you are saying.

5. Emotionally invest your audience in the outcome (define what success looks like)

1. Think about what success means in your presentation

What happens if everything works out, the obstacles are overcome, and everyone runs off together into the sunset?

Think of what you are trying to accomplish with your presentation and why it matters  to your audience .

2. Describe that success in human terms that your audience can relate to

Drill down the success you are working towards into human terms, based on your audience’s own goals.

If your presentation is about saving for retirement and you are trying to push them to start planning, describe what retirement looks like (in detail) with all the money you need already saved up and sustaining your lifestyle.

What does it look like to have a well-planned retirement?

Bonus Step: Focus on the emotional aspects of the success

How does your character feel (or should your audience feel) emotionally about that possibility of success?

What does it feel like once the goal is accomplished?

For retirement, how relaxed and thankful would you feel, knowing that you planned ahead and didn’t need to worry about your future?

Or your children’s future?

Emotionally engaging your audience in the success of your story will encourage them to stay tuned and inspire them to take action.

Think of it from your own perspective. If there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, why even bother heading off in that direction in the first place?

People need a reason to take action, which is why investing them in the success of your topic early on is such a great storytelling tip.

6. Challenge your audience’s assumptions by adding a twist

1. List out the obstacles of your presentation

Go back and find all of the obstacles or challenges that you are overcoming within your presentation (see Tip #3).

2. Find an ‘obstacle within an obstacle’ or a chain reaction of obstacles

Looking at your list of obstacles, ask yourself if there is an ‘obstacle within an obstacle’ or a potential hidden twist to one of the obstacles that could jeopardize the entire outcome.

The twist might not have actually happened, but could have been problematic had it not been avoided.

Maybe you’ve convinced 3 members of the 4 member board of the viability of your project (which is already tough), but you need unanimity… and it turns out that the fourth member is your ex-wife’s father.

3. Add the twist partway through your presentation to create uncertainty

Add your twist partway through your presentation to lead your audience to doubt the outcome of your story.

If you are trying to add tension to your presentation, the last thing you want is everyone to know exactly where you are going and feel that they already know the outcome.

Gripping stories have twists and turns that not only raise the stakes of what’s involved, but they challenge the natural assumptions of the audience and make them reevaluate the potential outcome.

You can see this storytelling technique in action in just about any movie…you think you know exactly how the story will play out, but then a new element is introduced that throws you for a loop.

Adding an ‘obstacle within an obstacle’ or a twist, reengages the audience by creating curiosity and a loop with an unknown ending

7. Onboard your audience with an interesting metaphor THEY can relate to

1. Find a hard to relate concept or “thing” in your presentation

Think of what you have trouble explaining in your story.

Maybe you feel that it requires “too much” explanation or that it seems a bit dry or hard to grasp.

2. Relate that “thing” to something that your audience is already familiar with

Think of what you can relate that “thing” to that your audience might already intimately familiar with?

Is your new product or service the “McDonalds of phone covers”?

Or was your ex-spokesman the “Tiger Woods of water polo”?

Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks didn’t just talk about the trials and tribulations of the company (a long-winded story) at an investor meeting…

Instead, he related the company’s struggle to the journey of a spawning salmon that has to constantly fight its way upstream.

He even went one step further and pulled out a frozen salmon from an icebox onstage to create the extra visual impact.

See Bruna Martinuzzi’s short YouTube clip on  Leadership and Presentation Skills Training  to learn more about this storytelling technique.

Warning:  Choose your metaphor wisely as you will inherit all of the negative baggage of the metaphor that you use.

Metaphors are key to anchoring your story in the audience’s mind and can help you quickly summarize long-winded and hard to explain concepts in just a few sentences.

Applying this storytelling tip to your presentations will help keep your story relatable and memorable.

8. Show your audience exactly what you are talking about

1. Find the critical detail(s) about your presentation

Look at your presentation and find the one or two critical details that you want to get across.

These are the points that you want the audience to remember if they only remember one or two things at all.

2. Show your audience exactly what it looks like

Use either a visual image, a video, or better yet, a physical object to show your audience exactly what you are talking about.

Example #1:  If your product is so skinny it can fit into a manila envelope… grab an envelope and slip your product into it.

Boom, point taken.

Example #2:  If your point that the United States debt of over $15 trillion, when placed onto pallets of $100 bills, is taller than the statue of liberty, show your audience an infographic.

To actually see what this looks like, see  a visualization of United States debt .

Seeing is believing, which is why visual imagery plays two vital roles in your presentation:

First, visuals can clearly describe or show exactly what you are talking about…often times better than words.

Second, assuming your imagery is on point, visuals can create an emotional reaction in your audience and get them to really ‘get’ what you are talking about.

Imaging the audience thinking:  “Wow, I can’t believe that product can fit inside a manila envelope, how cool is that!”

9. Highlight the important by cutting out the unimportant

1. Look through your presentation and highlight your most important details and points

Find the meaningful details that help to advance your story (the ones without which your story wouldn’t make any sense).

These are the details you want to keep and highlight throughout your presentation.

2. Evaluate the other details in your story and remove the unnecessary ones

With your critical details in hand, look at the other points you raise and see if you need them at all.

Do they help your audience retain your message or help to highlight your point?

If not, cut them.

Have you ever had someone over-explain something and you immediately started losing interest?

That’s exactly what you want to avoid.

Spend time on the necessary details that prove your point or make your case, and avoid everything else.

Vivid and compelling details (see Tip #14) are critical to the success of your presentation, but too many details (or irrelevant details) will overwhelm and confuse your audience.

You will always have more details and information to share with audience than you will ever have time to speak about…especially if you have been working on something for years (which is what often makes this tip so hard to implement).

10. Use sound effects to anchor important details in your presentation

1. Think of what might have a distinct noise associated with it in your presentation

Look at the details of your story and find one or two items that have a sound associated with it (or a sound you could make up).

2. During the delivery of your presentation, make or play that sound

When delivering your presentation, either make the sound of that object yourself, or play a recording of it to anchor it in your audience’s mind.

Maybe you’re talking about how we’ve come so far from the time of the old dial-up modem, you know, the one that used to go “ca-chink-shhhhhhhhhh”…

Or maybe you’re talking about cracked cell phone screens and you highlight the sound of your $500 cell phone kissing concrete for the first (and likely the last) time (crkkkkkkkk)… whoops!

Story Telling Tip Warning About Sound Effects

• Don’t go overboard here. If you have a lot of sounds you could use, focus only on the important ones (see Tip #10) that would help add color to your story.
• If you are playing an audio track (i.e.  not maki ng the noise yourself) make sure you have everything set up properly before the presentation. The last thing you want to do is get derailed by technology problems.

Adding sound to the details in your presentation will help anchor those details in your audience’s mind.

You can draw them into your presentation, either with a sound that they are extremely familiar with or one they are not familiar with (leading to curiosity).

Even if your noise or sound effect is way off, it can add a bit of humor to your presentation and create some relief!

11. Use silence to create emphasis and draw your audience into your story

1. Find a part of your story that you want to emphasize

This could be an important point or detail that you want to have sink in, a turning point in your presentation, or a self-reflecting question.

2. Pause in order to force reflection

During your presentation when you get to that important detail or point, pause for five or six seconds (it will feel like an eternity), and then continue.

Did you know that there are now more English speakers in China, than in the entire United States? [Pause…]

Using silence in a presentation is a powerful storytelling technique that creates anticipation and forces your audience to rethink what you just said.

It forces the audience to momentarily “fill the gaps” in their minds and creates a potentially crucial time for reflection.

It also helps you to pace out your story (see Tip #13) and create more breathing room for both you and your audience.

Ultimately, a story that draws the audience in and causes them to actively process what you are saying is a successful story.

12. Create a warm fuzzy feeling by sharing a personal or vulnerable experience

1. Think of your own personal story to add to your point(s)

Think of some of the important points you want to make during your presentation.

With a few in hand, see if you can come up with a personal story, either one of your own or one of a friend or family member that you can use to illustrate your point.

2. Tell the personal story as it relates to your topic

During your presentation, insert your own personal experience BUT keep it short and on topic.

While a personal story can create a bond with your audience, a rambling, irrelevant story will take you off topic and derail your story.

A story about the new car model you’re launching can start with an old photograph you found of your grandfather leaning on the hood of his car and how much he cared about craftsmanship.

Bonus Step: Choose a personal story that shows vulnerability

The more your personal story shows yourself as vulnerable or flawed, the more rapport you will build with your audience by telling it.

Adding your own experiences to your presentation will help you in at least 2 ways:

First, it’s a story you are already familiar with and it will naturally come out in a story format (kudos!)

Second, it will help frame your story in personal terms with a real example, which in turn creates a bond between you and your audience that fosters trust.

Warning:  Your personal story might even be the one thing your audience takes away from your presentation, so choose wisely.

13. Pace out your story to allow your audience to breathe

1. Find the natural breaks in your presentation

Look at your presentation and mark out all the different places when it takes a step.

In other words, see if there are natural breaks where you can make a long pause (see Tip #11).

If you can’t find many, think about re-organizing your presentation so that there are more individual pieces that you can pause in between, pacing the story out.

2. Make clear notes of those breaks and force yourself to take them during your presentation

Write into your script (or burn it into your brain) the note to take a pause.

A few seconds can feel like an eternity when you are in the spotlight, but your audience won’t feel that way (guaranteed!).

So pace yourself, it’s not a race.

Good stories have a pace or rhythm to them…everything doesn’t happen all at once, and you should never feel rushed.

Pacing out your story will give you and your audience a bit of brain space to process what was just said and ready yourself/themselves for the next part.

14. Turn your important data points into memory glue

1. Collect the important numbers for your presentation

Find the key driving data points in your presentation, whether the numbers are big, small or medium-sized.

2. Turn your data into something interesting and memorable

With your important data points in hand, think of how you can relate those numbers to something visually impactful in human terms that backs up your message.

Let’s say your data point is that 25 to 30 million Christmas trees are sold every year during the holidays, you could create different visual images depending on your point.

If your point is “that’s a lot”, you could say that if you took all of the Christmas trees sold in a single year, and lined them up tip to stump, they would circle the entire globe (it’s true, I did the math)!

If your point is, “that’s NOT a lot”, you could relate the trees to grains of sand, and say that all of the Christmas trees sold in a single year would only fill up 25 to 30 coffee cups.

Either way, whereas 25 million trees is hard to comprehend, envisioning a line of trees circling the globe, or 25 coffee cups of sand, is a lot easier.

Adding visual cues about your important numbers will help anchor those details in your audience’s minds and give them salient points they can easily recall after your presentation is over.

The more you can relate your data to common visual elements, the easier your data points will be to remember.

The easier your data points are to remember, the more likely someone will be able to remember your main points days, weeks or months after the presentation.

15. End your story with a bang…and then shut up

1. Think about your core message and what you want someone to say about your story

What key point should your audience walk away with knowing or feeling after sitting through your presentation?

2. Make your final statement and make it memorable

Take your key point and make it memorable.

If you are struggling, see if one of the following mechanisms makes sense for your last statement or slide:

• A call to action: “Join the movement”
• A question: “So the question is, can we really afford the status quo?”
• A quote: “And as Quincy Jones once said, ‘a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying, ain’t that the truth.’”
• A soundbite: “Yes we can”

For more ideas on ending your presentation, see our guide here .

3. Practice how you’re going to wrap up your presentation

Take the time before your presentation to practice what your last 3-4 sentences will be (yes, say it out loud).

This is will be  your last chance  during your presentation to make an impact and get your audience to take action and/or care…so you want to make sure the ending is as impactful as possible.

If you can clearly envision how you’re going to end your talk with a bang, and if you have practiced, you’ll get it right.

4. During the presentation, say your conclusion and then shut up, get off stage, or open up for questions

And that’s it!

No last rambling comments. No off the cuff stories or tangents. No nothing.

Say your last bit and be done with it.

With a clear-cut and well thought-out ending, your audience will sit up and take notice as your presentation comes to an end, and they’ll know exactly what you want them to do.

This is a particularly good storytelling technique for business presentations as it puts you light-years ahead of other presenters who unconsciously ramble on and on, as if they are afraid to end their presentation.

Ending with a bang additionally highlights how well organized and knowledgeable about your material you are.

How to tell a story?

Now that you have these storytelling tips down, you might be wondering how to bring it all together.

You may be sitting there with a pile of data and a number of different story angles to work with, but now you are wondering how you are going to bring it all together.

Well, in the same way that your presentation needs an outline, so does your story you tell.

According to Christopher Booker, author of  The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories , all stories follow one of seven basic plot lines like the Quest, the Rebirth, the Rags to Riches story , etc.… plot structures that we are all familiar with.

By organizing your storytelling around a well-known plot like this, you’ll ensure that your story is easily recognizable and easy for your audience to follow along with (increasing the success and impact of the story you tell).

At the end of the day you can tell your story anyway you like, but following a standard plot structure will dramatically improve the effectiveness of your story when incorporating the storytelling tips mentioned above.

Now it’s up to you!

Those are 15 storytelling tips and tricks you can use to take your everyday material and begin crafting a story.

Some are simple, others take some time to figure out. But if you use even just one of them in your business presentation, you’ll be  one step ahead of 90% of presenters out there !

What’s Next?

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About The Author

This Post Has 6 Comments

A valuable list that every presenter should refer to before they step in front of an audience.

Thanks Ian!

Fantastic information. Thanks for sharing so freely. I’m a newbie at this and can hardly wait to apply what I have learned before I forget it.

Thanks Charlotte! Let us know how you do and if you learn any other new tips along the way! Cheers, Camille

Lots of novel and useful tips here, so thanks for sharing. I especially like the advice about being vulnerable – but to date I’ve found that too hard to do! It’s interesting that you suggested using sound effects, too. I gave that same advice ( here ), especially for webinars, because novelty draws people in (and sticks in their minds so well).

Being a good storyteller is extremely difficult, but I just love it when speakers know how to choose the right words and run a smooth but interesting story. I think that you should use all of these techniques that you describe selectively considering the audience and the effect that you want to have. I prefer to focus on the visual component – presentation and interesting eye-catching visual techniques. But at the same time, I have weak speaking skills (worse than I would like to have to make great presentations). Here is a good list of resources that I use to develop my speaking skills: https://www.thoughtleadershiplab.com/Resources I think this list will be useful. There are some examples of how to use the techniques that you describe.

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Storytelling in Presentations – Connect Emotionally with Your Audience!

PowerPoint presentations have become an indispensable part of business life .  It can be challenging, however, to keep the audience interested in your topic, meaning less of a chance of convincing them of your ideas.

If a presentation consists mainly of text, even the most innovative product idea can quickly lose the audience’s attention. Incorporating visually appealing aspects is a great way to get your audience on board! This is where storytelling in presentations, which can be used to enhance presentations in a modern and creative way, can help.

Even if you’re only familiar with storytelling in the context of news items, good stories are part of our everyday lives. We all have moments which are exciting, funny, annoying, sad or just plain odd – but the common thread is that they are interesting . So why not include that interesting story in your presentation?

What is Storytelling?

Storytelling is just that – telling stories . Incorporating storytelling into your PowerPoint presentations is a great way to convey information to your audience in a way that engages them and so excites more interest in your ideas or products.

The future of Presenting

In our sophisticated environment of smart devices and artificial intelligence, it’s easy to think that we don’t have a lot in common with our Stone Age ancestors. However, it’s not such a great leap from mammoth hunt to management floor as many might think.

Whether, when, where and why sales have risen or fallen may be very relevant to us, but our brains are still wired to prioritize knowing the fastest way to kill the mammoth or how to escape the saber-toothed tiger.  This is where storytelling comes in! A good narrative engages the deeper parts of our brains, and elicits an emotional response in your audience, which allows people to connect better with your message, meaning they are more likely to be convinced by what you’re offering.

So how do I go about Finding Interesting Stories for Storytelling?

Finding a good story to integrate into your presentation isn’t as hard as you may think.Perhaps, as mentioned above, something may have happened to you in everyday life which can be woven into your presentations.  You can try out such anecdotes with friends or colleagues to see if they’re a good fit with your presentation topic.

Stories aren’t just the result of the situations life offers us, though; photos can provide excellent jumping-off points for storytelling – they evoke memories and inspire creativity . To underscore the theme of your presentation, you can use your personal snaps as well as stock photos. Both can help you find inspiration and breathe life into your presentation. When choosing a photo, keep in mind what you want to aim to achieve your presentation.

When looking through photos, you may well be inspired by the memory of an experience which is particularly relevant to your subject; this can then really help you to convey your narrative to the audience.

Structuring your storytelling presentation

So OK, the latest sales figures aren’t quite as exciting as you might have hoped. But with the help of a few tips on how to build your storytelling, you can turn even the driest figures into an interesting narrative in no time.

Most good stories follow a general pattern:

1. Initial situation

Start your story by setting out the initial situation. This is where your audience learns about the background of the story as well as getting to know the people involved and their needs and goals .

2. Narrative

Once your audience has grasped the initial situation, you can begin to develop your story‘s plot. This can be a problem that crops up or a mission that needs to be successfully completed. Obstacles need to be overcome in order to triumph. (The human brain really responds to such situations, and can’t help but engage.)

Your story needs a definite conclusion: triumph awaits or, indeed, disaster !  You can leverage either of these in your narrative to emphasize your points.

The stories you want to weave into a business presentation aren’t literally about fighting dastardly enemies or saving the world, though; a wobbly merger resolving into smooth success, or a sales drive failing quite spectacularly invoke the same emotional response in your audience. With a little creativity, Your company’s current situation can become the starting point of your story and your employees and competitors or challenges the heroes and opponents of your narrative.

A company’s ultimate goal, of course, is market leadership . If you achieve this, it means success not just for the company, but for all its employees. So draw your colleagues into an adventure that will lead to this goal!

A relevant and well-structured story along these lines has so much more impact than a dry presentation of your company’s figures, coming to the tired conclusion that things could be better and that more effort is needed.

4 Effective Storytelling Methods

Storytelling methods

You can use storytelling not only to make your presentation more exciting, you can also bring structure and order to your presentation. To do so, there are a variety of methods that you can also use to leave a lasting impression with your audience.

These models can be used for various purposes…

…1: to inform

…2: to convince

…3: to inspire

…4: to entertain

… and look like this:

#1: Facts and story  

Presentations that follow this pattern move back and forth between facts and stories, describing the present situation and what could be.

To do so, describe the realities and current facts at the beginning of your talk and present contrasting content during the talk that describes the present and what could be instead. At the end of the presentation, conclude with a call-to-action that encourages your audience to work for what could be. To find out how else to motivate your audience, take a look at our “Call-to-Action” article in our blog.

#2: The Pitch

This presentation structure is based on metaphorically climbing over a hurdle during the presentation and concluding with a positive solution at the end. Storytelling is used here to show that the ideas of the presenter can make a difference.

To overcome said hurdle, also show what visions and options you want to use to overcome the problems. To successfully engage your audience, end the presentation with an added benefit , showing why your audience will benefit from your idea.

You can find out more on how to create a pitch presentation in our article on „Pitch presentations“ in our blog.

#3: Situation – Complication – Solution

In B2B sales and management consulting, most presentations follow this structure. Consisting of three different elements, this structure is characterized by the fact that the storyline is connected by words like “but” and “therefore”.

To do this, first explain what situation your story hero is currently in and offer your audience a neutral overview.

Next, explain the complication in which the story hero finds him/herself in and shine a light on their problem.

Finally, explain to your audience how your product or service can help solve your story hero’s problem.

#4: Situation – Opportunity – Solution  

This structure works similarly to the one explained in #3 . Instead of a complication, however, with such a presentation you can show that no problem in the world is impossible to solve. You can thus shine a light of hope on your story hero’s problem.

Facts fall by the wayside without Emotional Involvement to back them up; it’s just how Our Brains are wired

We live in a society where communication and information transfer are more important than ever. Presentations are a great way to do this, even though in many cases a lot is said and little absorbed. When you incorporate elements which trigger the parts of our brains which really engage with subjects, though, it’s amazing how focused we can actually become.

For example, think about the last movie that really captivated you. Were you engrossed in the action? Did your pulse rate maybe go up as the tension rose? Even though you knew the movie was fiction and had nothing to do with the reality of your life, you were eager to know what would happen next.

And now think about the last presentations you watched. It’s a pretty safe bet that the opposite was true: even though the subject matter was far more relevant to you than a movie, you might have found it hard to pay attention.

So why is that?

Even if the content of the presentation is worth knowing, our Stone Age brain throws a wrench in the gears.

Our brain evaluates relevant information on an emotional level before a logical and factual level . It wants to hear a good story, and only then finds information interesting. So if you want to convey facts in your presentation, it helps to become a storyteller and link them to an emotional response.

Experiments at Stanford University have shown that we remember stories over twenty times better than facts and that they can be marketed at least twice as successfully.

A Story is only as good as the Person telling it

When using storytelling in presentations, keep your own role in mind. Your own motivation and experience qualify you to tell the stories you do, and by doing so you make yourself credible and trustworthy.

In order to maintain credibility, you need a certain amount of passion. Stand behind your story and express that energy during your presentation.

Accentuate Your Storytelling Presentation with Moving Images

If your presentation slides are purely dry text and the occasional graph, you run the risk of your audience’s attention waning and them switching off mentally. Using interesting infographics, animated graphics and dynamic video will breathe life into your presentation.

This doesn’t mean that you have to follow the latest fad trend; successful presentations embody a timeless elegance that involves and persuades the audience from the inside.

One tool very effective in bringing presentations alive is the morph effect in Microsoft PowerPoint. It allows you to easily create your own animations and transition effects , making your presentation look modern and professional. We set out here how to skilfully incorporate the morph effect into presentations. You don’t have to be a PowerPoint expert to use this feature; even a beginner can radically improve their presentations using the morph effect. Its dynamism is particularly effective in content marketing and for tutorials.

The Zoom-Effect

The Covid 19 pandemic has hugely accelerated the trend towards webinars as a form of presentation; they are very popular with both presenters and viewers. Presentations can be delivered and accessed from any location.

Webinars allow you to make your content available to a wide audience at low cost , without having to deliver your content anew each time. The danger, though, is that it is very easy for the audience to up and leave the presentation early if it doesn’t hold their attention.

To prevent this, and to liven up your presentation, why not try zoom effects ? These let your audience easily zoom in on the information you present, focusing their attention. We’ve covered how to use these effects in your presentation here . They are useful not only for storytelling in presentations, but also in your social media presence and for content marketing.

Marketing through Storytelling

Storytelling is ideal for selling products and ideas. If you want to sell successfully, you have to be able to tell good stories to convince and inspire potential customers.

Facts alone are often not enough to arouse the emotions of your buyers. Great stories help your audience connect with the product and remember details more accurately. So your chances of a sale increase significantly if you can connect the product with positive emotions in your audience.

For correct storytelling, transfer the basic framework from the above paragraph “The Structure of Your Storytelling Presentation” to your marketing presentation. It will then look like this:

Part 1: The beginning- make it personal

The purpose of the opening is to create a context that helps your clientele form a personal connection with the main character of your story. They should be able to identify with the main character. When telling customer stories, make sure to not just mention your clientele’s company name, such as Microsoft for example. Describe a similar person in the company, with name, title and other relevant details to the person you are talking to. These could be the industry (retail, security), size (companies with 500, 5.000 and 50.000 employees face different challenges), or location (global vs. one HQ office).

Part 2: Middle- Describe the conflicts and their negative effects

Take your clientele on a rollercoaster ride before revealing the positive result. Explain the challenges the characters of your story had to face and describe the negative side effects associated with them. Too often we do not build enough drama between the pain and the solution because we do not want anyone to feel bad.

Shortcuts like that then lead to a mediocre story. Instead, paint a picture of the conflicts and negative impacts that the company could face if they cannot resolve their challenges.

Part 3: Ending- The solution and positive effects

Your audience, and not your own company, is the “hero” of your story. Your ending should leave the impression that your company helped prospects just like Dumbledore helped Harry Potter or Yoda helped Luke Skywalker. Describe, how your audience felt after the solution to the problem.

If you say “After receiving support from our company,…” your story just feels like a sales pitch. Instead, tell your audience about the type of solution you helped with to build curiosity and neural coupling to the prospects’ own experiences.

If done correctly, interested parties will ask you, “That is what I am looking for, how was that chieved?” to which the answer will, obviously, be your solution.

Learn from the Best

There are many examples of amazing presentations by successful storytellers worth looking at for inspiration: Steve Jobs and Barack Obama are two of the best. Both inspired, and still inspire, through presentations which expertly incorporate storytelling to carry their audience with them.

Even Donald Trump, whose statements are not always considered the most intellectually sophisticated, successfully sells his supporters the story of building a wall to halt migration as the solution to all the problems of the United States.

Extra Tip: Visual Storytelling with Infographics

 It might happen that you come across the following question when planning your storytelling: How do you present dry facts? Many Business-presentations make it impossible to avoid dates, numbers and statistics. With this type of content there is a risk of your audience not paying attention or even dozing off.

So how do you design your presentation to present even these facts in a compelling and engaging way? The simple answer is Visual Storytelling.

It is not enough to put the data in a narrative context. First and foremost, you will help your audience if you link the facts with memorable images or graphics: Create infographics specifically to communicate your information.

You can find many professionally designed templates in our shop. There will be something for your (Business-)topic as well. ► to our shop .

We also offer regular workshops on the topic of infographics (Please note: These are mainly in German). You can learn how to create impressive infographics with simple tools. The workshop is especially helpful for assistants, product and marketing managers, sales managers, and consultants. This seminar is also aimed at all those who work with PowerPoint and would like to break new ground in terms of designing their business presentation.

The seminar is held by our experienced PowerPoint designer and creative coach

Tom Becker-Schweitzer,

PresentationLoad CEO.

With him as your coach you can expect dozens of professional tips as well as time-saving techniques for successful presentations. With 25 years of experience, design professional Tom Becker-Schweitzer can present numerous examples from the world of presenting.

Learn how to create professional slide layouts and infographics with PowerPoint in this seminar. Feel free to check here for current dates ► dates

Conclusion: Connect with Your Audience by using Storytelling in Presentations!

Storytelling as an integral part of presentations can work in almost any setting and allows you to actively engage and inspire your audience. It really doesn’t matter what the topic of the presentation is, nor who the audience is that you’re trying to convince.

If you have any further questions about storytelling or PowerPoint presentations in general, please feel free to get in touch with us at [email protected] .

In order to get you started on storytelling, we’ve produced a free PowerPoint template with storytelling quotes:

Other articles that may interest you:

• Preparing PPT Presentations: 11 Tip s
• Action Titles im PowerPoint

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The Science of Persuasive Storytelling in PowerPoint

Table of contents, what is storytelling in powerpoint.

Let’s start at the beginning. The purpose of your slide deck is to persuade your audience and lead them to a conclusion. In order to do this, you need to grab and maintain your audience’s attention.

And the best way to hold your audience’s attention is to tell a story.

It’s not that surprising. Storytelling is as old as humanity. You see the story form in books, plays, films, advertising, religion, politics, and more. Stories have a unique and powerful ability to absorb attention.

Storytelling in PowerPoint is the process of translating your presentation’s argument into a compelling narrative.

Management consultants understand the power of storytelling in PowerPoint. And the ability to craft a storyline in PowerPoint is a fundamental skill of any new consultant.

Your storyline should follow an SCR structure

All almost every story follows the same narrative structure. It looks something like this:

• The scene is set and the characters are introduced (situation)
• Something goes wrong (complication)
• They fix the problem and live happily ever after (resolution)

When storytelling in PowerPoint, you should use the same structure. But in the context of your slide deck, your storyline will look something like:

• This thing is important (situation)
• There is a problem with this thing (complication)
• Therefore, we need to respond — and here is how (resolution)

In the next few sections, we’ll discuss how to craft this Situation, Complication, Resolution story in PowerPoint.

The three types of SCR storylines

Although the SCR structure is universal and should be applied to every slide deck, you can position the same SCR story in different ways.

As the author of the presentation, it’s important that you understand your audience and choose the most appropriate way to position the story.

Let’s look at three SCR stories that lead to the same conclusion:

• We need to develop new capabilities to meet stakeholder demands
• We are hampered by a lack of funding for capability building
• We must develop a business case for the required funding for new capabilities

Positive (i.e. Springboard)

• We could be the standard setters for service delivery in the industry
• To get there we need to develop some critical capabilities
• We must invest heavily in capability development

Negative (i.e. Burning Platform)

• We are failing to meet the needs of the business and stakeholders
• This is because we don’t have the capabilities we need
• We must obtain funding to invest heavily in capability development

Questions to ask yourself as you write your storyline

Choosing the right positioning for your SCR storyline is difficult. It really depends on your audience, the context surrounding the presentation, and the objective you’re trying to achieve.

To help find the best positioning for your storyline, you should always ask yourself a few key questions. These include (but are not limited to) questions like:

• Who is the audience?
• What do they already know?
• What do we want them to leave the room believing?
• What is their current opinion or perspective?
• What are their triggers and/or sensitivities?
• Have we demonstrated what’s in it for them?

After you’ve answered questions like these, you should have a better idea of whether a neutral, springboard or burning platform storyline is most appropriate for your slide deck.

Download 120+ strategy consulting presentations for free

Looking for slide inspiration? Download 120+ consulting slide decks from top strategy consulting firms, such as McKinsey, BCG and Bain!

How to write a PowerPoint storyline

The dot-dash storyline.

Writing a storyline for your presentation doesn’t happen in PowerPoint. In fact, you don’t open up PowerPoint until you’re completely satisfied with your storyline.

Instead of jumping into PowerPoint, you start by writing out your storyline in a text document using the dot-dash structure.

The dot-dash storyline clearly articulates every step of your slide deck’s argument:

• The “dot” refers to the top-level insights that make up your argument
• The “dash” refers to the data and analysis that support your insight

The storyline is written in a text document for two reasons:

• It’s easier to identify faulty or missing logic when your storyline is written out on a single page, as opposed to across multiple slides
• It ensures that you have the data to support each part of your argument and storyline

Here’s an example of a dot-dash storyline that we wrote as part of our Complete Guide Building to Strategy Slide Decks :

Example: Dot-Dash Storyline Australia Post is experiencing significant financial loss due to rising costs 2015-22 revenue growth was 5% p.a. and cost growth was 9% p.a. Annual profit/loss fell from +$10bn in 2015 to -$13bn in 2022 Management responded by addressing the main drivers of cost growth Employee and operational expenses made up 78% of 2015-22 cost growth Reductions in workforce size have been significant but exhausted Total workforce size reduced from 26k to 22k between 2019-22 Mail handled per FTE per year grew from 265k to 325k between 2019-22 According to employment agreements, maximum mail handled per FTE per year is set to 330k Productivity improvements reduced operations costs below industry benchmarks Processing cost per mail piece fell from $0.70 to $0.63 between 2019-22 Delivery cost per mail piece fell from $0.34 to $0.29 between 2019-22 Cost-side measures do not fully address the profitability gap, revenue opportunities must be considered Workforce and operations costs savings reduce 2030 forecast losses from -$32bn to-$16bn Revenues trailed forecast due to mail volume declines and shifting product mix 2022 revenue $106bn compared to forecast of $127bn 63% of the revenue difference was due to volume decline and product mix We identified 4 revenue-side opportunities to close the profitability gap by 2030 Increase prices on Direct Marketing and Advertising products Improve average net revenue per unit by optimizing product bundles Increase volume by improving proposition for Packages product Diversify into tangential products and services

Importantly, this storyline follows the Situation, Complication, Resolution structure that we discussed earlier. And it has clear supporting evidence for every claim.

Storytelling in PowerPoint

Once you’re satisfied with your dot-dash storyline as text, you can start moving it into PowerPoint.

There are two concepts that you need to grasp to master storytelling in PowerPoint:

• Logic across the slides (horizontal flow): As you flip through your slides and read the slide lead-ins/headers, your presentation should communicate your overall storyline. These are your “dots” in the dot-dash storyline.
• Logic within the slides (vertical flow): As you read an individual slide, the claim in the lead-in/header should by supported by data and analysis in the body below. These are the “dashes” in your dot-dash storyline.

Horizontal flow (logic across the slides)

One of the things you’ll notice about any strategy consulting slide is the lead-in. The lead-in is always the takeaway of the slide.

So instead of a slide lead-in like “Overview of costs”, the lead-in will be “Over the last 5 years, costs have grown 7% per year, which is double revenue growth”.

And when you line up all of the slide lead-ins from beginning to end, then together they should tell a complete story.

The best test of whether your storyline is fully communicated in the lead-ins is: can you fully grasp the story without reading any slide body?

If the answer is yes, then you’ve successfully articulated the slide storyline in your lead-ins (i.e. the “dots” in your dot-dash storyline).

Vertical flow (logic within the slides)

It is important that every statement or claim in your slide lead-in is fully supported by evidence.

Let’s take the example lead-in from above, which was “Over the last 5 years, costs have grown 7% per year, which is double revenue growth”.

The body of this slide should have two insights. First, it should show 5 year cost growth of ~7% per year. Second, it should show 5 year revenue growth of ~3.5% per year.

The cardinal rule is to show the minimum amount of data required to support your lead-in. Sometimes it can be tempting to show all of your hard work or technical skills. This is bad practice. Keep it minimal and simple.

Example of storytelling in PowerPoint

Enough with the theory, let’s look at a real-world example.

In the image below, you’ll see an Executive Summary written by BCG. We’ll review their Executive Summary, as it reflects the body of a slide deck and shows their story quite succinctly.

The Executive Summary is from the BCG report  Melbourne as a Cultural Destination.  You can download that report and 70 other strategy consulting presentations on this page .

There are two key aspects to this BCG storyline:

• The bolded sentences reflect the full storyline and can be understood without the supporting evidence in the bullet points underneath.
• The storyline clearly follows a situation, complication, resolution structure.

As mentioned, this storyline is reflected in the rest of the slide deck. And the presentation is a great example of storytelling in PowerPoint.

• Delivery Techniques →

Storytelling In Presentations: How to Make a Lasting Impression

Are you looking for techniques to make your presentations more engaging and memorable? Storytelling is a powerful tool that can help bring life and meaning to otherwise generic presentations. In this blog post, we will explore the strategies of effective storytelling in presentations and how to use various types of stories to capture the attention of an audience.

We’ll also discuss the benefits of strategic storytelling in order to see just why it’s such an important part of giving successful presentations. Read on for some tips on how you can begin incorporating storytelling into your presentation skills !

Strategies For Effective Storytelling

In order to effectively tell your story, it is important to identify your target audience, craft and structure the narrative, incorporate visuals and engaging content, use effective oratory skills , and practice delivering the presentation.

Identifying Your Target Audience

It is critical to understand who you are speaking to before crafting a presentation. You must ask yourself what the interests and needs of your target audience are and if they have any knowledge in the topic.

Knowing your audience will help you craft an effective story that resonates with them. For example, travelers may be interested in learning about stories from other countries and cultures.

Crafting stories tailored towards different types of audiences will increase engagement during the storytelling process.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a pivotal part of creating an effective story for presentations. It involves gathering ideas, conducting research and creating outlines that can be used as the foundation for the presentation.

Brainstorming allows you to come up with creative ways to present your stories in order to captivate your audience. During this process it is important to consider any possible obstacles or objections from your target audience so that you can address them during the presentation. To ensure quality storytelling, it is also essential to seek out feedback from peers and other professionals who have relevant experience in narrative presentation techniques .

Crafting And Structuring

Crafting and structuring your story is a critical part of storytelling in presentations. It’s important to set up the stage for your story and clearly define each character, their roles, motivations, strategy, and the main conflict that needs to be resolved.

As you build upon this structure, it is also important to pay special attention to the narrative arc – from setting up the introduction until achieving resolution at the climax. Utilizing various techniques such as “media res” (starting in media) or “mountain structure” can be very effective when crafting a compelling story which engages your audience.

Ensure a clear beginning by introducing characters or settings before delivering an inciting incident or problem that needs solving, ultimately leading up to a resolution or ‘climax’ moment at the end when all loose ends are tied together. Using vivid imagery combined with visual aids such as charts and graphs will make data storytelling more accessible to audiences.

Additionally, utilizing creative elements like metaphors or analogies can help bring abstract concepts into reality while making them engaging and memorable. For example, by using nested loops or sparklines one could effectively explain complicated data trends with ease. Showing how relevant these stories are with clear beginning’s and end’s helps increase audience engagement during a presentation even more so than raw data alone!

Finalizing And Polishing

Once the story is complete, it’s time to finalize and polish it. This involves taking a step back and focusing on refining the structure , increasing clarity, removing any unnecessary content, or shortening scenes where appropriate.

Furthermore, collecting feedback from peers can help identify areas of improvement. When delivering your story, making sure that there is a clear beginning as well as an end will ensure that audience members remain engaged throughout the presentation.

Visual aids such as charts or graphs are also helpful when trying to communicate complex data in a visual format; 63% of attendees are able to remember stories after a presentation while only 5% can remember statistics. Moreover, using strategies such as metaphors and anecdotes serve to break up dense text by providing an easier way for people to process large amounts of information at once. Finally, rehearsing your speech multiple times helps build confidence so you’re ready for showtime!

Delivering Your Story

When presenting your story, you must make sure to engage your audience by speaking in a clear and strong voice . It is essential to practice the delivery of your presentation beforehand so that you can gauge the level of engagement from your audience.

Additionally, make sure to be aware of body language as it plays an important role in connecting with the audience. Use props or visual aids if applicable which will help create an immersive environment for everyone involved.

Moreover, vary up intonation while speaking and use vivid imagery that can help add another layer to the story. Finally, remember to tell your stories with humor and emotion which helps build rapport with people listening and keeps them interested throughout the duration of your presentation.

Voice And Body Language

Voice and body language are key components of narrative storytelling. Your tone of voice should be casual and friendly to keep your audience engaged, while using volume and pauses effectively to emphasize certain points.

By exaggerating facial expressions and gestures , it can help make a story more engaging. Studies have shown that audiences remember stories better when there is an emotional connection – the right vocal inflections paired with appropriate body language can evoke the emotions necessary for this connection.

Additionally, using props such as costumes or replicas in presentations can animate a story even further. This same power of movement applies when delivering speeches; use intentional movements to draw attention or add emphasis on important areas of content.

Visual Aids

Visual aids can be an effective tool to help engage your audience and convey key points in a presentation. The use of visuals helps to bring stories to life, as they create vivid imagery that resonates with the audience.

Visuals also allow you to provide better context for numbers and facts, which makes them more manageable for the audience to understand. Using visual aids allows a storyteller to evoke emotion and capture attention, making it easier for listeners to connect with the narrative.

Additionally, using visuals such as charts or graphs makes statistics come alive by turning data into actionable insights. Finally, multimedia presentations such as videos or slideshows are very powerful storytelling tools—they provide an immersive experience that increases engagement levels and can lead your audience on a journey that ultimately leads them towards desired outcomes.

Engaging Your Audience

Engaging your audience is a key part of effective storytelling in presentations. Throughout your presentation, you should use voice intonation, humor, and vivid imagery to keep the listener interested.

Use metaphors and analogies to draw on familiar concepts that everyone can relate to. Additionally, avoid long descriptions as they may bore the crowd.

Emphasize relevance and organization while delivering your story; if possible, utilize props or visuals to further emphasize certain points within the narrative. Finally, don’t forget to ask for feedback throughout your story; this not only ensures you have an engaged audience but also allows for improvements and refinements where needed afterwards!

Types Of Stories To Use

Case studies.

Case studies are one of the most effective storytelling techniques used in presentations. They provide a narrative sequence that helps illustrate the journey an individual or group has taken to reach a certain outcome.

Case studies are also great for encouraging active audience participation as they can foster conversations and dialogue around challenges faced, solutions implemented, and successes achieved. Through case studies, presenters can demonstrate the impact their work or product had on a real person or business and illustrate how it might be helpful to the audience’s own situation. Additionally, data storytelling is often integrated into case studies through visualizations of important statistics which help make abstract ideas more manageable for your audience’s understanding.

Examples From Everyday Life

One powerful way to bring a presentation to life is by including examples from everyday life. For example, if you’re talking about working through tough times as a traveler, you could draw an analogy between climbing mountains and overcoming challenges. This kind of vivid imagery can be used to create a memorable experience for your audience and make them connect with the story on an emotional level. Additionally, using personal anecdotes or stories can help create an empathetic response from your audience and add authenticity to the overall message.

Ultimately, incorporating examples from everyday life into presentations helps increase engagement levels among listeners. Bringing the abstract concepts in your talk down to earth allows people relate those ideas more effectively with their own lives on a deeper level—so don’t forget to use simple examples when trying to demonstrate complex topics !

Customer Testimonials

Customer testimonials are a powerful tool when used to illustrate a point in presentations. They can help to build trust and provide real-world examples that your audience can relate to.

When crafting customer testimonials for presentation, be sure to focus on key elements such as the customer’s journey, how you were able to help them overcome their challenge, and how they achieved results from working with you. Moreover, showcasing customer feedback through reviews or written comments provides even more credibility for your case study by incorporating the experiences of others into your story. This is particularly insightful if more than one traveler has had positive experiences with your products or services.

Historical Accounts

Historical accounts are a powerful storytelling tool which can be used to draw parallels between your message and important events from the past. For example, travellers can consider referring to famous voyages such as Christopher Columbus’ famous voyage in 1492 or Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon in 1969.

With historical examples, it’s easier for listeners to form an understanding of a concept more quickly through contextual familiarity. Additionally, citing these renowned figures adds legislative credibility to any story being told.

Fables And Anecdotes

Fables are stories with a moral lesson or teaching point. They often involve animals or other characters representing humans.

Anecdotes are short stories that can be used to illustrate a point through providing context and background information. Using fables and anecdotes in presentations can help to make the story more engaging while also driving home your message in a memorable way.

Travelers can appreciate hearing tales from other countries, including old folklore and legends which may have relevance to their chosen journey. Using vivid imagery and detail when telling these stories is essential for keeping traveler interest at its peak, as well as helping them visualize the places they’re about to visit on their travels!

Benefits Of Strategic Storytelling

Four key benefits of strategic storytelling in presentations are enhanced audience engagement, increased credibility, strengthened audience connection and improved information retention.

Enhances Audience Engagement

Storytelling is an incredibly effective tool for engaging audiences and creating meaningful, lasting impressions. By incorporating narratives into presentations and speeches, presenters can effectively draw in their audience by giving a face to dry, abstract data – allowing them to better connect with the storyteller’s message. Narratives also have a way of captivating people’s attention in ways that facts and figures alone cannot – according to recent research 63% of attendees are able to remember stories after a presentation as opposed to only 5% who could recall statistics without any context.

Furthermore, storytelling has been found to be particularly successful when it comes to grab people’s attention online; brands such as AirBnB have employed narrative techniques within marketing campaigns in order to engage audiences more fully with the material they are viewing. Additionally, AirBnB reports an increase of up 80% in click-through rate amongst customers reached via sponsored content which incorporated storytelling tactics compared those who were exposed merely advertisements or infographics lacking narrative elements.

Increases Credibility

Effective storytelling in presentations can increase credibility by conveying facts and data in a compelling way that resonates with the audience. Strategic storytelling techniques help engage the listeners and demonstrate subject matter expertise.

Numbers and facts make abstract ideas more manageable for your audience to understand which reinforces the message of your presentation while strengthening its impact. Through narrative structures, vivid imagery, and visually engaging content, story telling techniques provide an effective tool in an age of shortened attention spans as people are better able to foster understanding through well-crafted stories rather than solely through raw data or facts alone.

Strengthens Audience Connection

Storytelling can be a powerful tool in presentations to help strengthen the connection between the presenter and their audience. An effective way to do this is by using vivid imagery and engaging content that resonates with the viewers.

Visual aids such as props, sparklines, and photographs can be used strategically to evoke emotion from your audience and make them more likely to connect with your story. Additionally, storytelling helps create a shared experience for all members of an audience which increases understanding and further strengthens their connection to what you are presenting.

Stories also provide an opportunity for interactions among people who may not otherwise connect due to language barriers or cultural differences. By creating this mutual understanding through stories, presenters can easily achieve better audience engagement during their storytelling presentations.

Storytelling is an effective way to present and get the attention of the audience. When used strategically, it has the potential to connect with your audience on a deeper level.

Storytelling can help build rapport with listeners, boost their confidence in you, establish trust and create a lasting impact. By using appropriate story structures, identifying target audiences and developing content that engages them, as well as paying attention to voice tone and body language while delivering stories effectively – presentations through storytelling can be made successful!

1. What are the key elements of effective storytelling in presentations?

Effective storytelling in presentations can be achieved by using a combination of techniques including metaphors, analogies and humor to emphasize messages while emphasizing the importance of audience engagement during the presentation. Additionally, it is important to keep stories relevant to the subject at hand, be mindful of body language and presentation style and clearly illustrate points throughout your presentation.

2. How should I start my presentation if I want to tell an engaging story?

Start by introducing yourself & building rapport with audiences as this will help ensure that people remain attentive & invested throughout entire duration. Then proceed by providing interesting facts or anecdotes related to topic which can further increase engagement levels among participants – enabling presenters create memorable experiences for attendees.

3. What types of stories should I include in my presentation?

The types of stories you choose depend on several factors such as industry-specific topics being discussed or type event/conference itself however overall goal remains same regardless: create memories which listeners can relate back main message without overwhelming them information overloads (i.e., too much data). This means avoiding long winded narratives or overly technical jargon unless absolutely necessary so as not lose interest audience’s attention span dwindles over time due complexity presented material(s).

4 How can I make sure that my story resonates with my audience?

By understanding who makes up your audience, what motivates them and how they view their world you’ll have better idea how approach storytelling within context whole setting rather than going off script just because particular plot may sound more “interesting. Furthermore, try incorporating personal anecdotes into narrative since these tend evoke emotional response from viewers thus increasing chances making lasting impression upon completion session.

Presentation Storytelling Examples & Techniques (2024)

Learn techniques for telling a story in a presentation . Get narrative presentation examples and learn to apply storytelling in business presentations .

Joanne Camarce

8 minute read

Short answer

What should a presentation storytelling structure include?

Introduction

Rising Action

Falling Action

Storytelling in business presentations matters (a lot)

Stories convey a deeper meaning, idea, or lesson. They make us feel, experience, identify, and understand.

Most importantly for storytelling in business presentations, telling a story in a presentation makes people more likely to remember the message.

Researchers Dean and Chip Heath found that after a presentation, 63% of attendees could remember the story told by the presenter.

However, only 5% could recall specific statistics from the event.

Because stories allow audiences to visualize and imagine an idea or message, stories also make them better able to make decisions.

In other words, stories bring buyers, stakeholders, and decision-makers to better understand and remember your message. Which in turn enables them to make a decision and increases the chance they’ll act on it.

What is presentation storytelling?

Presentation storytelling is the art of using a narrative structure to convey information instead of dry facts. It delivers a story with a clear beginning, middle, and end that aligns with the presentation's objectives, making the content more relatable and memorable.

Storytelling in business presentations involves 2 complementing aspects: (1) textual presentation narrative, and (2) visual storytelling.

What is a narrative presentation?

A narrative presentation is a style of delivering information where the content is structured as a relatable story. It typically includes characters, a setting, a conflict, and a resolution, and weaves complex ideas, processes, and metrics into the narrative.

What is a visual storytelling presentation?

A visual storytelling presentation tells a story or multiple anecdotes using visual elements like videos, animations, and interactive content.

Modern storytelling presentations apply scrollytelling design which combines visuals and text seamlessly to let readers interact with the presentation as they scroll down the content.

How to use the 4 storytelling archetypes

Storytelling is the art of describing vivid ideas, beliefs, experiences, and life lessons through stories and narratives.

These stories stimulate a listener's imagination as you take them on an emotional journey. There are many ways to tell a story.

These story structures have been shown to work for narrative presentations and corporate storytelling, and they will work for you.

The Hero's Journey: Communicates a transformation from struggle to success

The Story Mountain: Builds tension and anticipation

Story loop: Joins multiple perspectives into a single narrative

In-Media Res: Grabs attention quickly

There are timeless narrative frameworks that have worked for storytellers throughout the ages from the methodologies of old, through Shakespearian plays to Apple commercials.

1) Hero's Journey

The hero's journey narrative archetype involves a hero who goes on a journey and returns as a changed person.

This storytelling template consists of three distinct parts, or "acts," that include a setup, confrontation, and resolution. It makes for a well-structured and engaging narrative.

2) The Mountain

The mountain storytelling structure strategically maps the tension and drama in a story. This archetype is represented visually as a mountain, with each section building to a complex obstacle that characters need to overcome.

Think of the protagonist at the bottom of the mountain. They must climb the mountain to reach their goal (your business goals in this case). They face obstacles along the way, and they must overcome those obstacles before they can reach the top.

3) Story loop

The story loop structure contains stories within another story. However, they aren't standalone stories.

Your first story is the most important. It's the core of your message, and you use the other stories to elaborate or explain your central point.

But you stop some of the way through it, leaving the audience in suspense. Then, you share part of the second story before moving on to the last.

Eventually, in the end, you bring it all together to make one cohesive point. The purpose of this storytelling technique is to provide context, background, or a different perspective to a central narrative.

Types of anecdotes you can use in your story loop presentation

• Customer success stories
• Personal experiences by clients
• Inspirational stories
• Fictional or hypothetical stories
• Historical or factual stories

Here's a short video explaining how to use a story loop:

4) In medias res (begin from the middle)

In medias res is Latin for "in the middle of things." With this storytelling archetype, the narrative begins in the middle of a scene. It skips over the background of the story and gets straight to the action.

To choose the right type of story for your presentation, consider your audience, the purpose of the presentation, and the emotional impact you want to create.

No matter what narrative structure you choose, include visuals, sensory details, and precise language to bolster your message.

If you want to learn more about this storytelling archetype, check out the video below:

Effective presentation storytelling structure

A well-structured story can engage and persuade your audience, making your corporate presentation much more effective and memorable.

Stories can be applied in any type of business presentation, such as a pitch deck, sales presentation, white paper, report, or business proposal.

A single document can include multiple stories that make up a joint narrative.

5 basic elements of a story structure:

1. Introduction

• Sets a relevant context with background information.
• Introduces the protagonist (business or product) and the current problem or challenge.

2. Rising Action

• Builds tension by detailing the obstacles and complications faced.
• Engages the audience with the steps taken to address the challenge.
• The turning point where the main tension or conflict peaks.
• Highlights the moment of greatest challenge and the decisive action taken.

4. Falling Action

• Shows the aftermath of the climax.
• Begins to lead towards the resolution, detailing the business solution and results of actions taken.

5. Resolution

• Wraps up the story with the outcome of all actions.
• Provides a clear ending, showing how the challenge was overcome and what was learned.

After developing your story structure, be sure to connect it to your core message by creating parallels and reinforcing it with examples.

Most importantly, don’t leave your audience with the realization that they need to take action without offering them an immediate way to act.

Effective storytelling techniques for presentations

The beauty of storytelling is that the possibilities are endless. There are so many ways to tell a story in presentations. It's just a matter of finding the right one for your unique needs and goals.

1) Build your stories around your audience’s pain points

Stories establish connections. But don’t confuse your story with your audience’s story.

Your audience doesn’t care about your story, and they don’t care about your product.

But they will care if they feel you care about them.

Understanding the audience's pain points, values, and opinions can help you weave a story into a narrative that aligns with their interests. It gives you the chance to be part of THEIR story.

Stop talking about yourself. Do this and see engagement blow up, conversions increase, and greater brand loyalty .

2) Establish common ground with your prospects

One effective presentation storytelling technique is to find common ground and share experiences with your audience to establish a connection and make them care about what you say.

These commonalities are what resonate strongest with your target audience.

Common-ground stories tell your audience a satisfied client of yours overcame a particular challenge they are experiencing themselves, and offer the lessons learned while overcoming it.

3) Tell stories that foster peer envy

Peer envy is one of the strongest motivators you can flame in sales presentation storytelling.

Simply put it just means telling the story of a known industry player that achieved remarkable results with the help of your product or service.

A peer envy story should present the initial challenge, the journey to overcome it, and the final enviable outcomes. Yet the reader should feel they can attain similar or better results by following a similar journey.

Here's a fragment of a podcast where Michael Bosworth touches on this very topic:

Business presentation storytelling examples

Here are some examples of famous brands that incorporated personal stories to convey a powerful message in their business presentations.

Zuora sales deck

The Zuora sales deck was aptly named the best sales deck ever . It is truly a best-in-class example of a transformation narrative set within the story mountain framework.

It masterfully narrates the shift to a subscription economy, emphasizing evolving consumer behavior.

And by highlighting the challenges businesses face in this new economy, Zuora positions itself as the essential solution.

The deck's use of data, visuals, and testimonials weaves a compelling story of transformation, urging businesses to adapt and thrive with Zuora or stay behind and decline.

Mign sales deck

Mign’s sales deck highlights the digital shift in musculoskeletal injury recovery, emphasizing the transformation from mass production to personalized care.

Mign applies the hero’s journey story framework and positions itself as the trusted guide in this transformation.

The deck contrasts "winners," who embrace new technologies like additive manufacturing and virtual care, with "losers," traditional manufacturers stuck in outdated processes.

Tinder pitch deck

Tinder's pitch deck effectively narrates the universal challenge of meeting new people and the fear of rejection.

By introducing a hypothetical user named "Matt," Tinder gives the reader a peek into the mind of their target user - an everyday nice guy scared to approach a girl he's interested in.

This concrete personal experience gives life to a basic human need that investors can understand intuitively and even relate to.

Tinder leverages this emotional understanding to make a compelling case for its solution - a platform that eliminates the fear of rejection.

The deck also applied great data storytelling showcasing Tinder's impressive statistics, emphasizing its global reach and popularity among Gen Z.

They also nail the one-liner. Their slogan "It Starts With A Swipe™" encapsulates the simplicity and effectiveness of the app, positioning Tinder as the modern solution to traditional dating challenges.

Brothers Pub restaurant pitch deck

Brothers Pub's pitch deck presents a captivating local business story, emphasizing the need for a fresh, community-focused social pub venue.

The deck tells the story of the owners’ journey, from the initial concept to securing a prime location in Northampton, highlighting their dedication and vision for the future.

The deck outlines the challenges faced by traditional pubs, with 7000 closures in the last decade, and positions Brothers Pub as the innovative solution.

LKE proposal

Legends Kratom Co. (LKE) creates a narrative around the origins and benefits of kratom. By telling the exotic tale of the medicinal tropical evergreen tree and its transformation into a beneficial supplement, the deck creates a vivid backdrop.

They take the reader on their discovery journey to Indonesia to find a supplier for the coveted plant.

This adds authenticity and allure, while their commitment to education and community showcases a heartfelt mission.

Testimonials provide real-world validation, making LKE's story relatable and positioning them as a trusted leader in the supplement industry.

Genius Workshop Event pitch deck

Genius's pitch deck for their storytelling workshop is a masterclass in selling an experience. The deck introduces Gabrielle Dolan's expertise, setting a foundation of trust.

The workshop's structure is presented as a narrative journey, guiding attendees from novice to storyteller.

The deck mixes video, scrollytelling, and vivid language to give rich detail to the experience it promises to provide.

The 90-day follow-up program adds an element of continued growth, while alumni testimonials serve as real-world success stories.

By framing the workshop as a transformative experience, the deck engages and entices potential attendees, showcasing the power of storytelling in action.

Barbie recruitment pitch deck

Barbie's recruitment deck immerses candidates into Barbie's vibrant world. With playful greetings and whimsical descriptions, it sets a creative tone.

The deck focuses on Barbie’s story as a human being (doll in her case), her values, and her experience, instead of focusing on the recruiting company.

The deck lists attributes and responsibilities that align with Barbie's ethos, such as "spreading positivity" and "rocking a pink wardrobe."

Nokia brand guidelines

Nokia's brand guidelines deck uses visual storytelling to effectively communicate the essence of the brand. It lets the visuals tell the story since they speak louder than words.

The deck begins by anchoring the audience in Nokia's mission and values, creating a narrative foundation.

It then unfolds the brand's visual identity, from color schemes to typography, weaving a cohesive story of what Nokia represents.

By providing clear dos and don'ts, Nokia ensures that its brand story remains consistent and impactful across all touchpoints.

This storytelling approach not only educates but also engages, making it easier for stakeholders to internalize and adhere to the guidelines.

nSure one-pager

nSure's one-pager effectively uses visual data storytelling to convey the benefits of their AI fraud protection for digital gift card purchases.

Introducing the challenge of ambiguous transactions, nSure lets the numbers tell the story.

With impressive numbers like their AI solution’s 98% approval rate. They can afford to.

The deck's visuals, combined with endorsements from industry leaders like AXA, make a compelling narrative that instills confidence in nSure's expertise.

Healthy.io proposal

Healthy.io's proposal uses video storytelling with real practitioners who tell the story of their experiences using Healthy.io’s solution.

The video testimonial from a practice nurse adds a personal touch, showing the positive impact on patient care. This brings the user's experience to the front and adds credibility to the proposal’s claims.

The proposal uses a transformation narrative to showcase Healthy.io’s remote kidney screening solution.

They highlight the challenges of legacy ACR testing against their modern home-based test using a smartphone app.

Principles of visual storytelling in business presentations

Storytelling allows you to simplify complex or abstract information and address any objections or resistance. As a result, listeners can better retain and remember the message, which improves the decision-making process.

Here are the main principles that can transform your narrative:

Authenticity

Authentic visuals resonate more with audiences. In an era where people are bombarded with staged and polished images, authentic, candid photos that reflect the reality of your work can make your message stand out and be memorable.

Your visuals should evoke a sensory experience. The goal is to cut through the noise and trigger a stronger emotional response.

For example, you can make the experience more immersive by adding interactive clickable elements, embedding videos, or images that highlight details or visual textures.

Scrollytelling can also play a crucial role here, allowing the story to unfold through interaction, as the audience scrolls through the narrative, engaging them in a multi-sensory journey.

You can see the difference that interactivity makes below. Which presentation would you rather read?

The stories told by your images must be relevant to your audience. Personalized visual storytelling, supported by data to understand what motivates your audience, can turn your story into an experience that resonates deeply.

Every story has characters that fit certain archetypes, such as the caregiver, the explorer, and the creator. Identifying with these archetypes helps your audience connect with the story on a deeper level, making your organization's mission more relatable and memorable.

Make your own storytelling presentation

We've curated an extensive collection of templates to help you achieve effective storytelling for whatever business presentation you need to make.

The business storytelling presentation templates below have been rigorously tested across various devices and refined with insights gleaned from real-world feedback.

They were designed with interactive storytelling at their core. They’ll serve you as handy visual storytelling aids to make your presentations engaging, memorable, and highly converting.

Grab a template!

Why the human brain loves storytelling presentations

According to neuroscientist Uri Hasson , storytelling fosters deep social interactions through brain-to-brain connections.

He found that when we hear stories, our brains mirror each other, helping us understand what the storyteller is feeling.

Called neurocoupling or mirroring, this process occurs across many areas of the brain, including the ones that are responsible for processing and understanding narratives.

So the human brain loves stories. But why?

The short answer is that ‌neural activity in the brain increases when we hear a captivating story. Our brains are made up of neurons, which are nerve cells that send messages throughout the body.

These neurons release neurotransmitters (brain chemicals) that transmit signals from nerve cells to target cells.

The most common neurotransmitters in the brain include:

When we hear a story, the neurons in our brain light up with activity. And according to neuroscientists, "neurons that fire together wire together."

This means that as we hear stories, the neurons in our brains are wiring together. As a result, we're more likely to remember the information we receive from a story.

Storytelling also triggers the release of dopamine ("the brain's form of candy") and oxytocin ("the love drug"). In other words, stories make us feel good.

Here's an infographic showing how storytelling affects the brain:

This can influence buying behavior because it helps to create an emotional connection with potential customers or buyers.

Telling a story, instead of making a sales pitch , is less intimidating to an audience.

The company or product you're describing is easier to understand, seems less complex, and provides relevant information in a format that's easy to digest and remember.

As a result, the buyer can relate to the product or service and will eventually want to purchase it.

Joanne Camarce grows and strategizes B2B marketing and PR efforts @ codeless.io . She loves slaying outreach campaigns and connecting with brands like G2, Wordstream, Process Street, and others. When she's not wearing her marketing hat, you'll find Joanne admiring Japanese music and art or just being a dog mom.

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Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Presentations > Good design + storytelling = impactful presentations

Good design + storytelling = impactful presentations

Wouldn’t it be nice to have your own personal design assistant? Not for your home… for your upcoming presentation !

Let’s face it, getting up in front of a group and giving a presentation can be stressful enough without worrying about the ins and outs of your presentation’s design and flow. In fact, giving presentations can be downright scary for some people. It’s believed that up to three-quarters of the population has a fear of public speaking.

While your words, presence and storytelling skills will have a huge impact on your success, the fact is: Your presentation’s design matters, too, and not only to your audience!

Research has shown that 91 percent of presenters get a big confidence boost from using a well-designed deck. Yet, 45 percent find it challenging to design a good, creative slideshow.

We get it. Not everyone has an intuitive eye for design. So, here are a few facts to keep in mind that’ll help you create more impactful presentations.

Tell your story with captivating presentations

Powerpoint empowers you to develop well-designed content across all your devices

Go heavy on visual storytelling, light on text and stats.

Researchers found that after watching a presentation, only five percent remembered statistics, while 63 percent remembered stories. That’s good news for you. It means less time cramming slides full of words, numbers, sales pitches or pleas for charitable donations. Instead, think in terms of storytelling and spend more time using pictures, videos and other storytelling tools. Afterall, there’s a reason the phrase “show me don’t tell me” exists. Visuals and stories not only speak to people’s intellect, they speak to their emotions. For example, say you’re trying to raise funds for your local dog rescue. Instead of focusing on number-filled slides showing how underfunded you are—start with an uplifting video about a particular furry friend who found a good home. Or, better yet, bring the four-legged friend along to interact with the audience! A word of caution: Avoid overly sad and depressing stories. (We’ve all seen those heart-wrenching pet ads with the sad soulful eyes and sappy music.) Multiple studies suggest that your audience will have a much better attitude toward a positive appeal—than toward a negative one. Plus, the negative ones don’t necessarily translate into more money.

Make yourself a visual element of the presentation.

Sure, slides are great and they play a huge role. But for a truly impactful presentation, the presenter is the main visual element. Okay, okay. I know the very idea of having all eyes on you elicits a bit of panic. With some practice it can happen. Know what you’re going to say—but don’t have it memorized word for word. That allows you to walk among your audience, make eye contact and get up-close and personal—instead of preaching from the pulpit. One way to do this is to practice in front of family and friends. You can also use the presentation coaching tool that may already be built into your slideshow software. A good one will:

• Evaluate your pacing, pitch, as well as your use of filler words, informal speech, euphemisms and culturally sensitive terms.
• Detect when you’re being too wordy or when you sound too “robotic”—like you’re just reading the text on a slide.
• Continue to “learn” as you use it, adding additional suggestions in the future.
• Deliver an in-depth report with personalized stats about your performance and suggestions for improvements.

When all eyes are back on the slides, make sure they look enticing.

If you’re not sure how to begin, look for a slideshow program that offers built-in help with your presentation’s design. For example, there are integrated features available that will:

• Work in the background as you add content to your slide and generate design ideas to choose from.
• Detect your pictures, charts or tables and give you suggestions for arranging them in an organized, eye-catching way.
• Transform text like lists, timelines, etc. into easy-to-digest graphics.
• Shows illustrations in various layouts, in addition to suggesting ones for your key terms and concepts.

Know how to read the room—even during online presentations.

More and more of us are presenting online every day. While it’s convenient, it’s also easy for you (and your audience) to miss those all-important personal nuances like facial cues and natural interactions. Luckily, presentation software is quickly adapting to offer richer, more lifelike presenting capabilities , including:

• A bird’s eye view: A special panel view (that only the presenter can see) lets you instantly check your notes, engage in chats and see your audience, while the audience sees only the slide.
• Customizable modes: This let you customize how your video feed and content appears to the audience. It allows them to see you, the speaker, interact with your presentation slides, making everything more immersive and engaging.
• Live reactions: Imagine the rush you’ll get from actually seeing your audience react in real time! Look for video chat software that lets your audience use emojis to instantly share reactions to your presentation. Not only does it keep them engaged, it helps you gauge your audience.

Whether you’re giving a presentation for school, work, a charity event or something else—the same rules apply. The key to creating impactful presentations is having easy access to the right visual tools, the ability to engage the audience via storytelling and interactive experiences and, last but not least, plenty of good, old fashioned practice.

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The Power Of Storytelling In Presentations

• Pitch deck design /
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Telling stories never gets old. Our brains have an embedded need for narrative, whether it’s schemas, scripts, cognitive maps, mental models or metaphors. In many ways, stories are how we think and make sense of the world around us, and this extends to business concepts as well.

This hidden power of storytelling can influence how we make decisions and how we persuade others of our ideas.

In presentations, stories are the most effective way of organizing information. A powerful form of communication, they translate ideas and move people to action. Moreover, they turn the audience into viral advocates of the proposition , whether in life or in business, by paying the story—not just the information—forward.

Harnessing the power of storytelling for presentations

Humans are hardwired for storytelling. Neuroscientist Uri Hasson of Princeton University researched the effects of storytelling on the brain by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Hasson and his team scanned the brain activity of several participants while they listened to a story. Once the story began, the brain activity of the listeners synced up on a deep level, and “neural entrainment” spread across all brains in higher-order areas including the frontal cortex and the parietal cortex. He found that the storyteller’s brain activity synched with the listeners, while he was telling the story. Hasson’s research showed that an effective storyteller causes the neurons of an audience to closely sync with the storyteller’s brain, which has significant implications for presenters.

A key rule of telling stories is giving your audience an emotional experience. Purposeful stories that reach the listener’s hearts and minds are those that move them to action. Specialists say that the most effective and efficient way to do that is through the use of metaphor and analogy. These linguistic devices are key components of the way we think, building blocks of the very structure of knowledge. They can be used to evoke images and turn on memory, along with rich sensory and emotional associations, bringing the listener into the story, cognitively and emotionally, as an active participant.

We perceive and remember something based on how it fits with other things. One way the brain sorts things is by metaphors (…).

When you’re describing things in a story, you are creating visual imagery that engages you in multiple ways.

Pamela Rutledge, Psychologist  and Director of the Los Angeles-based Media Psychology Research Center via

Every story has to fit within the context of your presentation, or at least tie in with your surrounding remarks. Forced stories have the opposite effect, they disconnect the audience and make it harder for them to understand where you’re going with the presentation.

Stories have purpose. They have to be relevant to the experience and interests of your audience. Each story should have a point to it that your listeners can easily grasp and identify with. You want to use stories to put information into perspective, not replace it. Make your stories clear and relevant, to support the information in your presentation. That means keeping them fairly short and removing unnecessary details.

You want to use stories to put information into perspective, not replace it. (Click to tweet)

When you think of a story to accompany an idea in your presentation, think of it like painting a picture of your idea. Create an easy-to-visualize story where something happens in a specific time and place, played out by characters that your audience is likely to connect with. Don’t try to overdo it or use too many stories. If you’re not comfortable including a story, don’t do it. Otherwise it might seem forced and have a negative impact on your listeners.

If the type of presentation allows it, opt for a personal story. These are naturally embedded with emotion, making you vulnerable and connecting you to your audience. It will also make it easier for you to select how you want to tell the story, what details to include and what elements are most likely to strike a chord with the audience.

The power of stories also comes from scarcity. Don’t go overboard with stories; instead, use them sparingly and make sure that they are the right ones to stay with your audience even after the presentation is over.

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Storytelling structure in presentations

I’ve recently finished reading Christopher Booker’s book: The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories. I think the book captures the essence of how and why all stories boil down to one of a few plot structures, and how they can act as outlines for effectively presenting all sorts of information.

Here’s an infographic I found detailing the seven plots that the book talks about, for you to try out in your presentations:

Another interesting way of structuring stories is the classical three-act formula , recommended by Nancy Duarte. You’re probably familiar with this format—the protagonist is identified as likable, then they go through all of these difficult times, and finally, they emerge transformed.

This is a type of structure that enables you to create a story arc to support the hero’s transformation. It’s a technique that builds tension within the audience and releases it, creating that emotional impact we talked about.

Storytelling in business presentations

It might seem counterintuitive but telling stories is actually key to many business presentations. Whether we’re talking about a pitch deck for an investment, a sales pitch for a new client or a product presentation, you should aim to sell a story, not list of numbers.

A great example is tech giant Cisco Systems. The company used to deliver fact-heavy presentations promoting their products. But when they stopped listing features and started telling stories, they became much more effective and successful. By telling the story of a small, struggling, local business owner who grew his company and managed it more effectively using Cisco, the company was able to humanize information about technology and make their benefits more relatable.

One storytelling technique useful in business presentations is using visual elements. Visual design is an universal language that can help you connect the dots between important data points and business conclusions that everyone sitting in that presentation can follow. In fact, in a survey conducted by TDWI, 74% of respondents believed data visualization to be responsible for a “very high” or “high” increase in business user insights. For example, you could organize data from a report in an infographic instead of a table. Or you could translate a strategy into a visual concept that you illustrate with an image.

Another effective technique is to create contrast, in a what is vs what could be scenario. For example, in a pitch deck , when describing the problem that you’re trying to solve with your product/service, it’s easier for investors to connect to it and relate if you explain the two scenarios: how your target market conducts life and business without a solution, and how their lives and businesses would be significantly improved if they had your product/service.

Storytelling isn’t just a way of entertaining audiences, it’s a way of presenting your ideas in a language that the human brain understands best. Used wisely, it’s a powerful device to keep listeners engaged in what you are saying, and it is a motivating factor for action.

As you practice your storytelling abilities, you’ll find that right mix between facts, ideas and stories that keep audiences attentive and move them to action.

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10 Creative Storytelling Presentation Templates

Adding a story to your presentation is an absolute must-have element if you wish to engage your audience or viewers and make your content memorable.

Humans have gathered around a fireplaces to listen storytelling for thousands of years, so following a story path in your presentation is a natural instinct.

Nobody likes bullet points and slides, people hunger for a beginning, an adventure and a great ending. These are the presentation elements which will make you a legend.

So how to present a story and make it fascinating? The below gallery includes some of our best Story and Storytelling related presentation templates for PowerPoint and Prezi. Replace the content with your own text and images and focus on what matters – your story:

1. Story Timeline Presentation Template

Prezi Template for making a creative timeline or photo frames slideshow. A classic film tape/movie roll with a 3D background for presenting your images, videos or texts. Present about your company history, talk about a movie or a TV show or create a multimedia image gallery slideshow. Easily customize the template by duplicating the film tape and add as many placeholders as needed. Divide your timeline path into sections using the dotted line and zoom in to present the content. Present a story with a smooth flow and take your audience on journey through time.

2. Creative Stories Presentation Template

Good template for educational presentation, for presenting to kids or children in the classroom. Includes a PowerPoint version with animated stickman figures. A fun template with a simple paper sketch concept, I mean come on, we’ve all created stickman figures, and when they come alive, the it feels like a magic hollywood movie for the kids 

3. Digital Story Presentation Template

3D Prezi Template with the concept of digital storytelling. A film strip flying out of a white Ipad and scattered white frames for your content. All visual elements are separated; move them around, remove graphics, change the background and create your own unique layout. Duplicate the 2 different kind of frames for your texts, images or videos. A good template for visual storytelling, presenting movie/film scripts, movie reviews, digital media, online videos, streaming content or media from the internet. A simple and universal template for presenting with lot of media content, create a slideshow of photos, or a gallery of videos.

4. Open Book Presentation Template

Take your viewers on a story and fly through the letters and numbers on the 3D background. The slides in the template have a nice 3D transition effect and at first, it might look like the template zooms and spins an awful lot, but this example presentation only shows blanks slides, but your presentation will have more content to show, and thus you’re staying on each slide longer.

5. Comic Book Story Presentation Template

Do you want to become a superhero? It’s possible with this creative comic book design Prezi presentation template. Tell a story to your audience, add beautiful images, use comic book effects and you’ll be remembered as a storytelling hero, guaranteed! Rethink your boring presentation you were going to present, by adding a character and a narrative. Your audience will be more captivated and everyone will remember your content. People are emotional creatures, and this template limits your ability to present slides with boring and large text blocks, so you have to become creative and rethink your story in a more visual way!

6. Adventure Book Presentation Template

People love stories and adventures so give your audience something to remember by using this creative 3D presentation template featuring an open book on a desk and a city popping out of it. A magical and fantasy themed book presentation template with a city with skyscrapers and tall mountain tops popping out from a book. A perfect template for storytelling and making a presentation about education, book, innovation or science fiction. This is your adventure, go ahead and write the first chapter…

7. Project Storyboard Presentation Template

Prezi presentation Template with a creative storytelling concept. A storyboard sketch on an A4 paper – present your business ideas or add a story to any other topic. Storyboards are commonly used to visualize movies or animations, in a sketched out sequence. Use this great concept to build your own presentation. Add images and illustrations inside the frames and short descriptions underneath.

8. Story of Time Presentation Template

Prezi Template for creating a 3D circular photo slideshow or sharing image/videos. A classic black film/movie tape forming a round circular shape with a clock face (can be deleted) Present about your business or company history or roadmap, or create a gallery of memories. A good photo or video template for any kind of presentation with lots of pictures or videos in it. Present a story and take your audience on journey through time with is symbolized by the circle clock shape. Share memories or present photographs from an event – insert your images into the photo frames. A good template for photographers or videographers to present their work or portfolio. Insert your own photographs, or use video, text or symbols.

9. Writing a Story Presentation Template

Prezi template with an abstract pencil concept. Letters flying out from a broken pencil. Illustrates creativity, learning or writing. When zooming in the background fades into a grey color to focus on the content. Move or delete the elements and create an interesting looking presentation. Present about creative writing, copywriting, literature, school, education.

10. Photo Box Presentation Template

Prezi Template for creating a 3D photo slideshow, sharing images or videos. A classic black film tape forming a rectangular shape with multiple zoom levels. Present about your company history, talk about a movie or a TV show or create a media gallery. A good photo or video template for any kind of presentation with lots of pictures. Present a story and take your audience on journey through time. Share memories or present photographs from an event – insert your images into the photo frames. A good template for photographers or videographers to present their work or portfolio. Insert your own photographs, or use videos, text or symbols.

So what’s your story? Do you need to a create a presentation to wow your clients, boss or someone else?

Think about that… what is the message behind your presentation and what are you trying to say to your audience? This will determine the kind of story you need to present about.

If you’re looking for some more inspiration, be sure to check out Best 25 Creative presentation templates or browse our Pinterest Channel for more Prezi template ideas.

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15 visual storytelling tools for content teams

By Marissa Sapega — Contributing Writer​​

In the past, visual stories on the web were typically ‘stories that have lots of images’. But thanks to an abundance of visual storytelling platforms and exciting web tools, this is changing.

Increasingly, visual stories now contain interactive elements, video, infographics, maps, and more. Moreover, the best visual content on the web isn’t built with just one tool. Instead, creators are weaving visual stories by leveraging multiple solutions to create content that delights and enthrals viewers.

This article will explore some of the top visual storytelling tools creators have at their disposal to make their digital content electrify their audience. But first, it’s important to understand what a visual story is.

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What is a visual story?

Visual storytelling is a written narrative interwoven with expressive visuals to help convey meaning. Typically, visual stories can capture our collective attention far better than a story communicated through text alone. 

This is especially true on the web, where readers increasingly expect immersive and interactive elements. In the past, most visual stories would contain at most a handful of images. But with the rise of new platforms and web technologies, visual content is increasingly multimedia. Interactive stories, too, are becoming much more common. 

Visual storytelling has been embraced by a range of different content creators, from content marketing professionals to nonprofit marketers. Today, visual stories are becoming a core part of the digital marketing strategy of many organisations.

To create a visual story, you will need a canvas — that is, a base platform used to integrate the various elements of your story. Shorthand is one such platform, which can integrate with hundreds of third party tools and plug-ins, including many of those listed in this article. Learn more about choosing a platform here . 

A HTML5 platform like Shorthand will automate many of the web design elements, including layouts and responsive design. This simplifies the content creation process, and most likely means you won’t need to tap in a web designer. Other content creation tools — such as generic CMS like Wordpress — will likely require more investment in bespoke development and web design. 

Once you have chosen a platform and written a draft of your copy, you will most likely need to create a storyboard. This can be anything from sketches in a notebook to highly collaborative online mockups. The storyboard process is useful for engaging with stakeholders before you invest in creating or sourcing assets. 

Once your storyboard is complete, you can begin creating your assets. This might require graphic design, depending on how sophisticated your visual story is and what sort of visual elements you wish to include. Some visual stories use stock photos and GIFs — others incorporate custom videos and maps. 

 So, what tools can help you create compelling content that will captivate your viewers? Here are our recommendations for the best visual storytelling tools.

The top 15 visual storytelling tools

Canva’s drag-and-drop media creation tool lets you build virtually anything you can dream up — all without needing a degree in design. It has templates for videos, social media artwork, logos, posters, presentations, graphs, and much more. Use it to leverage your shaky-at-best artistic skills and pull together a polished final product.

Canva is perfect for bootstrapping entrepreneurs and teams who want to work collaboratively. It’s so much fun (and so easy) to create designs that it may cause you to reconsider a career in the arts if you’re not already in that discipline!

Expertise required: It’s super beginner-friendly but also beloved by skilled designers.

Cost: Free plan, with Pro starting at $12.99 per month.

Trusted by boutique brands and Fortune 500’s alike, Visme is your go-to solution for designing elegant imagery for all your needs. Like Canva, seasoned designers and those who can’t draw a straight line will find it delightfully easy to transform data and ideas into visuals audiences can’t help but admire. You can create infographics, branded documents, presentations, short videos, animations, and more.

Expertise required: User-friendly for everyone from design novices to experts.

Cost: Free plan, with Pro starting at $12.25 per month.

Creating an infographic couldn’t be easier with Venngage . Start with one of their 7,500 professionally designed templates, use the drag and drop editor to customise it to your needs with stock icons and images, then download it. 

But Venngage is not limited to infographics. Like Canva and Visme, you’re free to unleash a whole host of creative options for virtually any type of visual imagery you need. Coupons, certificates, YouTube banners, diagrams, flow charts — you name it, you can create it on Venngage.  

Expertise required: For everyone who can use a computer! (Even your uncle who refuses to buy a smartphone.)

Cost: Free plan with Premium starting at $16 per month.

Esri ArcGIS StoryMaps

More than a simple map tool, ArcGIS StoryMaps enables you to build a custom digital story enhanced with dynamic maps you create. If you’re a digital storytelling newbie, start with an express map . ArcGIS StoryMaps provides the base map canvas — you add custom touches like drawn lines, annotations, and pop-ups that make your map more engaging and valuable. 

Expertise required: ArcGIS is built for GIS professionals, and you’ll likely need some GIS expertise to make the most of the tool. 

Cost: You’ll need to chat with them to find out.

If you’re looking to include maps that offer real-world visualisations (with topography!), tiling, geographically accurate streets, and more to your digital stories, Mapbox will be your new best friend. Non-techies will appreciate the professionally designed basic options, while the more creatively inclined can let their imagination run wild when creating a custom map in Mapbox Studio . It turns out it’s surprisingly easy to add stunning cartography to your digital stories when Mapbox is involved.

Expertise required: You’ll likely need a developer to make the most of Mapbox. While some of the maps are easy to add to digital content, others have more complex requirements. Keep in mind that you’ll need to use the Mapbox API to access the maps, which will more than likely require a developer’s help to connect to whatever platform you’re using to build your story.

Cost: Pricing varies by volume (eg, app users, monthly loads, requests, etc.), though all the map options start with a free tier.

Shorthand is a digital storytelling platform that allows users to create interactive maps using scrollytelling . Shorthand’s Scrollpoints feature allows you to leverage the Scrollytelling format without writing code. Zoom in and out and from side to side on images to draw viewers’ attention to a particular part of the visual

Expertise required: Beginner-friendly — anyone can pick it up with minimal effort.

Cost: Custom pricing for all use cases. Contact us for more pricing information.

Trusted by thousands of brands worldwide for good reason, Flourish is one of the industry’s top data visualisation tools. You can build heatmaps, Sankey diagrams (to illustrate flows), and even animated race bar charts that illustrate changes over time. 

Flourish also allows you to create additional interactive content like quizzes and carousels that are perfect for embedding in your digital stories or website. Though you can start with one of their ready-made templates, you can also create bespoke templates or commission one that suits your unique needs.

Expertise required: If you know how to create a spreadsheet, you can use Flourish. Those who love a good hands-on project can take advantage of Flourish’s customisation options and build their own templates from scratch using its developer SDK.

Cost: There is a free plan, but you’ll need to contact them for pricing information.

As a visual analytics platform that helps you make better decisions based on data, Tableau has long been a favourite for analysts. But it’s also an incredible solution for adding data visualisations to your digital story. Think of its creations as the more ornate sibling of charts, graphs, and maps. It’s a robust tool for transforming complex information into a readily consumable format that will add credibility to your digital story. (Note that only Tableau Public gives you the ability to share your creations with anyone other than those with a Tableau license.)

Expertise required: For most people, Tableau is not one of those programs you can pick up on the fly. It’s a formidable product (much like its parent company’s flagship product, Salesforce ), so you'll need to be pretty tech-savvy to get the most out of it.

Cost: Tableau Public is free, with other plans starting at $70 per month.

Datawrapper

Stunning charts and maps and tables, oh my! This favorite of The New York Times and Associated Press enables you to build professional data visualisations that will elevate your digital stories by several notches.

If their chart templates don’t suit your brand, Datawrapper will build you a custom theme. If coloured tables with images are your jam, you’re in luck: Datawrapper allows you to modify fonts, table background colours, borders, and add visuals. You can even build interactive tables that allow users to sort and search for an optimal experience.

Expertise required: If you can build Excel charts, you can use Datawrapper. Plus, if you need step-by-step instructions on creating a chart, map, or graph, the company has you covered with its Data Academy and responsive support team.

Cost: There’s a generous free plan, but white-labelling jumps to $599 per month.

Many a photographer, from amateurs to seasoned veterans, has shared their talents with the world via this robust photo-sharing platform. You’ll find photographs of virtually every subject, all shot with style and aplomb.

Through its vast library of over 3 million photos and counting, Unsplash offers freely-usable images that won’t cost you a dime. All the photographs and imagery are available for commercial and non-commercial use. And given the quality of their stock, the fact that everything is free makes it a no-brainer to provide attribution (though it’s not required) to the talented artist who submitted the work. 

Expertise required: Oh so easy. The hardest part is choosing which photograph will best electrify your digital stories. There’s also an easy integration with Shorthand.

Cost: Free! The best value ever.

Another seemingly limitless repository of exquisite (and free) stock photography, Pexels is almost guaranteed to have what you’re looking for. Here you’ll find images of everything from ordinary kitchen utensils to breathtaking vistas. Like Unsplash, all photos can be used for anything you can dream up — Pexels allows both commercial and personal use. But beware if you’re on a deadline: you’ll find yourself mesmerised by thousands of images as you browse through an ever-expanding scroll screen.

Expertise required: Zip. Zilch. Zero.

Cost: Free as a bird! But make sure to attribute the artist for the best karma.

Adobe Stock

While Adobe may be best known for its mind-bending design and illustration software, its stock photography, illustrations, videos, templates, audio, and more are absolutely worthy of the brand’s knockout reputation. Give the search a whirl and see if you can stump it — with over 28,000 results for “paper towels”, you’re unlikely to find any emotion, geography, item, or situation unrepresented in its vast library.

Expertise required: The most expertise you’ll need is the ability to choose from thousands of options, which can be quite a challenge!

Cost: Subscriptions start at $29.99 per month and increase from there depending on usage.

If Adobe is a bit of a stretch for your budget, Dreamstime is a smart alternative for royalty-free photography, audio, video, illustrations, and graphics. It even includes editorial photos and videos that capture events unfolding worldwide.  

While not quite as extensive as Adobe (it only has 2,800 results for “paper towels”), Dreamstime will more than likely have what you’re looking for in its 183-million-strong photo library. Its video clips are perfect for embellishing a point in your digital story, and the audio tracks range from environmental (eg, silverware clanking on dishes or a howling winter storm) to snippets that will help draw your audience into your story. It even offers free stock photos as a bonus.

Expertise required: All you need to be able to do is register for an account and download your media. Easy peasy!

Cost: Monthly subscriptions start at $15 per month, with a range of flexible plans available depending on what you’re after.

Beloved by hobbyists and professionals alike, Pixabay is one of the top resources you’ll find for free, high-quality stock videos. Don’t think that just because the footage is free that it’s subpar. Pixabay stands by its professional product and only accepts first-rate videos that will bring your digital stories to life. The sharing platform also offers royalty-free sound effects and music. With whimsical names for the audio tracks (eg, “The Cradle of your Soul” and “Caves of Dawn”), Pixabay even manages to make searching for the perfect soundtrack an entertaining experience.

Expertise required: Super easy to find what you need and download your assets.

Cost: Free!

Shutterstock

Shutterstock gives Adobe a run for its money with its vast library of stock videos, photos, music, and more. Its 4K videos alone run the gamut, from futuristic panoramas to doughnuts frying in sizzling oil. Like with Adobe, if you can’t find it here, you probably won’t find it anywhere.

Cost: A range of license and subscription options starting from $29-$49 per month.

Marissa Sapega is a seasoned writer, editor, and digital marketer with a background in web and graphic design.

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