3 Useful Tips for A Good Data Presentation

Collecting and analyzing data is a great way to help marketers (and business owners) make informed decisions. Whether it’s big data or analytics, there is a myriad of ways you can gather insightful information that can allow you to gain a competitive advantage. However, it isn’t enough to just organize your data onto a presentation software and showcase it to your intended audience.

Your audience needs to understand what’s going on—the bigger picture your data is trying to express. It doesn’t matter what type of data presentation or data visualization tool you use; the rules apply for all. Without an effective data presentation, your hard work becomes stale, transforming into a random assortment of numbers and graphs.

In this blog post, we’ll look over 3 great tips that can help you create a data presentation that’s worth paying attention to.

Presentation always matters.

When it comes to presenting your data, it’s important to focus on how you present it. This doesn’t necessarily mean making your presentation look prettier. While visually aesthetic presentations are a plus, making your data understandable is more important.

If your presentation is filled with numbers and other jargon, it can be really easy for your stakeholders to tune out what you’re saying. Make sure your data presentation is organized, containing a clear flow that drives excitement, curiosity, or another emotion from your audience.

Change the way you use numbers.

You may think showcasing numbers will generate interest in your presentation. Think again. Your client or boss will likely feel overwhelmed with too much numerical data, even ones in charts and graphs.

Fortunately, there are ways to make numbers look exciting! For example, you can shrink numbers with many decimals to two decimal places (or less!), depending on the data. You can also align any numbers on a chart to the right side. This makes it easier to read so that your audience can see the largest numbers.

Make sure your data is visible.

Sometimes, it’s hard to notice when your data is visible on a screen, especially if you mainly work on a laptop. The data presented on your laptop may look readable on the small screen but it may not translate well on a larger projector.

If your audience can’t see what you’re presenting, they won’t learn about your key findings. Be sure to rehearse your presentation a few times, making sure that it’s easy to read at all times.

Insightful data helps you make good decisions so that you can achieve your marketing goals. When it’s presented in a clear manner, it can also build your credibility for any decisions that you decide to make. Poor presentations force your stakeholders to grow bored and prevent opportunities for further growth. These tips are just a few of the many ways you can produce a data presentation that’s engaging and truthful.

Like data presentations, creating effective infographics are an incredibly useful tool. Learn more about how infographics can help you by checking out my blog post, How Good Infographics Tell A Compelling Story.