Ladies, gents, presentation enthusiasts and PowerPoint warriors – welcome to another new blog! Today, we’re diving into the juicy world of PowerPoint add-ins to get to the bottom of which you can skip and which you should be shoehorning into your next presentation. Let’s dive in.

PowerPoint is the star of this show

When it comes to presentations, the battle for audience attention is relentless. Add-ins are the secret weapons you can employ to properly deck out your deck, but PowerPoint is the thing you’re building on.

We know we’re biased, but we think that PowerPoint is genuinely a fantastic bit of kit. It’s user-friendly, visually versatile and a mainstream corporate fave for a reason. Sometimes even our trusty MS friend needs a little boost, though.

The hierarchy of presentation needs

Before we unleash the add-in arsenal on you, let’s step back for a second and talk about your presentation’s hierarchy of needs. You’re probably familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. You can use the same sort of priority pyramid to get the most from your presentations too.

01. Content

Content is the foundational priority for every decent deck. Without solid content, no add-in can save your drab deck, so make sure your messaging is always on-point.

02. Design

Once you’ve nailed your messaging, it’s time for you to focus on design. That means choosing the perfect palette, refining your style, and your slides look appealing af to grab, and maintain, attention.

03. Engagement

The top of the pyramid is where your PowerPoint add-ins really begin to shine. Use non-standard tools to take your engaging content and delicious design and really kick it up a notch.

Game-changing PowerPoint add-ins

Here are some presentation tools to help you get your decks soaring.

Prezi

Ever wanted to easily break free from a standard linear slide format? Prezi will help you to do just that. It’s an easy way to shoehorn some interest-upping movement onto your slides, and gives you the capability to add simple menu systems across a deck.

Poll Everywhere

If you reckon audience interaction is the name of your engagement game, Poll Everywhere is the ace in your hand. Ask real-time questions and let your audience vote interactively. It’s like turning a normal presentation into a call and response game show, and makes it super easy to get everyone involved.

Pexels and Unsplash

Unleash the power of high-quality, royalty-free images with Pexels and Unsplash. These two sites give you access to a veritable treasure trove of stunning visuals, ensuring your slides look better than ever without paying big image owning bucks. For more image options, check out this blog!

MeetingPulse

For everything from real-tie Q&A sessions, opinion polling, instant voting and super-fast sentiment analysis, you need MeetingPulse. It’s the simple way to save yourself from a headache when you open up your presentation for questions and helps you to stay focussed on the task at hand with a slick, user-friendly add-in that takes the heat off you.

Lucidchart

For intelligent diagramming, you needn’t look any further than Lucidchart, a branch of Lucid’s offering that gobbles up your complex flowcharts and dense data and vomits out clear, clarified visuals ready for your slides. Gross analogy, great tool.

The verdict on PowerPoint add-ins

In the end, choosing the best PowerPoint add-ins is about finding the tools that’ll help you enhance the overall presentation experience for your audience. The goal is simple: keep them engaged, informed and, most crucial of all, entertained.

Remember though, fancy add-ins aren’t a silver bullet that’ll fix any old lacklustre deck. Your content needs to be tack sharp ad your design needs to shine. Add-ins are nothing more or less than the cherry on top, the icing on the cake, the extra oomph your deck is craving.

So embrace the power of PowerPoint add-ins and see what your next deck could become. Or, if this sounds like way too much effort, why not just get us to do it for you…? Get in touch today to see what this partnership will look like.