How to Create a Webinar Presentation: Tools and Tips to Make it Easy

When hosting webinars and meetings, it's easy to lack emphasis and rhythm. This impacts the end goal of your presentation: passing a message.

Getting your audience hooked to your presentation while being as clear as possible can be harder online than in the real life. You will have to fight for their attention: after 30 minutes, people start to lose interest.

In this article, we'll show you how to design a deck for your webinar presentation, the right tools to use, and how to use them efficiently.

You can learn some other webinar best practices in our complete guide.

How to design a deck for your webinar presentation?

The design of your presentation will set the tone of your webinar. A good design creates a professional look that reassures your attendees. Here are some tips on how to design your webinar presentation:

Tip 1: Choose a presentation tool

Determine where you’ll design your presentation. You can always create your slides in tools like Canva, PowerPoint, or Adobe Illustrator and share your screen.

But if you want to have control over your presentation and interact with it without changing screens, pick a tool that integrates with your software for live events.

If you’re using Livestorm, choose Visme, Slido, or Miro.

Tip 2: Outline your webinar presentation

Working on the skeleton of your presentation will help you determine what needs to be said and in what order. A webinar presentation deck usually includes the following slides:

• Title slide
• A brief introduction of the topic
• The main points or agenda of the webinar
• A slide for each main topic
• Solutions
• A summary of the key takeaways
• Additional resources

From showcasing a product demo, delivering customer training, or hosting a sales webinar, establishing an outline straight away will make designing your slides much easier.

Tip 3: Start your webinar with a powerful introduction

A compelling title slide and engaging introduction will reel in your audience from the start. The title slide should be simple and to the point, giving your audience an idea of what to expect.

Here are a few ideas of what to include:

• An intriguing question
• A statistic or data point
• Stating the outcome
• How-to-formulas
• List of best practices

When creating the intro slide, ask yourself the question: what will my audience learn from this presentation?

Tip 4: Use bullet points to break down the main points

Follow the “keep it simple, stupid” (K.I.S.S) rule, and avoid writing a full script on your slides.

Too much text will distract your audience and encourage presenters to simply read the slides aloud instead of adding value for your audience. Don’t go over 30 words and 8 lines per slide.

Use the same font family throughout, but use different sizes or bolding options to add texture.

Bullet points are easier to digest than large paragraphs of text. Use short sentences or phrases to keep your audience engaged and prevent information overload.

But it is important not to overdo it with the bullet points.

The "2019 Annoying PowerPoint Survey" by David Paradi revealed the top three things that annoy people the most about PowerPoint:

• when the speaker reads directly from the slides
• slides with small text
• slides that are text-heavy.

If your presentation ticks the above points, your audience is trying to read and listen simultaneously. So they're not focusing on either.

The solution here is to use bullet points strategically to break down complex topics, list key points and takeaways, and guide the viewer's gaze.

Tip 5: Use your company branding

Webinars mostly help you increase brand awareness and invite your audience to connect with your company. Not all of your attendees will be people who’ve heard of your company.

Subtle branding across all communications and assets will make everything more visually appealing and keep attendees focused on your brand.

Pro tip: Choose a video engagement platform, like Livestorm, that lets you customize your room design and add plugins—for actions like file sharing.

Tip 6: Use strong visuals in your webinar slide deck

Switching things up helps keep webinars interesting. Use image-only slides or videos to give the audience a rest from intently reading slides or listening to your voice.

Every webinar should include visuals to illustrate the content and highlight key points, especially if the aim is to share complex data or statistics. Here are some ideas for visuals to use in your webinar presentation:

• Graphs and charts
• Timelines
• Maps
• Images
• Infographics
• Schematics

Visualizations are memorable and can help your audience retain information.

Tip 7: Emphasize important information with colors

Color plays an important role in your presentation. You can use it to communicate your brand, and to highlight the keywords or phrases you want your audience to remember

You can also use color to show a connection between two ideas or to highlight a cause-and-effect relationship. For example, you can use a green arrow to show an increase or a red arrow to show a decrease.

Tip 8: Add simple fonts in your webinar presentation

When choosing fonts for your webinar presentation, less is more. Stick to one or two simple fonts that are easy to read. Sans serif fonts are typically the best choice for presentations because they are legible from a distance and easy to read on a screen.

Some of the best fonts for presentations include:

• Helvetica
• Arial
• Verdana

You can experiment with bold fonts and text weight to draw attention.

Tip 9: Use templates to save time

Designing a presentation from scratch can be time-consuming. Luckily, there are many free and paid templates available online. Simply choose one that fits your brand identity and style. Then, add your own text and visuals.

When using templates, ensure you don't simply replace the placeholder text with your own content. Templates are meant to be a starting point, not a crutch.

Here are a few ideas to help you make the most of a template:

• Opt for a minimalistic template with plenty of white space.
• Choose a template with built-in animations and transitions.
• Look for a template that is compatible with the software you are using.
• Replace the placeholder text with your own text.
• Add visuals, such as images, graphs, and charts.

Tip 10: Plan interactive elements

Webinars that rely on the presentation alone tend to get boring fast, especially online. If people aren’t summoned to participate they can start to feel like they’re not there and zone out. Make interactivity a core part of your presentation.

Use an interactive whiteboard, ask poll questions, and invite them to participate in the chat or by raising their hands. Plan these interactive interventions ahead so they don’t get forgotten.

Tip 11: Include a call-to-action

The last part of your presentation should include a call to action (CTA). CTAs direct your audience to take the next step, whether that's to follow your social media accounts, download more resources, or sign up for future events. With Livestorm, you can add a clickable CTA directly in your live webinars, which is handy!

Follow these best practices for writing a CTA:

• Make the offer sound appealing
• Include a sense of urgency
• Be clear, concise, and actionable
• Use strong language

What are the top webinar presentation tips?

Our list of webinar presentation tips can help you create a successful presentation that engages your audience and drives results.

Tip 1: Know your attendees

When you host a webinar, always prioritize your audience. If you don’t understand their pain points and desires, you won’t be able to create a rapport with them or give them the information they need.

Ask yourself questions like:

• Who are my attendees?
• What is their level of expertise?
• What challenges do they face?

The more specific you can be about your target audience, the easier it will be to create a webinar that appeals to them.

With Livestorm’s contact profiles feature, you can collect information about your attendees (job profiles, demographic info, social media profiles, etc.) when they sign up for your webinar. You can use this information to segment your audience and send them targeted follow-ups after the webinar.

Tip 2: Encourage audience engagement

If you want your webinar to be successful, you need to encourage audience engagement. You can do this by using webinar live polls and surveys.

• Use an engaging opening: get your audience’s attention from the beginning with an interesting story, statistic, or question.
• Include polls and surveys: pose questions to your audience throughout the webinar to gauge their understanding and get them involved.
• Encourage questions and comments: make it easy for your audience to ask questions by providing a dedicated chat box or Q&A section. And don’t forget to answer the question with the most upvotes!

This two-way interaction can help break barriers between the presenter and the attendees, increase viewing time and improve attendee satisfaction.

Using rich media elements like images, GIFs and videos can also help to make your webinar more engaging.

Tip 3: Be passionate and energetic

When it comes to webinars, energy is key. Keeping your audience's attention will be difficult if you’re not passionate about your topic. Showcase your personality and let your energy levels shine.

This doesn’t mean you have to be bouncing off the walls – but try to avoid sounding monotone or bored. Instead, sound like you’re having a conversation with a friend.

Remember, webinar scripts are meant to guide. So don’t rely on them too much – improvise and have fun.

Tip 4: Keep your time limit in mind

Be respectful of everyone’s time and write an agenda that you’ll stick to. Get a moderator to help you with backstage processes like handling the Q&A panel and changing your slides, but also, to message you in private and alert you on how much time you have left.

Practice the presentation with the moderator before the event to ensure you have enough content to meet the proposed duration or determine if you need to cut things off.

Tip 5: Keep your webinar presentation concise

Your webinar should be focused and to the point. No one wants to sit through an hour-long sales pitch masquerading as a webinar.

The best webinars are those that get straight to the point and deliver valuable information in a concise way. So, before creating your webinar, ensure you have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and what points you need to hit.

Once you know this, it will be much easier to structure your webinar and keep it on track.

Tip 6: Gather feedback

Meeting the expectations of your audience, or serving user intent, can only be done if you know what they are.

For example, if your webinar promotion guarantees registrants that you’ll teach them ‘How to improve website conversion rate in 5 minutes,’ but your webinar only covers the basics of copywriting – you would have failed to meet their expectations.

Gathering feedback is a great way to ensure that you’ve delivered on your promises and that your attendees found your webinar valuable. This can be done in a few ways:

Surveys: use surveys to collect data before, during, or after your webinar. This is a great way to gauge interest levels and get detailed feedback.

Polls: include interactive video engagement elements in your webinars such as polls to encourage audience engagement and make it easy for them to provide feedback.

Tip 6: Practice, practice, practice!

Webinars are live events, which means anything can happen. That’s why it’s important to be prepared for anything that might come up – from technical difficulties to awkward silences.

One of the best ways to ensure a smooth webinar is to practice, practice, practice! Before going live, test that your microphone and webcams for the webinar are working properly.

It’s also a good idea to do a few run-throughs of your presentation with friends or colleagues to get feedback and identify any areas that need improvement.

By taking the time to prepare and practice, you can avoid any stressful surprises on the day of your webinar.

What are the best webinar presentation tools?

When selecting webinar software, consider a few factors such as ease of use, useful features like virtual backgrounds, price, and integrations. Here are the best tools for engaging webinar presentations:

Simple plugins for a better screen-sharing experience

1. Mouse Pointer Highlighter
2. Muzzle
3. Clean

Whiteboards for an engaging webinar

4. Prezi
5. Miro

Audio and video tools for a flawless webinar presentation

6. Krisp
7. Manycam

Live chat tools for an interactive webinar

8. Intercom
9. Drift
10. Help Scout

Let's take a look at each one in more detail.

Simple plugins for a better screen-sharing webinar experience

Webinars are all about sharing information in an engaging way – and one of the best ways to do this is by sharing your screen.

Screen-sharing tools allow you to show the audience your computer screen in real-time. This is a great way to showcase presentations, product demonstrations, or step-by-step instructions.

Here are a few:

1. Help your audience follow along with Mouse Pointer Highlighter

For: Mac OS - free

This chrome extension is specially designed for presenters who give webinars or presentations frequently. It makes your mouse pointer more visible on the screen so your audience can easily follow along.

This simplicity makes it a great plugin for those who want to focus on their presentation without worrying about the technicalities.

2: Silence embarrassing notifications with Muzzle

For: Mac OS only — Free

Speaking of external disturbance, we're overwhelmed with desktop notifications all day. So, when you are hosting a webinar presentation, you want to avoid all of those distractions.

On Mac and Windows OS there are already built in features to mute your desktop notifications.

But you can also look at Muzzle. The beauty of Muzzle is that it turns on automatically as soon as you start screen sharing, and it works with Livestorm!

Plus, it's 100% free.

3: Clear your desktop with Clean before your webinar presentation

For: Mac OS only — Free

If you're like us, your desktop is probably your main computer folder, which means that it's probably filled with a few hundred screenshots and random files.

Webinar presentations are like staging houses for sale, if there's too much "you" in the room, people won't be able to contextualize the demo for their use case. Removing the clutter of your desktop will definitely help.

On Mac, Clean does just that. In a single click, you can turn on and off the icons on your desktop. PC users may want to test Fences as an alternative.

Whiteboards for an engaging webinar presentation

Whiteboards are an essential part of any webinar presentation. They help you engage with your audience, add visual interest to your presentation, and make it easy for viewers to follow along.

Here’s a list of the best whiteboard tools:

4: Powerful presentations with Prezi

For all devices - Starts at $3/mo

Prezi is a cloud-based whiteboard tool that allows you to create engaging, visually-stunning presentations. With Prezi, you can zoom in and out of your presentation to highlight important information. This makes it easy for viewers to follow along and understand your message.

Prezi also offers a wide range of templates and tools to help you create your presentation.

5: Collaborate visually with Miro

For all devices - Offers a freemium

Miro is a cloud-based whiteboard tool that allows you to collaborate with team members in real-time. Miro also offers a wide range of templates and plugins to help create an engaging and interactive webinar presentation.

Audio and video tools for a flawless webinar presentation

Perfecting your audio and video quality is essential for any webinar presentation. After all, if your audience can't see or hear you, they won't be able to engage with your content.

There’s a wide range of audio and video tools available, but here are a few of the best:

6: Krisp for zero noise distractions

For all devices - Offers a freemium and starts at $3/mo

Krisp is an AI-powered noise-canceling software for your microphone. It also adds a virtual filter between your microphone and your calling app. This ensures that your audio is crisp and clear of any background noise.

7: Manycam — Virtual webcams

For: Mac OS and Windows — Free and starts at $29 / year

Manycam, just like Loopback, enables you to virtualize devices. This means that you can use different sources as video inputs and combine them into one single video input compatible with the browser, and, therefore compatible with Livestorm.

With Manycam during your webinars, you will be able to:

• Manage multiple cameras with a different setup for physical round tables,
• Use YouTube as a video source,
• Use web pages as video sources,
• Add overlays of text on top of your videos, webcam, etc. for your live events,
• Play different media as a playlist for pre-recorded webinars,
• Etc.

Live chat tools for an interactive webinar

Interactions are key before, during, and after a webinar. You'll want to hear from your attendees, take questions, and give the audience a voice. Here are some of the best live chat tools to do just that.

8. Intercom to boost registrations and nurture leads

For: Mac OS and Windows — Starts at $11.99 per user/month.

Intercom is a live chat tool that aims at building customer relationships. It's a great way to nurture your leads and give them the right information at the right time.

With Intercom, you can:

• Add a live chat widget on your registration page
• Automatically send follow-up emails to registrants who didn't attend
• Send personalized emails to webinar attendees
• Track how many people registered, attended, and watched the replay

9. Generate qualifying leads with Drift during virtual events

For: Mac OS and Windows

Drift enables you to build relationships and engage with attendees by answering questions, scheduling a demo, qualifying leads, and more—right from your live chat. You can set triggers for certain actions to happen based on how your attendees interact with you.

With Drift, you can:

• Start a live chat with an attendee to answer their questions in real-time
• Prompt conversation with FAQs
• Schedule a demo with a lead after the webinar
• Send follow-up emails to attendees

10. Use Help Scout Beacon to provide answers to common questions

For: Mac OS and Windows

Help Scout Beacon is a live chat tool that allows you to provide quick answers to common questions. It's great for FAQs, product information, and webinar details.

With Help Scout Beacon, you can:

• Add a live chat widget on your registration page
• Display different messages based on which page of your website someone is viewing
• Customize the look and feel of your live chat widget

Ready to create a webinar presentation?

Webinar presentations are a great way to engage with customers and increase leads. Now that you know the basics of how to create a webinar presentation, it's time to start planning your content. Remember to keep your audience in mind and make sure that your content is engaging and useful.

With the right tools and a well-rounded webinar platform like Livestorm that integrates seamlessly with your existing tools, your webinar presentation will be a success. You can also use Livestorm features like automatic email reminders and calendar syncing to help automate your workflows. Compelling events inspire action and leave a lasting impression.

Frequently asked questions about how to create a webinar presentation

How to create a webinar presentation on Zoom?

To create a webinar presentation on Zoom, create an account or sign in, click on the 'Webinars' tab, and click start.

How to prepare a webinar presentation?

To prepare a webinar presentation, you must first create an outline of your presentation, create or use a presentation template, add visuals and a CTA, and finally upload your presentation to a webinar software to ​​avoid any technical glitches during your live presentation.

How do you structure a webinar presentation?

The structure of your webinar presentation will depend on the purpose of your presentation. A typical webinar presentation structure includes an introduction, the body of the presentation, and a conclusion.

How do I start a webinar presentation?

To start a webinar presentation, have a clear idea of what you want to present, and have an outline of your presentation and any supporting materials such as slides or an infographic.

What makes a good webinar presentation?

A good webinar presentation is well planned and structured, has interesting and relevant content, and is easy to follow. Keep your audience engaged with Livestorm's live Q&A, polls, survey, and chat features.