Influence and Inspire Your Audience with Visuals

Maintaining visual communication with your audience during a webinar can be a challenge. There are many aspects of communicating visually during your presentation. You should make sure that each of your slides has a strong message, is visually engaging, and you have to maintain good visual contact with your audience. All of this will boost your influence and inspire your audience.

Why Visual Communication is Important

Many studies show that people ‘read’ images and that they remember messages better that are presented in a visually appealing way. In fact, pictures are one of the best ways to improve the long-term memory of your audience. The power of visual communication is so effective that people retain about 80% of what they see and only about 20% of what they read or hear.

However, it seems that visual communication is boosted when the audience sees and hears the message at the same time. Studies also show that webinar presenters who use visual language are viewed are more influential and inspiring.

Visual communication to grab attention

During your webinar presentation, you can use visual aids to grab your audience’s attention. Imagine the difference of seeing a white slide with many lines of black text and a colorful one with eye-catching visuals. Even though bulleted lists are an effective means of visual communication, that kind of list is never going to grab attention.

Visuals are more flexible

You can get your message across more effectively by using more visuals and less text. One picture can tell a message that could take a few sentences to describe in words. Sometimes, a message can be lost in many words, but visual aids help to make them stand out.

Visual communication also crosses language barriers and helps you deliver your message to people from diverse cultures and backgrounds.
Increase the credibility of your product

There is an adage that “seeing is believing.” An image, graph or another visual element can help to win the trust of your audience. Of course, some catchy phrases or well-constructed quality content is needed to make your presentation interesting. However, the appropriate images of your product or service will help to earn the trust of your audience.

Types of Visual Communication

There are many different types of visual communication that you can leverage to influence and inspire your audience. Some effective ways to communication visually with your audience is to use:

• Charts
• Diagrams
• Flowcharts
• Tables
• Graphs
• Animations
• Video clips

When using these types of visual aids to communicate your message, make sure and keep text to a minimum and only use where necessary. If it’s possible to convey your message on a slide with just a visual image, then use that because your audience will remember that better.
Also, pay attention to the use of color. Colorful visuals can incite strong emotions and when used correctly, they can exert a strong influence on your audience.

Use Visual Communication to Influence and Inspire

Another aspect of visual communication that is needed to influence and inspire your audience is to use eye contact. It can be challenging to maintain good visual contact when you can’t see your audience. However, you should remember, that your audience could probably see you. Failing to make the proper eye contact can give the impression that you are not interested in your presentation and that your audience isn’t important.

Remember, that your eyes can communicate a wide range of emotions and attitudes. People can generally tell if you are sincere, interested, and excited about your product just by your eyes. Some people can be distracted or view you as untrustworthy if you fail to maintain the proper eye contact.

To maintain visual eye contact, it’s important to remember to look directly into the camera. If you are using a laptop camera, it can be tempting to always look at your screen. However, in doing so, you will lose your audience contact. You could have a visual aid, like a large arrow, pointing at the camera to remind you to look at the camera when talking.

Visual communication and social media

A very powerful way that visual communication can boost your marketing strategy is because of its power to influence others. Social media has become one of the most important ways to engage with your audience. Visuals aids that are incorporated in your webinar can be then shared on social media. This can help to increase your digital footprint and reach a wider audience.

If you use visually inspiring images in your webinar and share these on social media, there is a good chance that your audience will then share these with their friends.

Rules for Visual Communication to Inspire and Influence

This doesn’t mean that any kind of visual slide will influence your audience. An expert on using PowerPoint presentations gave the following rules for using slides:

• Try to limit text to no more than 6 or 7 words per slide.
• Only use professional, high-quality images.
• Stay clear of fancy effects or sound effects.
• Prepare a slide handout to distribute at the end of the webinar.
• Use well-recognized icons instead of writing text.