6 Essential Features Your Interactive Presentation Software Must Have

Audience Response Tools

If you’re still trying to engage an audience with a PowerPoint presentation or Google Slides, check their pulse. They might be tuning out. The problem isn’t your content or your obviously sparkling personality while delivering said content. It’s the fact that your presentation likely lacks pep. You’re in need of an interactive presentation software that can help liven things up.

Using linear slides is no longer a good way to grab your audience’s attention. The basic presentations of yesteryear have become passé. It’s time to craft interactive presentations that will keep your audience engaged.

We can help save your future presentations from inducing snore-dom. Modern presentation software and presentation apps offer plenty of options. And they can make it incredibly easy to create interactive presentations. Really.

This article will look at the possibilities and describe some of the ways you can create more engaging presentations by adding interactive content and experimenting with new features. We’ll also talk about some of the presentation tools available, including a few free presentation software options.

What is an interactive presentation?

When we say interactive presentation, what we mean is this: a presentation that involves interactive features like pop-ups, hotspots, videos, and navigation functions. The features are designed specifically to encourage your audience to actively participate in the presentation. An interactive presentation tool can turn your outdated slideshow experience on its head. And even if you use pre-built templates, it won’t look like it.

Interactive presentations mean your audience is more likely to participate. An interactive experience is more likely to stimulate learning and keep people engaged instead of checking their phones or emails.

Let’s look at a real-world scenario: An S&P 500 investment management firm needed a better way to engage thousands of employees located around the world during its meetings. The firm wanted a simple and easy-to-use tech option to help reach employees across age groups, positions, and technical skills.

The firm tried MeetingPulse’s application for both face-to-face meetings and conference calls, with audiences ranging from 20 to 200. At the end of the trial, over 98% of the meeting participants stated that they found the tool useful. Hosts benefited from its engagement features that allowed for the addition of questions, upvoting, and polling in powerpoint and other presentation platforms. The firm’s meetings saw an estimated 350% increase in engagement. Managers were able to combine multiple meetings into one meeting, saving time and increasing efficiency overall.

How can I make my presentation interactive?

Let’s review features that a meeting or event host should demand from the tools and software systems on the market.

1. Video capabilities

Whether you’d like to include videos in a presentation or use a software system to host a live stream, video is a great tool to capture your audience’s attention and keep it engaged. Video can help your presentation feel more personal and accessible, which will allow you to forge closer connections and strengthen relationships with your audience members.

MeetingPulse features a presentation tool that easily integrates with other platforms like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Vimeo, WebEx, and YouTube, so that you can continue to use platforms your workforce or audience is comfortable with while implementing MeetingPulse’s cloud-based tool to make your presentation more enjoyable — and memorable. Did we already mention it’s extremely easy? It is.

2. Power up PowerPoint

Some software systems can integrate with basic presentations created on PowerPoint, which is a great solution to making your presentations interactive with minimal effort.

With MeetingPulse, our presentation tool can automatically run the Q&A within Powerpoint, polls, quizzes, leaderboards and more. As soon as the slideshow gets to the polls slide, MeetingPulse will launch the poll and send it to your attendee’s mobile devices. Their phones become part of your presentation experience.

3. Mobile friendly or mobile first

Does your software system welcome BYOD — bring your own device? Everyone has a smart phone these days, so why not use that to your advantage? While looking for the best presentation software for your needs, look at ones that allow your audience to participate from their mobile devices. That alone will increase the likelihood that they’ll stay engaged.

MeetingPulse is mobile first. The platform has been designed specifically for mobile use. Audience members can participate with ease no matter what personal electronic device they’re using — including tablets and laptops.

As the host, you can control the features you enable and apply your own branding to make the presentation align with your organization’s aesthetic.

4. Real-time response data and its analysis

If you’re asking your audience to participate, wouldn’t it be helpful to get insights immediately? It can be especially useful if you ask audience members to participate in live polling or Q&As. Seeing results in real-time can help you determine if your presentation is working or if a shift is needed.

MeetingPulse has several reporting options, and you can access the data as soon as answers and information are submitted through any of our engagement modules. The reports are also saved after the event so that you can access them at any time and use the insights at a later time.

5. Customizable

The basic drag and drop format is nice. But some tools go farther. To make good presentations, look for software that allows you to create presentations just the way you want to.

MeetingPulse exists on a cloud infrastructure that supports tens of thousands of active audience members, and you can customize your presentations however you see fit, including using a specific domain, monitoring meetings stats, creating branded themes, and more.

6. Web-based

There’s nothing worse than having a technical issue grind your event to a halt. A software system that uses an online platform is a good way to avoid such embarrassments. Web-based software works from any browser, so there’s no need for audience members to download apps to interact or view the presentation.

With MeetingPulse, participants can join and participate via a short link that you distribute before the event. Your meeting will just be one simple click away, no matter where they’re logging in from.