Creating and using a strong call-to-action slide

At the end of a presentation, what do you want your audience to do?

You should know!

I often see presenters make similar mistakes at the end of their presentation:

• They don’t have a call-to-action slide at the end
• They have a call-to-action slide but follow it up with a “Questions?” slide, so that the call-to-action slide isn’t visible for every long
• Their call-to-action slide has too much information on it so the audience gets confused. Should they write it down? Take a picture of it using their phone?

Sometimes, the presenters are embarrassed to ask for something.

Sometimes, they don’t realize they should be asking for something

Sometimes, they just don’t know how to use a call-to-action slide

Changing the world requires taking action

Not every presentation requires a call to action. Perhaps you’re just updating your boss about your progress. But many presentations should end with a call to action, such as:

• Making a purchase
• Doing a homework assignment
• Implementing the training
• Registering for an event

The possibilities are endless, of course.

If you want your audience to take action, you have to make the request. This is called the “ask” or the call to action (CTA).

Make it clear what your audience should do

The last slide should make clear what your audience should do. If there are step-by-step instructions, list them. Then, you should verbally ask them to do it. How you do this will depend a lot of the situation, but don’t let your presentation just fade away without making that call to action!

If you’ll take questions afterwards, just keep the CTA slide visible. You really don’t need a slide that says, “Questions” on it. In this way, your audience can write down information or the assignment during the Q&A period.

Sometimes, people will ask you about that information. They may ask for clarification, such as when what hours you’re open or if they can contact you via Facebook messenger. You WANT people to ask you how they can contact you and having that CTA slide visible helps them do that.

Next steps

Go through some recent or upcoming presentations and check out your last slide. Does it have a clear call to action? Will the audience know exactly what to do?

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