Ways Businesses Can Use Data Visualization in Client Presentations

For decades, professionals have used pie charts and bar graphs to quickly convey concepts, appealing to the 65 percent of the population who are visual learners. As businesses increasingly turn to data analytics, the demand for appealing graphics has only grown. This means organizations must not only employ the best data science experts and solutions, but they must find a way to render that information on the page in a way that connects with their clients, team members, and colleagues.

If your business is one of many that are now investing in data science, data visualization is an important tool to have in your weapons arsenal. Whether you hire a specialist or you tackle the challenge yourself, it’s important to have the right tools and information in place to ensure success. Here are five ways you can inject data visualization into your presentations for clients.

Tell a Story

One of the best ways to win customers is to tell a story, whether you’re deploying a marketing campaign or presenting to a few people in a conference room. This humanizes a brand, making customer engagement more likely. Experts have stressed the importance of storytelling in data analytics, stating that not only is it important to have people on board who can extract and analyze numbers but can present those numbers in a compelling way. For presentations, this means using visuals to present the information in a way that compels your clients to take action. This may mean stepping through the statistics related to market conditions, demonstrating why it’s important to use your services to better serve their own customers.

Create a Dashboard

Presentations are a great way to win clients, but the best way to keep them engaged is to continue to dispense data on a regular basis. Data analytics platform Sisense equips companies with the business intelligence tools they need. This includes a dashboard tool that can be embedded and shared with clients to extract near real-time insights on an ongoing basis. Sisense’s analysis tools can work with both structured unstructured information from any number of sources, and business intelligence analyses are easy with its drag-and-drop interface. Instead of guessing how your services are improving their operations, your clients will be able to see for themselves, making it more likely they’ll continue to work with you on an ongoing basis.

Make It an Infographic

One way to quickly reach potential clients without presenting to them individually is through the use of an infographic. If the information you need isn’t already out there, conduct a survey using a tool like SurveyMonkey and pay to have a professional design a visually-compelling infographic. You’ll have something that you can share across your social networks, which may help generate traffic to your website. You can also use a DIY service to design your own infographic and save money.

Imagine the Future

Many businesses use analytics to gain information on past and present behaviors. However, predictive analytics can be more closely tied into a business’s future success. While you’ll need to monitor past patterns to accurately predict future events, your projections will also incorporate your own knowledge of a certain industry. When you can put those predictions into a visual presentation, you’ll be more likely to hand your clients insights that they wouldn’t have been able to access on their own. This will make you an invaluable partner to anyone who does business with you.

Show Trends

Once you’ve created a presentation for a client, you’ll have the basis for future presentations. Over time, you can demonstrate areas of improvement or decline, which can give your clients the very information they need to take action. Data analysts specialize in extracting trends from numbers, but you’ll need to be able to take the insight they bring and break it down for your clients. If you can show in one chart how something has changed over time, you’ll have a powerful tool with which to convince your client of a particular concept. From one year to the next, for instance, you could use data visualization to illustrate how working with you has improved your client’s conversion rates or customer satisfaction levels.

Data visualization can help businesses not only gather information, but express it in a compelling way. Clients will be able to clearly see concepts, making it likely they’ll be eager to take action on them. For every business tackling data science to remain competitive, it’s also important to learn to present data to others in an interesting way, using the many tools now on the market.

Edited by Maurice Nagle