When Financial Information Is Complicated, How Do You Make It Easier to Understand?

Financial Services teams deal with complicated information every day.

Market movements, investment performance, regulatory changes, product updates. All important subjects, but not always the easiest to explain to an audience.

And when you're presenting that information through a webinar, there's an additional challenge. Your audience needs to follow what you're saying, understand the figures you're showing and take away the information that's relevant to them.

That's not always easy, particularly when you've only got 30 or 40 minutes.

So how do you make complex financial information easier to understand without oversimplifying it?

Start with what your audience actually needs to know

Before putting together your presentation, think about who's going to be watching.

An institutional investor attending a detailed performance update will probably expect a different level of information from a client joining an introductory session about investment products.

That doesn't mean one audience needs less accurate information than the other. It means the explanation, terminology and level of detail should reflect what they already know.

Try to identify the main points your audience needs to understand by the end of the session.

You can always provide additional resources for those who want to explore the subject in more detail.

Give your figures some context

Financial presentations naturally involve numbers. Sometimes lots of them.

But a slide full of percentages, charts and performance figures doesn't necessarily help someone understand what they're looking at.

If you're discussing a change in investment performance, for example, explain the period you're comparing, what contributed to the change and why that information matters to your audience.

For example, rather than simply presenting a portfolio's performance figure, explain which factors contributed to the result, how it compares with the relevant benchmark and what the audience should understand from that comparison. The figures are still important, but the explanation helps people interpret them.

The same applies to market commentary or economic forecasts. A figure becomes much more useful when people understand what it represents.

And where appropriate, give your audience a moment to absorb the information before moving on.

Don't make your slides do all the talking

We've all sat through presentations where the slides contain so much information that it's difficult to know where to look.

For webinars, that can be particularly challenging. Your audience might be watching on a laptop, with your presentation taking up only part of their screen.

Keep the main message of each slide clear. Use charts and visuals when they genuinely help explain something, rather than including them simply because the information is available.

If you're presenting several years of financial performance, for example, you don't necessarily need every figure on the screen at once. You could use a chart to highlight the main trend, talk through the important changes and make the full breakdown available as a downloadable resource.

If a detailed table or document is essential, consider providing it as a separate resource so attendees can review it properly afterwards.

Your slides should support the explanation, not compete with it.

Make room for questions

Even a carefully planned presentation won't answer every question.

For Financial Services webinars, attendees may want clarification on a particular figure, a product detail or something mentioned during the discussion.

Giving people an opportunity to ask questions can help you understand which parts of the presentation need further explanation.

You might use a live Q&A for an interactive briefing, collect questions in advance or follow up on common themes after the event.

The right approach will depend on the subject matter and your organisation's communication and approval processes.

Think about what happens after the webinar

Some financial information takes time to digest.

Making a recording available on-demand gives attendees the opportunity to revisit a particular explanation or share relevant content with colleagues, where appropriate.

Captions and transcripts can also make the content easier to follow and refer back to, while chapters help viewers find specific sections without watching the entire presentation again.

And if you've received several questions about the same subject, that might be a good starting point for a follow-up resource or another webinar.

Clear communication doesn't mean less detail

Making financial information easier to understand isn't about removing the complexity or leaving out important details.

It's about presenting the information in a way that helps the right audience follow it.

That might mean simplifying your slides, giving more context around the numbers or allowing additional time for questions.

At WorkCast, we help Financial Services organisations deliver webinars and webcasts that support these different communication needs, from interactive live briefings to on-demand content audiences can revisit.

Because a successful financial presentation isn't just about getting the information in front of people.

It's about helping them understand it.

Explore WorkCast for Financial Services