Maps fascinate us. Right from around 500 B.C. when Anaximander drew the first map of the world to this date in the 21st century, maps have helped us make sense of the enormity of our geography. Literature and cinema have exploited and fuelled our love for maps further. Remember Journey to the Mysterious Island or Leonardo Di Caprio’s discovery of the map and eventually The Beach?

 

Alas, presenters have not utilized this wonderful medium in their marketing efforts. Correction here: many presenters do use maps; thousands download them every month from our PowerPoint Maps section. But there are still many presentations that we come across in conferences and on presentation sharing platforms like SlideShare and authorSTREAM that are completely map-less.

 

Are you using these visual metaphors in your presentations? If not, you are missing out on creating engaging slides and thus engaging audiences. Let us show you the difference a PowerPoint map can make to your slides. Check out the before slide below- a conventional bullet point slide and compare it with the after slide- a world map with US region highlighted:

 

Magnifying Effect on US Map PowerPoint Template Editable

 

Tremendous difference, right? What has the professional done here? Simply taken an editable world map and made some alterations to it. Let us show you the trick applied there.

 

Quick Hacks: How to Customize the World Map Template to Suit Your Data

 

You might wonder- Why shell out a few dollars on a fully editable PowerPoint Template when you can copy-paste a world map from Google? Because first it might be copyright protected; secondly and more importantly, you can’t edit it to suit your requirements. A fully editable PowerPoint map can let you do all this:

 

  • Change the color of continents and regions
  • Enlarge a country or portion to make it stand out (as you see in the slide above)
  • Enlarge or compress the entire world map
  • Ungroup the world map to pick map of a particular country
  • Add visual elements (text boxes, arrows, lines, etc.) to present your data region-wise

 

Let us show how to add your personalized touches to a map template like you saw in the slide above:

 

Step 1: Download Template, Drag to Expand the Country

 

After you have downloaded the editable world map template, locate and select the country you wish to zoom in to. Say you want to expand a part of the USA. Select the part, Press Shift and drag the edge to expand that portion symmetrically (see screenshot below). Make sure not to drag the middle points of the selected portion, else you’ll distort the shape.

 

Edit World Map Template in PowerPoint- Drag to expand a country

 

Step 2: Create a Magnifying Glass Effect

 

It’s pretty simple to create a magnifying glass effect in PowerPoint. All you need is a basic magnifying glass icon (included in the template) and add some text effects. Here are the steps to magnify text so that it appears the spotlight is on the US:

  • Select the text
  • Click the Format tab
  • Under Text Effects click the Transform menu
  • Choose the second option ‘Stop’ under Warp (see screenshot below).

 

Create a Magnifying Effect in PowerPoint with Text Effects

 

Step 3: Add a Transparent Shape to Complete the Effect

 

To complete the magnifying effect and show the movement from world map to the enlarged view of the USA, we add a transparent shape. The shape is a basic triangle that you can pick from the Shapes menu under the Insert tab. Adjust the size of the shape and rotate it to have a shape like the one you see in the screenshot below.

 

To add transparency to that shape, you will have to

  • Select the shape, right click and choose the Format Shape option
  • Select the Gradient Fill radio button
  • Keep two gradient stops- one light blue and the other white
  • Keep the blue gradient stop at 36 degree position and white at the extreme right corner
  • Fix the transparency for blue gradient at 40% and 100% for white (see screenshot below).

 

Create Transparent Shapes in PowerPoint

 

Basic circles have been used to highlight the targets- Washington, New York and Silicon Valley in the slide.

 

Step 4: Insert your text in a rectangular box; apply Shadow to box

 

Now, place your text inside a rectangular shape. You can pick a rectangle from the Shapes menu. The reason for choosing a shape is to later apply PowerPoint effects (shadow and transparency) to the shape and not the text. Stepwise:

 

  • Choose a rectangle from the Shapes menu
  • Give it a gray Solid Fill and fix transparency at 40%
  • Under the Format tab, click the Shapes Effects menu
  • In the Shadow menu, select the first Outer shadow- Offset Diagonal Bottom Right
  • Click the Shadow Options... at the bottom of the menu to customize the effect
  • Fix the shadow’s transparency at 80%, reduce the blur size to 0, keep the angle at 45 degree and distance at 7 pt (see screenshot below).

 

Cool Shadow Effects in PowerPoint

 

With this, you would have successfully customized the world map slide as we did it. If you don’t have the time to create this slide manually, simply download the PowerPoint template (we have included this slide in the template that you download).

 

4 Maps That Can Transform the Look of Your Slide

 

1. World Map: Seeing the World At a Glance

 

World map in your business presentation gives the audience a bird’s eye view of your company’s global footprint, global marketing efforts and diversification of your brand.

 

Nothing can be more lazy than presenting your worldwide sales report as bullet points. A pie chart would save the day but won’t make you the hero. A visually stunning map would make you. See the difference between the before slide designed by an amateur and the after slide designed by a professional:  

 

World Map PowerPoint Editable to Show Sales Figures

 

Needless to say, the professional walk away with the deal at the end of the day. How much time does it take to create a slide like this? Less than 5 minutes. All you have to do is:

 

  1. Download the basic, fully editable World Map template
  2. Add your data in the placeholders
  3. Add or remove pins to highlight the regions relevant to your data

 

That’s all. Let’s take another example. A slide showing your company’s worldwide sales representatives and their coverage areas can be a boring ‘name & contact details’ slide or an eye-catchy one like the slide below:

 

World Map Template Design Showing Worldwide Sales Team

 

Download this colorful World Map template if you wish to use the same for your sales or marketing pitch.

 

2. Country Maps: Highlight Specific Regions, Countries

 

If you want to showcase your sales or business data collected from a specific continent or country, then country maps let you zoom in and map your sales targets and outcomes within each country easily.

 

You can find almost all PowerPoint Maps Templates of countries- Italy map, Spain map, Singapore map, Indonesia map, China map, Australia map, Germany map, etc. Whether you are delivering a presentation on significant political developments in Europe like the refugee crisis or a business presentation on new opportunities in Asia, maps paint the perfect picture. Speaking of political developments, election coverage warranties a map. For instance,

 

Cover US Presidential Elections & Results with Elan

 

Such an important event as the US Presidential Elections should not be analyzed and debated in presentations with mediocre graphics copied from the internet. Show your political mastery with impressive slides. Maps are the best way to show the battle of electoral seats between the Democrats and the Republicans.

 

In US Presidential Elections of 2012, Democrat candidate Barack Obama defeated Republicans’ Mitt Romney by securing 303 electoral seats against Romney’s 206. Which states the Democrats won and which the Republicans can be known at a glance when they are plotted on an editable US Map. Look at the visually stunning as well as easily understandable slide below projecting these historic results:

 

US Presidential Elections 2012 Results Map Designed in PowerPoint

 

The above US Elections map clearly shows that Romney carried 24 states while Obama carried 26. The advantage of using PowerPoint Maps Templates is you can color these as per your preferences or just take out one specific region and focus on that. Say in another slide, you wanted to depict the states that changed hands between the Democrats and the Republicans. For instance, in the 2012 elections, Obama captured all the states he won in 2008, except North Carolina, Indiana and Nebraska’s 2nd congressional district. Highlight these ones using a PowerPoint editable US Map:

 

US Presidential Elections 2012 Analysis Map Editable in PowerPoint

 

Let’s take another example. Wine lovers, pay attention. Want to know the most popular wine regions of France? Let us show you the same with a map:

 

Wine growing regions of France Map Made in PowerPoint

 

Maps make your slides a feast for the eye and tugs at the adventurer in us. Let’s zoom in further: the counties within a state!

 

3. County Maps: Report State & County News with Respective Maps

 

Say you are one in the audience and the presenter is speaking about the largest mock bioterrorism drill in California history. He goes on to tell the names of 11 California counties participating in that drill. Would you remember these 11 counties better when you see a slide full of names or a California map with 11 counties highlighted. We are sure it’s the latter.

 

Visuals are not only processed by our brains faster than text but recalled much, much easily. Given a blank map, you can easily mark out the counties that were highlighted.
As presenters, maps give us the power to report the business, health or financial affairs of each state and counties within that state with style and impact. See how a story on suicide rates in California counties can be powerfully depicted through a PowerPoint map:

 

Suicides rate in California Counties Shown on PowerPoint Map

 

4. Spherical Globe Map: Highlight Regions on our Spherical Earth

 

You can even use the spherical globe in your slides instead of the two-dimensional representation on flat surface called a map. You can pinpoint your company's headquarters on the globe or summarize your global marketing plan with these spheres.

 

Company Headquarters on Globe Map PPT Template

 

Cool Map Designs

 

Hungry for more design inspiration? Check out these maps made by our PowerPoint Presentation Design Services team:

 

Map out Your Global Marketing Strategy

Global Marketing Strategy PowerPoint Map Template Editable

Download this high-impact World Map template suitable for any business presentation.

 

Flaunt your Company’s Locations

Company Location Slide PowerPoint Map with Flags

Download this awesome PowerPoint Map Template with country flags to use in your next presentation.

 

Flat PowerPoint Map Template

Flat PowerPoint World Map Template Editable

Grab this fully editable world map ppt template to showcase your branches, marketing efforts, sales data and more.

 

Highlight Specific Regions

Africa Map PowerPoint Template Editable

Click this link to download the above africa template.

 

Globes for Strategies, Processes

Successful Sales Strategy with Globes Maps PPT Template

Insert your text in the placeholders by downloading this editable globes PowerPoint template.

 

Map Template with Post-It Notes

International Milestones PowerPoint Map Template with post-it notes

Download this editable map template to use the same in your next presentation.

 

A word of advice for all presenters: While using flags in your presentation slides, make sure you are not only using the correct flag but using it correctly too. You do not want to offend any citizen of a country by placing their flag upside down.

 

We have put together a whole section on national flags PowerPoint templates that you can download and use in your presentation.  

 

Map

 

Key Takeaway: Don’t go mapless! Use editable maps, dominate the globe with your brand colors and make your data and your presentation a visually relishing affair.

 

P.S. Here's a handy pre-populated tweet to help you share this post with your followers!

 

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