At some point, you have likely used a common metaphor in a sales presentation, such as showing a picture of a road and promising your buyers “a path to success.”

Using metaphors can help your audience better understand and remember what is essential to your communication materials. But is every type of metaphor beneficial? And how many metaphors should you include to make presentations more persuasive?

In this research brief, you’ll get the results of from a neuroscience study that set out to find out how a buyer’s brain reacts to seeing visual metaphors.

The findings reveal several surprising guidelines for using metaphors effectively in virtual sales presentations. Specifically, you’ll see science-backed answers to these questions:

• Is it worth the effort to find fresh metaphors vs. using cliché metaphors in your slides?
• Should you include only one metaphor or vary them throughout a presentation?
• How does repeating a metaphor impact your audience’s attention and memory of the message?