Paying for a professional PowerPoint designer to create your custom corporate PowerPoint template isn’t going to come cheap. In fact, it’s going to be downright expensive if you hire a talented designer. If your company is just starting out and you don’t necessarily want to invest in a professional custom template (even if you do have the funds to do so), then don’t worry because the answer is in this article. You’ll learn how you can build your company PowerPoint template for free.
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What Is A PowerPoint Template?
PowerPoint templates are pre-made slides with preset layouts, colors, fonts, themes and even content. They help you save time when creating and designing your presentation slides because you no longer need to design your slides from scratch.
Instead of looking at a blank PowerPoint canvas wondering how you can make it come to life, all you have to do is just open up a template, select the layouts and slides you want to use, and add your content.
Imagine if you had to design 50 slides from scratch. You’d have to spend not just an entire day, but maybe even a few days to get it to look good. With PowerPoint templates, you get to save a significant amount of time. You can then use your free time to focus on more important things like getting your speech and yourself ready for your presentation.
In a nutshell, having your very own company PowerPoint template not only helps you and your team quickly whip up awesome-looking presentations, but it also helps save precious company resources!
Examples Of Famous Company PowerPoint Templates
Creating a distinct brand for your company is important. Your branding activities should extend to your website, your online and offline marketing efforts, your adverts, even in the way your employees engage with your clients and customers. And, if your company gives PowerPoint presentations, then you should also make sure your presentation design conveys your brand.
Here are a few samples of company PowerPoint templates from famous brands. 24Slides has worked with these brands to revamp and redesign their old templates to make it match with their brand identity. With just one look, you know these slides were designed specifically for each company:
Amazon Redesigned PowerPoint Slides
Oracle Redesigned PowerPoint Slides
LinkedIn Redesigned PowerPoint Slides
As you can see from the examples above, 24Slides has used each brand’s colors, logo, fonts, and other essential branding elements. Professional designers have carefully redesigned each slide to help boost brand awareness, message, and impact.
If your company doesn’t have its own PowerPoint template yet, and employees are given free rein to design their own presentations, then your company is in danger of having its brand identity lost. There would be no consistency. In the long run, your company’s image may be affected negatively.
If you can afford to invest in a professional PowerPoint company to redesign or create your company PowerPoint template from scratch, then you should consider doing so. However, if you can’t, don’t worry. In the next section, you’ll find out how you too can build your company template for free.
Building Your Own Template For Free
Designing your own corporate templates is easy if you know your way around PowerPoint, and you’ve got an eye for design. But alas, not everyone has got design chops. Here are a couple of ways you can build your own company PowerPoint template:
(1) Build templates from scratch
When we say ‘from scratch,’ we mean building templates from zero. You’re essentially looking at a blank slide on PowerPoint. It will cost you nothing to build a template this way, but in terms of man-hours, you’re going to be spending a lot of time. Instead of getting more leads and sales for your business, you will be wasting precious time and company resources creating those templates.
You can play around with the master slides and the layouts and basically design everything yourself. As you can imagine, it’s not something that can be done in an hour or two especially if you’re just a casual PowerPoint user.
Even those who profess to love tinkering around with PowerPoint will usually need more than a few hours to come up with a visually stunning and professional-looking company PowerPoint template.
(2) Build templates from other templates
There are many template marketplaces on the Internet. But most free PowerPoint templates look totally unprofessional and something you wouldn’t want to use to build your company template off of. You can do a search for ‘free PowerPoint templates,’ and you’ll understand what we mean.
Most free templates look like they were made in the 1990s or early 2000s at the very latest! The sad truth is redesigning these horrible looking slides will take you far longer than if you just made them directly from scratch.
However, not all free templates look outdated. There are some reputable websites, like 24Slides, that offer modern looking templates too.
The Most Important Slides In Your Company PowerPoint Template
Different companies will have different PowerPoint template needs so not all the slides we’ve listed below may be useful to your particular case. Occasionally, you may need to create a new slide from scratch. However, the good thing is your presentation’s overall theme and design is already covered by the template. You can simply copy and paste the elements you want to re-use.
Generally speaking, however, these are the most important slides you should include in your company PowerPoint template:
1. Title slide
The title slide is generally the first slide people see in PowerPoint presentations so make it as visually appealing as possible. It should prominently display your company name, logo, and/or tagline. At first glance, your audience should be able to tell what your presentation is all about.
Here’s a nice sample title slide from 24Slides’ Generic Text Presentation Templates:
(Simply add your company logo and replace the generic text with your presentation title and your free template is good to go!)
2. Agenda slide
The agenda slide will basically outline what your presentation is going to be all about. Including this slide in your company template will help your audience set their expectations properly.
If you need inspiration, you can check out 24Slides’ free General Agenda Presentation Template. Here’s a screenshot of one of the slides:
(Use this free agenda slide template to kick off and introduce your presentation to your audience)
3. Generic text slides
You can use this slide to present your “About Us” or “Meet The Team” or “Our Services” or any generic text for that matter. A good company template will include an image and content slide, two content slide, as well as a comparison slide. These slide layouts are all available in 24Slides’ free Generic Text Presentation Templates. Here are some screenshots:
(Generic text sample slide 1 – you can use this for your “About Us” or “Meet the Team” slide)
(Generic text sample slide 2 – you can use this to list down your company’s milestones, history or even the services you offer)
4. Checklists slides
Checklists are great for presenting to-do lists, summaries, and even quizzes. For in-house company meetings, you can easily present a list of things your team needs to accomplish within the day, week or month. Alternatively, you can also use a checklist slide to compare and contrast your different products and packages.
To get started, head on over to 24Slides and check out their To-Do Checklist Templates. Here are a few screenshots:
(Checklist sample slide 1 – you can use this to present your daily, weekly or monthly agenda)
(Checklist sample slide 2 – you can use this to compare different packages that your company offers)
Alternatively, you can check out the Presentation Checklist Template Pack. Here’s a sample slide:
(Checklist sample slide 3 – you can use this to break down different elements in your presentation)
5. Timeline slides
A company PowerPoint template isn’t complete if it doesn’t have a few timeline slides in it. Whether you’re a startup trying to persuade investors to invest in your company, or an established brand wanting to inform your audience of your history, you can certainly use a timeline slide.
Customize the free template slides from 24Slides. Here are some examples:
Timeline & Roadmaps Template Package
(Sample timeline slide 1 – you can use this to present all your project’s milestones in a linear fashion)
(Sample timeline slide 2 – you can use this to present your project’s roadmap from year 1 to present)
Timeline Pictures Template
(Sample timeline slide 3 – you can use images to show your company’s history. You can use pictures of the people who made it all possible, or you can use photos of new shops you’ve opened for a particular year.)
Timeline Presentation Templates
(Sample timeline slide 4 – you can use this slide to show your company’s achievements on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis)
6. Charts and Diagrams slides
There are many different types of charts and diagrams you can use during your presentation. For instance, there may be a need to show an organizational chart, Gantt chart, flowchart, etc. There are many free templates from 24Slides that include charts and diagrams. Here are some of them:
Flowchart Presentation Templates
(Flowchart slides are great for showing sequential or step-by-step execution of a company project)
Organizational Chart Templates
(If you want to show your organizational chart to your audience, this is the template slide to use)
Ultimate SWOT Analysis Template Pack
(This free template pack will help you present your SWOT analysis in stylish and professional-looking slides)
Workflow PowerPoint Template
(If you want to share your business processes, you can use any of the workflow diagrams from this free template pack)
Customizing Templates To Fit Your Branding
Templates are literal time-savers. You can customize them, and you’ll have a brand-new template for your brand in minutes. You’re free to edit templates in any way you see fit. This includes editing the master slide, layouts, colors, fonts, themes, etc. to make it suitable for your brand.
There are generally 3 ways you can edit templates:
1. Edit the slide master – anything that you add to the slide master will appear on all of your slides. If you want to add your company logo, tagline, website address, etc. to all of your slides, then you can add it to the slide master. You can also customize your presentation’s colors, fonts, effects, and background styles.
2. Edit the layouts – when editing layouts, you can choose to add placeholders such as content, text, picture, chart, table, SmartArt, media and online image.
3. Edit the individual elements on template slides – to edit elements, you can simply click on the element so you can access the hidden format and design tabs in PowerPoint.
Saving Your Template
Once you’ve edited a template and made it unique for your company, then it’s time to save it. Simply go to File > Save As > PowerPoint Template (.potx).
Conclusion
Building a company PowerPoint template doesn’t have to take you days nor do you need to spend hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars for a professional PowerPoint designer to create your template for you. Simply follow the methods outlined in this article, and you’ll be well on your way to creating your own branded template without spending a dime!
Jonathan Jeffery is a professional slide designer. At his website 24Slides you can download PowerPoint templates for free. Sign up for a free account and start downloading templates at https://24slides.com/templates.
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