From bland to grand: how to transform your eLearning with branding

Branding, the way a company promotes its personality and defines its image, isn’t reserved only for connecting with consumers; you can also use it to develop your employees — particularly through eLearning.

Incorporating branding into eLearning aids brand recognition, promotes company values, and lets your learners know that you care about their professional development by choosing to invest in custom learning. It encourages employees to deliver excellence and elicits an element of loyalty by showing your commitment to your employees’ career growth. Individuals respond better to warmth and personalization rather than plain marketing messages, and your learners will be more engaged in their eLearning if it is customized to fit your brand. Integrating branding into eLearning helps to facilitate a sustainable learning culture that motivates employees to learn.

Here are some ways to incorporate branding into your eLearning programs.

Incorporate your company’s colors. This is a simple but effective way to integrate your brand into your eLearning and will work to keep your platform and courses cohesive.
Strategically place your company’s logo throughout your learning platform and your courses. This promotes your brand and triggers recognition in your learners. If your company has a symbol, for example, you can place it throughout various components of the course.
Keep fonts consistent with other promotional materials that your company has created. You don’t have to use your corporate font as the main body of your eLearning content, but incorporating already recognizable fonts into course headings and images will work to further reflect your brand’s tone and message.

Though these techniques may seem obvious, their importance still stands. If you truly want to transform your eLearning into a tool that will engage your employees, focus on the details. Try to incorporate brand-reflective elements to promote your brand and help employees relate to the teachings of the course.

For example:

Use real product images and graphics that match those of your company. Instead of using generic shapes or images to represent products throughout training, work with designers to make the simulations as representative of the real thing as possible.
Evaluate your company’s tone and try to match voice talents accordingly. Learners will feel more engaged and connected to the material if it is being presented with a captivating voice.
Get creative! Develop characters that look and dress like the employees of your company. Designing characters to wear dress-code approved outfits not only helps employees envision themselves in the scenarios being addressed, but also supports their learning of proper work attire.

Our learning team develops completely customized, brand-friendly courses for clients that engage their learners and improve performance. If you’d like to learn more about how custom elements can improve learner experience, give us a call today.