When it comes to eLearning design, too many businesses and organizations focus only on the ability to train employees with what they need to know for regulatory and industry compliance. However, this can also be a powerful tool for branding and for growing the culture of your business. Not sure how to incorporate branding into eLearning? Relax, it’s not all that difficult. Here are five ways that you can do it without losing the value of the actual training.
Background Pictures Speak Volumes
Your eLearning platform can be a great tool for improving awareness of your company’s culture. Energize your text and personalize your course by selecting background images of your company’s own day-to-day activities or special events. Demonstrate your company culture with pictures, for example, of your company picnic. Are family values important to your business? The company holiday party might be a good source of images. Choose your background pictures with an eye toward how each image ties in with your culture and brand.
Reinforce Key Takeaways
Another way to build branding into eLearning is to reinforce key takeaways about your business. The use of graphics, bullet points, call-outs, and quotes are effective. For example, if you run a restaurant that focuses on farm-to-table organic food, then images of fresh produce or your local farm supplier will help build your brand. Use quotes about the importance of fresh food to our culture or how it ties into our heritage.
Connect Your eLearning Platform to Your Social Media Accounts
Really want to give your eLearners a good look at your brand in action? Connect your platform to your social media accounts on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and your other social networks . This allows your employees to “like” your business accounts, but also provides a firsthand look at how your company engages with customers “in the wild”. Not only does this provide a dramatic look at your brand interacting with real people, but it fosters a social awareness among employees of your company’s image as well.
Cohesiveness Is Key
If your eLearning design is fragmented in terms of layout and visual aesthetic, you can bet that your employees will have a fragmented view of your brand. Everything needs to be cohesive and utilize roughly the same design elements. While there will naturally be some deviation between modules and segments, you need to ensure that the fonts used are the same, the colors are aesthetically pleasing and consistent, and that your logo looks the same throughout. This also applies to the tone of voice used in the audio portion of the course.
Tie It into Your Website
One simple way to ensure your eLearning design stays true to your organization branding is to use the same layout, design, and navigation as your company’s current website. This provides a sense of continuation between the two, as well as a feeling of familiarity. Of course, you need a website worth emulating for this to work, but that’s not difficult to achieve these days.
There you have five different ways to incorporate branding into your eLearning materials. By following these tips, you can increase your employees’ awareness of your brand’s vision, voice, and core values.