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3 Ways to Brand Your Online Training

If your trainees are enrolled in your online training, do they know it’s your training? Are they aware of your name and your brand? Providing an online training creates a great opportunity for spreading awareness of your brand.

The Importance of Branding

Here is why you should seize the opportunity to improve awareness of your brand. As your trainees are engaged in the online training, they are presumably in a receptive mood. They are ready to acquire new skills. While they are in a receptive mood, they will be more likely to remember your name and brand.

This is important whenever the need for a new training rises. While many employees  do not spontaneously request new training, some do. It would be great if they requested your training. Of course, that will only happen if they can recall your brand.

Also, some of your trainees may one day lead their own division or company. As leaders, they will usually recognize the value of training. At that point, you want to be sure they remember your name. That’s where branding comes in.

How to Brand Your Online Training

Do you have a visual style guide? If not, this is where your branding starts. Ask a designer for a comprehensive guide, covering everything from your logo, color scheme, fonts, and table layouts to forms and document templates.

Also, ask a professional photographer to take a portrait picture of you.

Ready? Okay, let’s take a look at three ways to brand your online training then.

Branding Your Scorm Packages

You may never know where they are opened, so brand your scorm packages

Many online training takes place through a “scorm package”. These are the online trainings produced through authoring tools such as Captivate, Articulate or Lectora. Such tools allow you to create rich, interactive training experiences. But they also let you include graphical elements such as your logo. If you are adapt in using one of the aforementioned tools, create a visual online training template according to your visual style guide. Otherwise, ask a professional to do it for you.

Do you routinely create scorm packages and distribute them online? Then it is imperative that you brand your online training. Scorm packages can be displayed in a variety of completely different environments, mainly LMSs (learning management systems). You may not always control these environments in which case the only opportunity for branding is inside the scorm package.

Create a Template for Your LMS

If you do control your own Learning Management System (LMS), you can also create a visual template here. An LMS is website to manage online training. This means you reach the trainee with your branding before they even start the actual training, for instance on the login page.

Many LMSs also include profile pages where both trainees and trainers post their picture and provide some background information (optionally, of course). You should do that too, especially if you are a freelance trainer.

You should also consider creating an introduction page for new users, where you write a welcome message, followed by your name and portrait picture. This is called personal branding and it is especially important for freelance or otherwise solo trainers.

Design Your Email Signature

Your email signature is usually just your name and contact data at the bottom of your email message. In a previous post I talked about expanding your email signature for marketing purposes, for instance by including the training titles you are currently offering.

Support your brand with images. In my experience, simple images work best.

You can take this one step further by including your picture, your logo or even an entire professionally designed graphic element, maybe a nice background image for your list of training products.

And finally, if you offer any training through email, you should definitely brand your online training emails too. Not just the signature, but the entire email body. Remember that many email software does not show images by default though, so be sure your email based training also looks good without any of the images.

Stick to What You Do Best

Many LMSs, email applications, and scorm authoring tools offer the option to upload your logo, configure colors and list font families. Be warned however that this often creates a messy effect. Keep an eye on the end result: is it still looking professional? You really want to brand your online training in the best way possible.

Also, if you happen to be talented in visual design and want to invest the time yourself, great, go ahead. Otherwise, stick to what you do best and hire a professional designer instead. Make it clear to them that you want a visual template, not a design for a single page. A template can be reused to brand your online training time and again.