4 Great Reasons to Brand Your Learning and Development Materials (and How to Do It)

There’s no denying that having a learning and development team in your business can lead to an increase in employee skill levels, but what’s the point of branding your materials?

According to research, including your brand in your training documents could be the best decision you’ll ever make. After all, if 86% of consumers want an authentic brand image and 82% of customers buy from brands that share their values, then it makes sense that employees would also feel the same way about their employer's brand if all goes well. 

But even if you’re convinced that branded training materials are necessary, there’s also the question of how to include them without making your documents look like an advertisement. 

In this article, we’ll cover the importance and benefits of branding learning and development materials to promote a cohesive and consistent visual identity across all training resources.

4 reasons to brand your learning and development materials

It’s not enough to just make your learning and development materials available; you need to brand them to make your training documents memorable. Here are four reasons why we think that is.

1. Increased recognition and trust

Branding your learning materials helps create familiarity and recognition among learners. For example, you can use consistent colours, fonts, and logos that reflect your brand identity. 

This consistency will build trust between your organisations’ learners because it shows professionalism, dedication, and attention to detail. But to do this, your branding has to be top-notch, as it only takes 7 seconds for learners to determine a brand's trustworthiness. 

2. Fostering a sense of belonging amongst employees

When employees see their company's branding on learning materials, it creates a sense of belonging and pride in their workplace. By incorporating company culture into your materials, employees feel more connected to the business's vision and mission. 

This emotional connection increases engagement levels with employee training programmes. In fact, a CareerArc study found that 53% of employees left their jobs due to a diminishing or poor employer reputation or brand. In addition, employees who feel like they belong are more likely to feel engaged with their work and are more willing to sing its praises online.

3. Showcasing your organisation's values

Branded learning materials provide the opportunity to showcase your organisation's values and culture right from the start. Using branded examples or studies in the material will help portray how employees should handle different scenarios while staying aligned with these values.

It’s impossible to provide quality training if you don’t include your company’s values within the material. Great training has its perks. 94% of employees indicate that their quality of work improved after they were trained, and 57% of employers say that training increases retention.

4. Enhancing the overall learning experience

A well-branded learning experience exhibits professionalism and creates a sense of credibility amongst employees. Personalised content tailored to fit your company's image demonstrates your commitment to their growth through targeted learning and can increase retention. 

Consequently, this leads to a higher-quality learning experience for employees, leading them toward greater overall satisfaction within their work environment. In fact, 77% of L&D professionals agree that personalised learning is integral to employee engagement.

6 ways to brand your learning and development materials 

Now it’s time to put it all together. Here are six ways you can include your branding in your learning materials without compromising on the content’s readability and effectiveness.

1. Brand your learning management system

Customise your learning management system (LMS) with your logo and brand colours. As the central hub of your training courses, a branded LMS will make your learning materials consistent, increasing recognition, trust, and enhancing the overall learning experience. Not sure where to find your company’s brand guidelines? Your marketing team will be the first port of call.

2. Use your logo in your training templates

Incorporate your company's logo into the design of training slides and materials. You could make an eLearning template that includes your logo. That way, you can add the content around it. This isn't about overloading the content with logos but maintaining a balance for visibility.

3. Show your company colours

Colour increases brand recognition by around 80%. Bring your brand alive by using your company's palette colours in the training materials and in your LMS platform. Apply these colours to dashboards, backgrounds, graphs, icons, and illustrations to create a cohesive look characteristic of your organisation.

4. Include workplace imagery and themes

Choose images that represent your organisation's workplace environment or themes closely related to industry-specific scenarios in text or visuals. These mirror real-life experiences during learning sessions and encourage employees to directly apply their new skills to the workplace.

5. Embed key social media links

Integrate your company's social media profiles within instructional materials by adding links or buttons directing learners toward relevant platforms like LinkedIn or Facebook pages. This will keep employees engaged and enable them to connect with colleagues for networking opportunities.

6. Select fonts for headers and buttons

Don't forget about typography when branding learning materials. Choose fonts that align with your brand personality or the fonts that have been specified by your marketing team. Be sure to consistently apply these through headers and call-to-action buttons in training resources.

Use a comprehensive LMS platform to create branded content

Investing effort into branding your learning and development materials is a great way to create a strong connection with your employees while also showcasing your organisation's values. 

So, remember to incorporate aspects like logos, colors, fonts, imagery, and even connect with social media channels to create compelling content reflective of your brand identity. 

If you want to get started creating branded training content, we recommend adopting a comprehensive LMS platform that can upskill your staff via customised training materials. Make sure that it makes the most out of a collaborative learning environment, as employees that work and learn together are more engaged.