Creating Engaging and Meaningful CE Courses

The CE credits architects, interior designers, and more earn every year are invaluable to how the built environment continues to grow and evolve. With access to the latest research, trends, and ideas, we ensure that the future we are building is the best possible space for everyone. That’s why we, at CEU Events, take educating the brightest minds in the industry very seriously. Not only do we manage programs and attendance for providers, but we also create the educational content that goes in front of these professionals.

CEU credits are not just a way for providers to get their products and services in front of the right eyes, and it's not just about architects and designers passively maintaining their licenses: It’s all about building connections and coming together to make the best built environments of the future.

By working with CEU Events to create or update your next course or program, your instructors and reps can educate your audience on up-and-coming topics and trends while informing them of everything your brand offers. These courses are not just random bits of information put together either. When attendees participate in courses created by our team, they embark on a journey. It's not just about acquiring knowledge; it's about immersing themselves in a story that unfolds as they progress through the material. This storytelling approach serves two important purposes. Firstly, it ensures that attendees are engaged on a deeper level and maintain interest throughout the course, making the learning experience more enjoyable and memorable. Secondly, it allows your brand to be woven into the narrative, positioning you in the minds of attendees as a trusted and authoritative presence in the industry.

Brand storytelling goes beyond the content itself. It extends to the visual and verbal elements of the course. We pay careful attention to the choice of words, using verbiage that aligns with your brand's voice and values. Additionally, our presentation templates are designed to showcase your brand colors, fonts, and other graphic elements. By incorporating these branding elements, we keep your brand at the forefront of attendees' minds, even when we can't explicitly mention your brand's name.

The team at CEU Events has taken the time to carefully consider the best practices for creating CE content, written and visual. Here’s our top five list:

1. While CEUs are meant to be educational, that doesn’t mean the course needs to be dry and unbearable for your audience. We think it’s essential that CE courses in every format, whether that’s a lunch-in-learn, webinar, on-demand, audio, etc., should be delivered in a way that your audience can connect to your reps and brand. That means prioritizing a conversational tone that invites discussion between the instructor and attendee and leads to easy relationship building. Casually delivering the content also makes it easier to understand.

2. The visuals of these courses are important. Your time with this audience is not the moment when a PowerPoint should be slapped together with paragraphs of text. Especially considering the branding limitations, the way each slide looks should be maximized to communicate your visual branding message. Our courses use limited text on each slide so that the most important points are on the screen – but not too much – so that the attendees do not get distracted reading the screen instead of connecting with the instructor. Along with the text, each slide should feature your brand images as much as possible. This way, the audience can see your products and services even if the logo is not present.

1. Even with limited text, we still want to make sure we are maximizing screen space. That means using a 16:9 format rather than 4:3 to ensure there is ample space on each slide to visualize the content for each slide.
2. Here’s a before and after example putting these visual tactics to work!

Note the abundance of text, 4:3 aspect ratio, and image choice. Remember, you are presenting to highly creative and visually-oriented audiences.

Using branding guidelines and ensuring quality that matches company brand.

3. Even when the course is offered online, there’s still an opportunity to impart as much of your brand story as possible to your audience. That means forgoing a PDF format for on-demand courses and instead building custom on-demand videos or helping our clients record the best on-demand webinars. This extra effort means that the attendees will engage more with your content and brand no matter what format they pick.

4. CE content is growing and changing as the way people interact with media changes. That’s why we have also introduced audio courses as another way for attendees to take your courses.

5. For every course that goes on the CEU Events website, a course-specific page will be created that has all the details attendees want to see like the course description, learning objectives, designations, course length, state recognition and other approvals. The bonus of working with CEU Events to update or create your next course is our signature one-pagers. It can be sent electronically or printed to hand out, both with the ultimate goal of promoting the course you offer. These cover pages serve as a teaser, enticing individuals to delve deeper into the course and register.

Create a CE program with CEU Events that goes beyond delivering information and develop an experience that resonates with your audience. Together, we can build connections, foster growth, and shape a brighter future for the building industry.