Colors ignite different types of emotions. Depending on which kind of feeling you plan to entice, colors are useful techniques in reaching out to your audience. Getting customers’ attention can be a challenge, but you can be more effective in this endeavor by using color theory. Many web marketing agencies, like webmarketing123, advise companies to use the right color combinations to provoke a specific response or behavior from their audience. Companies also apply color theory when it comes to their branding or logos.
Here’s some more advice for your company when choosing the right colors:
- Know your audience and your competition
Before anything else, you should know your target audience. It is essential that you fully understand the demographics and psychographics. Knowing which demographic your products serve can point you to the right colors you can use for marketing. For instance, if your audience is mostly comprised of females, you will be more inclined to use colors that appeal to the feminine psyche.
Benchmarking, too, may help you get an idea on how you are going to present your brand. Observe and examine your competitors’ logos, websites, and color schemes. Knowing about the competition will give you an edge not only by letting you stand out among them, but by letting you avoid copying what might already be an existing design.
- Know the psychological effects of colors
Think psychologically and know the facts of your chosen colors to your audience. Try to put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Try to comprehend how they will see the meaning behind your selected colors, or their initial reactions with the colors.
Know what kind of face your company is going to wear. In business, your brand’s personality will identify you among the crowd, helping you create a place in the market. This is how people will find you because the market usually gravitates with brand identities that they feel are similar or could relate to them.
These are some of the personalities related to colors, which can help you identify yours:
- Red for passion, anger, vigor, speed
- Orange for fun, liveliness, energy
- Yellow for friendliness, youth, and cheer
- Green for nature, refreshment, growth
- Blue for knowledge, peace, security, trust
- Purple for royalty, wisdom, authority
- Pink for nurture, warmth, softness
- Brown for reliability and toughness
- White for purity, virtue, cleanliness
- Black for formality, luxury, secrecy
- Gray for impartiality, compromise, maturity, composure
- Be direct and intentional in your approach
In choosing the right colors to represent you, being direct and deliberate in your approach is the best strategy. Choose your base, accent, and background wisely. These will function as initial calls to action throughout your site.
- Choosing your base
Choosing the right color as your base is a vital role in building your brand identity. Your base color should match with your brand’s personality as mentioned above. That way, it is much easier for your brand to reach its target audience and attract their attention.
- Choosing your accent
The second thing you need to consider after accomplishing your base is the accent. This can be the most delicate part. It is imperative for your accent to match up not just with your brand’s personality but even with your chosen base. Furthermore, it should never overlook its impact on the audience.
- Choosing your neutral
The neutral color will serve as your background. Hence, try to look for a color that does not attract too much attention. Commonly, colors used as neutrals are white, gray, beige and its variations.
Black can be used as a neutral color, too; however, it needs careful attention. Black as a background can be inflexible and only works with specified colors, mainly white. Furthermore, having white text on a black background may slow down people’s reading speed because it’s not the format that most are used to.
- Stand out
Don’t be afraid to set your brand apart and be different. The goal is to be different and to stand out but in a good way.
Here are some examples of companies that brilliantly differentiated themselves:
- Cadbury
Cadbury uses purple as its product’s primary color. It unlikely for a chocolatier to use such unique and random color. Commonly, when it is chocolate, warm colors such as brown or red best suit with it. However, Cadbury decided to stand out and utilize the color to bring their product into the pedestal.
- UPS (United States Postal Service)
This logistics company used the color brown as their brand color. In 1916, where the color brown is much perceived as an epitome of luxury, it is a very unfavorable choice. However, UPS proved everyone wrong and used color brown to evoke simplicity and honesty.
- Veuve Clicquot
Yellow for the color of expensive champagne is so unlikely and intriguing. Yellow, which signifies friendliness, youth, and cheer, do not typically match to a champagne product in the general view. Regardless of how people perceive it, Veuve Clicquot just made a visual innovation to promote their brand further.
The Bottom Line
There is no shortcut in the process of finding the right colors. There is no right or wrong way either. It may sound daunting, but it can also be enticing. Don’t be afraid to try out different things and to follow your gut feeling. The primary purpose of using colors is to convey the right emotions, thus never neglect your own.
