7 Ways To Use Color Psychology in Marketing (With Research)

Colors can evoke different emotions and memories, which can help to create a strong emotional connection with customers.

As a result, marketers should carefully consider color psychology in their products, packaging, and marketing materials and choose colors that align with their brand and online marketing goals.

Color psychology is utilized in advertising, marketing, product design, and interior design to influence people’s emotions, thoughts, and actions.

What Is Color Psychology

The psychology of colors studies how colors affect human behavior and emotions.

This field of psychology explores the impact of color on our moods, perceptions, and behaviors and how different colors can evoke different psychological responses.

For example, red is linked with passion, excitement, and danger, while blue is often seen as calming, trustworthy, and peaceful. Yellow is often linked with happiness, optimism, and warmth, while green is associated with growth, tranquility, and nature.

The psychology of colors in marketing is a complex field that considers cultural, historical, and personal associations with color and the physiological effects that different colors have on our bodies.

Why Does Psychology Of Colors Matters In Marketing

Color psychology matters in marketing because it is critical in determining how consumers respond to products, brands, and marketing messages. Colors can affect our emotions, thoughts, and behaviors and influence our purchasing decisions.

For example, a product packaged in color associated with trust, such as blue, is likely to be perceived as more trustworthy than a product packaged in caution, such as yellow.

Similarly, a brand that uses colors associated with excitement and energy, such as red, may be seen as more dynamic and youthful than a brand that uses colors associated with stability and security, such as green.

In marketing, color can also create brand recognition and differentiation. For example, Coca-Cola’s signature red color is easily recognizable and helps to differentiate it from its competitors.

Utilization Of Color Psychology For Marketing Campaigns

There are no set rules for selecting a color scheme for a business’s brand. Even though it would be great to make the right choice by looking at an infographic, the answer to the question “What colors are right for my brand?” is always “It depends.”

Even though it’s sad, that answer describes the situation well. It is important to consider where you do your task. People’s feelings, tones, and overall impressions of your product or brand matter.

If you learn about the psychology of colors in marketing, you’ll be able to make the best decision possible.

Choose The Right Logo Color

A study done in 2006 showed that the main thing that makes a brand like a certain color is how well consumers think it fits with the brand’s identity. To put it another way, does the color scheme match the product?

So, when choosing colors for logos, you should ask yourself, “Does this color go with what I’m selling?” or, even better, have them fill out a form asking for feedback.

Pick Color Fitting Brand Message

The colors used to market a brand greatly impact how people see that brand and what they think of its “personality.”

Even though many studies on branding and color theory agree that it’s more important to choose colors that go with the image you want to send than to choose colors based on how you think

they’re supposed to make people feel, other studies have found that certain colors are indeed associated with certain traits (for example, brown with ruggedness).

Select Color Suiting Target Audience

Even if a brand has two things in common, one will often stand out more.

How would you describe the kind of person who would buy your product? How do colors help show that kind of personality?

With the right color choices, you can attract people. Joe Hallock’s “Colour Assignment” is one of the most interesting studies about how colors affect men and women.

Hallock’s study shows that men and women have different tastes in color schemes. A person’s surroundings, especially their culture, greatly affect what colors they think are appropriate for their gender.

Another study shows that men are likelier to like colors that have black added to them, called “shades,” while women are likelier to like colors that have white added to them, which are called “tints.”

Stand Out with Your Color Choice

At least one academic journal says it’s important for new businesses to use colors that make them stand out from the rest. Further research has shown that our brains like brands that are easy to remember. This shows how important color is for creating a brand identity.

Using the right colors on the packaging and other materials for your brand could help it stand out. Based on the idea of the “isolation effect” in psychology, we could say that things that “stick out like a sore thumb” are easier to remember.

Studies on aesthetics and customer preferences found that most people like color patterns with similar colors but also like palettes with one very different color that stands out.

Utilize Colors To Help In Site Navigation

Another important idea in advertising is this. As designer Josh Byers shows below, another way to think about it is to create a color hierarchy on your site using backdrop, base, and accent colors to “direct” users to the color that makes them want to take action.

Choose The Right Colors For CTA 

When we changed the button color from blue to red, conversions rose by 21%. But we can’t quickly decide what “the power of the color red” means without more information.

Since the whole look of the website is green, it makes sense to have a call to action that fits in with the rest of the page. But green and red look great together because they are different colors.

One last but very important thing to consider is how we will evaluate the results of these tests. Marketers often try to change simple metrics like the number of signups and clicks.

Keep An Eye On Color Names While Designing

Even though people may have different ideas about colors, the names we give to them still mean something.

A study called “A rose by any other name…” found that when people were asked to rate products with different names for colors, like cosmetics, they tended to choose the ones that sounded more mysterious. For example, when both “brown” and “mocha” was shown, “mocha” was thought to be much more attractive.

Studies also showed that consumers prefer more unique and evocative color names for a wide range of products, from jellybeans to sweaters. People chose crayons with more interesting names, like “razzmatazz,” more often than crayons with simple names, like “lemon yellow.”

Final Thoughts

Even though this blog is concluded, there is still no surefire way to choose the best color or color palette. Color psychology varies from brand to brand. The hit-and-trial methods are optimal for choosing the best colors for marketing your brand.