color psychology

What do colors tell about your brand? Well, it actually depends on what kind of business you’re in. As an entrepreneur, you have to know that the crucial part of marketing and branding style is choosing the right colors to represent your business. Your brand and business are two separate concepts, although they are most likely to be considered one. Your brand is the personality of your business – showcasing your business’s unique identity to target customers. In this article, we will unravel the secret behind color psychology in marketing and how it can help to elevate your brand and business. Here are the things that you must know before setting up your marketing strategies. Also, we will talk about the highlights of what makes popular brands remarkable with the guide to color psychology in marketing. Light up your business path with the most appropriate colors to represent your brand to the world.

marketing color psychology

Image taken from Strikingly template- Happy book

What is Color Psychology?

What is color psychology, and why must it be considered in marketing and branding styles? Simply because the right colors will attract your target audience. It is how color psychology works. People react or trigger action based on how they perceive colors. An article from Help Scout defines color psychology as the study of how colors affect perceptions and behaviors. When branding and implementing marketing strategies, the study of color psychology focuses on how to entice consumers and make them buy the products or use the service. It’s how colors persuade customers to do what you’re trying to achieve for your business goals, such as driving traffic, increasing profit margin, or building a strong brand. Make practical decisions in choosing the right colors for your brand – it does matter.

What’s the Right Color to Use From the Color Psychology Chart For Your Business?

At the end of the day, it is your personal choice as a business owner. No matter how much you dig up on the guide to color psychology, you’ll have to decide on the right color for your brand. The kind of personality you want to portray for your business and the customers’ preference really matters in the end. Now, the question about choosing the right color can be answered by the basic color psychology chart. What does each color mean for business? How do you want your brand to be perceived? What’s the message you want to tell your target customers? Just keep in mind that the psychological impact of these colors still varies on individual differences. A person’s reaction or perception of colors may be subjective, so the following representation is a mere guide to color psychology in marketing.

• Green

In most cases, green is associated with nature or environmental awareness advocacy. But, some famous brands, such as Starbucks, use this color to express relaxation or tranquility. It simply tells the customers to stay calm and have a meaningful chat while sipping a coffee. They also blend green with brown to complement their brand statement to take some rest, have some peace of mind, and all the things you can enjoy about this brand. As you can see on the Starbucks website, they use color psychology on their brand logo while playing with blocks, gradients, and shades of different colors. For marketing color psychology, they did a great job.

guide to color psychology in marketing

Image taken from Starbucks website

• Blue

Blue is known for its mentally soothing effect while it carries many positive impressions. It indicates the good qualities of a brand, such as trust-worthy, reliability, and responsibility. No wonder it is among the most-liked colors in the world according to an article by CoSchedule.

Just look at how famous brands like Visa, Dell, Skype, Ford, and Paypal have well-associated their brand statement with their customers.

PayPal website

Image taken from PayPal website

• Purple

Purple is known for its perfect balance in energy and stability. Since it possesses two primary colors such as red and blue, each color's qualities are ideal for business. It expresses sophistication and class when used for business catering designs and fashion. Some brands associate purple with luxury, mystery, and courage. The secret is associated with purple because it implies limitless possibilities when it comes to unleashing your personal creativity. That is why, as a business owner or a designer, you should remember how powerful purple can be. Just how we use it with our brand here at Strikingly.

Strikingly landing page

Image taken from Strikingly website

• Red

Red, among other vibrant colors, implies power, love, and enthusiasm. The brands having the color red on their logo truly bring this statement to their customers. Check out one of the world’s famous fast food restaurants like McDonald’s. Their customers are truly “lovin’ it”.
When you look at the guide to color psychology in marketing, make sure you put your target customer’s preferences on top of everything. Because there is no clear-cut or accurate interpretation of how colors impact people, as a business owner, you must conduct further research on what suits your brand and how it will affect your customers in decision-making. Truly, red is a provoking color, especially when people must act ardently on something like a sale or promotional code with certain validity. Think of the color red as a hot seat or a great opportunity to make your consumers ‘act now’.

Just like when you need to use a dating app such as Salaam Swipe.

color psychology chart

Image taken from Salaam Swipe

• Yellow

The color psychology in marketing for yellow is clearly associated with the qualities of being confident, creative, optimistic, and progressive. Yellow can be easily seen because of its brightness. When used with other colors in high contrast, yellow stands out. Look at how the brands shine like Shell, Hertz, Best Buy, etc.

You must consider the power and weakness of the color yellow in marketing. While it can uplift one's spirit, too much use of the color yellow may challenge self-esteem or cause anxiety. Of course, these are simply guides from a general perspective.

color psychology

Image taken from Shell website

• Black

The use of black in marketing color psychology indicates independence, elegance, and high quality. Therefore, many famous brands have used this color to showcase their best and entice customers. Black also expresses exclusivity and style. This is evident in car companies using black on their brand logo. It works the same way as any vibrant color when used too much. The dark shade of black may trigger negative emotions, anxiety, or other personal issues. This is why you have to carefully balance black with other soothing colors like blue, yellow, and white. Just look at the Adidas shoe logo and their website.

Adidas shoes brand logo

Image taken from Adidas website

Build a Website With Strikingly, It’s Ridiculously Easy

Do you think these brands mentioned above did a great job using color psychology in marketing? Yes, you’re absolutely right. These famous brands may have consulted a color psychology chart before launching their business. And, it did work for their target customers, too. It’s time to build your own website and a strong brand with Strikingly. We will show you how you can use our templates and apply what you’ve learned about marketing color psychology.

1. Sign up For an Account

Start a 14-day trial with any of our yearly plans, or you can create a free account forever. Just head on to our sign-up page and take the first step to the extraordinary future of your online business.

Create an account with Strikingly

Image taken from Strikingly

2. Choose a Template

We have over a hundred free web templates you can choose from. You don’t need to learn how to code or get a web designer’s degree to build your own website. With Strikingly, it’s fast and easy.

Clean and Shine template

Image taken from Strikingly template - Clean & Shine

3. Start Editing - Change Background Color

Once you’ve chosen your theme, you can still change it under Styles. Here, you can choose text color, adjust contrast, and play with color themes that suit your brand. Moreover, you can check the mobile and desktop views of your website.

All our websites are mobile-friendly here at Strikingly.

Change color theme

Image taken from Strikingly site editor

4. Publish Your Website

Voila! You can go live in minutes with our ridiculously easy-to-set-up websites. Take your brand to a global audience. And with our marketing and branding tools here at Strikingly, you can literally' fly with colors'.

Final Thoughts

In this article, we clearly stated the importance of putting your personal experiences and customers’ preferences in choosing the right colors to represent your brand. No matter how old-fashioned or modern your chosen colors may be, the most important thing is that you achieve your goals of driving traffic and getting more sales. Colors matter. Make sure you’ve consulted a color psychology chart as a guide but don’t rely on it 100%. At the end of the day, a positive impression is what you need to make your customers stay. Trust Strikingly. We’ve worked with millions of users across the globe.