Psychology of colour in marketing and branding

Branding and marketing rely heavily on colour, whether it’s your logo, product label, packaging, website design, adverts, or social media banners. Colour gives your business personality and help in its positioning, making it one of the most important aspects of branding. 

This guide will explore the psychology of colour in marketing and branding and how you can use it for your business. We’ll look at the following:

• Why colour is important in marketing and branding
• How to find the right colours for your brand
• How and where to place your colours

Colour makes people think and feel a certain way. People subconsciously judge a product, person, or environment within 90 seconds of initial viewing. And up to 90% of that assessment is based on colour alone.

That’s why choosing the right colours for your marketing can become the difference between standing out from your competition or blending in behind it. Using colours strategically means you can make your audience see what you want them to see. Colours can help portray your brand the way you want to, so understanding colour psychology can be incredibly useful.

On the other side of the coin, poor colour selection could damage your brand image and lower the efficiency of your marketing efforts. For example, if you choose the wrong colours for your logo, it might confuse people about what your brand stands for. Similarly, using website colours that are either too similar or don’t compliment each other could make the content less readable.  

In short, colour influences how people think and behave towards a brand, so choose yours wisely. 

When it comes to choosing your brand and marketing colours, there are no clear-cut guidelines. It would be nice to simply look at an infographic about colour psychology and immediately know which ones to use, but that’s not how it works. 

Instead, the answer to what colours best suit your brand depends on your industry, product or service, brand personality, and target audience. Colour selection is about the feeling, mood, and perception you want to create in people. 

Still, researching the psychology of colour in marketing and branding can help you make the right choice. If you don’t know what to consider when selecting yours, here are some key things your colours should do for your business:

One of the most important things to consider when selecting colours for your brand is how they fit into your industry. It’s more about predicting how people will perceive the colour than how it will look. 

The best way to ensure your chosen colours are appropriate is to ask yourself which ones are appropriate for what you’re selling. Better yet, do some market research and collect customer feedback to find out what your target audience wants. 

Colours influence how people view your brand’s personality, so you want to select ones that show customers who you are. Purchasing intent also relies on colours due to their effect on how someone will perceive you, meaning your colours could attract or drive people away. 

If you haven’t already, the first step is to decide what you want your brand personality to be. Do you want to come across as friendly, fun, creative, elegant? When you know what you want your brand personality to be, you can think about how you can use colour to convey it. 

For more information on the subject, read our guide on what colours mean in branding.

A business is nothing without its customers, so make sure the colours you choose are appealing to your audience. While favourite colours are subjective, people tend to gravitate towards different ones depending on things like their age, gender, and background. For example, studies have found that men and women favour certain colours, and blue is the most preferred colour for both men and women. 

In addition, our environment and cultural perception play strong roles in dictating what colours are suitable for different genders, ages and social statuses. This can, in turn, influence our colour preferences.

To find colours that your audience will love, it’s a good idea to research the people you want to reach. Why not ask them directly through surveys or interviews?

Our brains tend to prefer immediately recognisable brands, which makes colour an essential element when building your brand identity. It’s important to pick colours that help differentiate you from competitors.

You can create a brand that really stands out with the right colour. There’s a psychological principle called the Isolation Effect. The Isolation Effect states that the more something stands out, the more likely it is to be remembered. In other words, if your brand colours are different from other companies, your target audience can recognise and remember you much better.

Using the psychology of colour can help you send a message or evoke an emotion. That said, how and where you use your colours is equally important. By utilising specific colours in different locations on your website, social media, and other materials, you can inspire your audience to take action.

For example, bright and bold colours are great for action buttons on your website to draw customers’ attention to it. If you also use natural background colours like white or grey, you make these buttons pop even more. In addition, contrasting colours can draw attention to your logo, special offers, and other important features. 

In short, the psychology of colour in marketing and branding is about combining placement with your choice of hues to ensure maximum impact. 

Efficiency levels can influence customers’ opinions about your business as much as colours. To best serve your customers, you want to create internal processes that help you operate efficiently. 

One way you can do this is by using a solution like Countingup to streamline your financial management. Countingup is a unique two-in-one business account and accounting software that empowers you to manage all your financial data from one simple app.

Signing up will give you access to features like:

• Expense categorisation 
• Invoicing on the go
• Cash flow reports
• Tax estimates
• Receipt capturing tool

Start your three-month free trial today. 

Find out more here.