Color is universal content. And, color psychology allows this universal content to directly communicate with the subconscious minds of viewers.
Everyone, from an artist, designer, sportsperson, doctor, electrician, traffic controller, and even NASA, all are concerned about using colors to convey their messages effectively and easily to their audience.
Ecommerce business is no different!
If you are just starting your own brand new online store, no matter what product you are selling or what strategy you employ, the color would be the most critical factor for the first impression.
From day one of your business to the day you turn into a brand, the color you use would be the only way to link yourself to the subconscious mind of your customers.
Therefore, every brand, big or small, uses color or a definite set of colors in their business.
The purpose of choosing the color is hidden deep in the study of color psychology.
Color psychology is the study of the behavior of a person when influenced by a certain color or set of colors.
The color pattern is found to influence mood, behavior, state of emotion, decision-making capabilities, etc. of a person.
These factors can be well utilized to manipulate the customer’s decision by steering the moods through color accordingly. This increases sales and conversions, boosts engagement, or improves the overall experience of the shoppers.
With the use of the right color at the right place, you can communicate directly with the subconscious mind of the buyers and influence their purchase decision.
Thus, color helps to reshape customer decisions favorable to your business and can make a huge difference in your revenue.
In this article, we will learn to make the best utilization of color in the eCommerce business and extract its benefits.
Table of Contents:
Color Branding: The Best Use of Color
Marketing and branding — two extremes of the level of attention a business has acquired in the minds of their customers.
Marketers and marketing agencies are trying every possible way to get attention. This attention is further exploited in selling the products or services. Therefore, marketing has the ultimate purpose of making sales or conversions.
However, Inbound marketing denies the practices of cold calling, hence an inbound marketing agency uses a more concerned way of marketing. It is turning a trending marketing method for various online business and online store retailers.
The starting days of business demands more marketing and less branding. Therefore, startups must invest their energy and resources into marketing to attract more customers.
Side by side, businesses must also use branding strategies. Although marketing itself helps in branding and a well-implemented marketing campaign will not just increase sales but also increase brand recognition.
Using branding strategies purely will boost the pace of this transformation.
Color can play a vital role in making this transformation from a startup to a brand.
Color is one such factor that increases brand recognition by 80%.
This leads to what we refer to as color branding.
Color branding is a strategic utilization of color or a selective pattern of a group of colors to such a level into the business and its procedures that your business or brand is identified with that specific color.
It works the same as the company logo or motto. The difference lies in the mode of attention.
A logo seeks the attention of the audience with the help of a diagram while the brand motto reflects the ideology. In the same way, brand color too plays its own role by reflecting the brand’s personality, and other aspects.
Here’s a live example; suppose I provide you with a simple pattern of color as shown below.
How do you recognize this pattern of colors?
Isn’t it reminding you of any company?
Yes! You guessed it right.
Google!
Google has successfully implemented color branding to such a level that just this pattern of few colors can help the audience to recognize it.
The color along with the logo makes it irresistible for the mind to think of Google.
If the same logo is given a set of different colors, the audience’s mind alarms them of something wrong. Users start to think of it as a scam. The user loses trust and finds it hard to identify the brand and their services and the products.
Although color branding may sound easy to implement but choosing the right pattern of colors for your brand isn’t a piece of cake. A wrong choice of colors would hurt your brand even without any clue. Google’s brand color is well thought and multiple aspects were considered before settling to the one we are familiar with.
When I first walked into the marketing career, particularly into digital marketing and eCommerce marketing, I discovered Seth Godin as one of the topmost digital marketers of his time. He is the author of several popular books, a speaker, a top-ranking blogger.
After going through his books, website, blogs, YouTube videos, and LinkedIn posts I found out a strange color pattern around Seth Godin’s various digital presence.
Most of his things were YELLOW in color.
At first, I thought all that might be some coincidence but that wasn’t. The color was purposely chosen. Seth Godin uses the psychology of yellow color to benefit in his marketing goals. And that’s when I began to take color as a serious branding factor.
Pro Tip: Leverage your brand color at every platform you can.
Your brand color is your visual identity to the subconscious mind of your customers.
Every time your customer visits your website or looks at your products, videos, or even your social media post, if you have well utilized the brand color around, then that secretly communicates with the subconscious mind of the customer.
And soon your customer builds a strong connection with that color and your brand. Therefore businesses must leverage their brand color even if they have to ignore certain psychological factors.
For example, brown is the brand color of Guarda Golf, and that’s what they leverage the most. It is all over their website, on the CTA, in the images, and other navigational clicks.
Even though brown is not a very effective color for CTAs but, since it’s their brand color, so they leverage it.
The What and Why of Color Psychology
Different colors evoke different emotions.
And, this is not a random psychological phenomenon. Minds have developed a certain set of perceptions for each specific color, for either some evolutionary factor or for biological reasons.
It would not be wrong to say that color psychology is the mind’s reaction to long evolutionary and biological actions.
Our mind reacts to color in a certain behavioral pattern because that same color has acted for a long time in that way to the mind.
For example, red is perceived as dangerous, and the reason could be FIRE. Or when people are angry, the eyes are red and hence that’s dangerous.
The same red is also represented as love and affection, and the reason could be rose that has been used as a symbol of love for ages.
Let’s learn the psychological action-reaction of some colors.
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Blue
Why is blue so popular?
Websites and businesses are overwhelmed by the blue color.
Action:
Blue is dominantly around us. In fact, our evolution began from the “blue” ocean, and under the “blue” sky (of all shades).
Cold is another experience that makes the face blue due to low blood supply.
Reaction:
The blue sky and the oceans make us psychologically react with the same emotion or mood that we experience during the action stage.
As a result of these, we have developed a strong preference for blue in various shades and is favorite to 42% of men and 29% women.
Since blue lies above us so impactfully and never fall on us, develop a trust factor in the mind.
Hence, blue is trust. And, therefore various banks and financial firms use blue as their brand color.
In eCommerce, blue color psychology is well used for developing the trust factor. Here is an example of an Online Drugstore.
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Green
When blue was above and around us; green was with us, in us, as a source of various life elements.
Action:
Forest, trees, grasses, and other natural vegetation had been the major source of green for minds.
Further, these green vegetations are all around us and life isn’t possible with them; hence their psychological reaction is set accordingly.
Reaction:
Due to the above actions, green is perceived as natural and healthy.
A natural body and mind are also peaceful and grows, so green also represents peace and growth.
Keeping this in mind, online stores that are concerned with health, peace, mind, and body growth such as medicinal and vegetable stores leverage green.
Green is welcoming and so green is found to be the most suitable color for Call To Action (CTA).
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Red
Scientifically, red has the longest wavelength in the visible color spectrum, and that’s what makes it most recognizable to human eyes.
Action:
Fire, blood, and rose are three main natural existences of red color that have shaped the perception of the human mind regarding the red color.
Reaction:
Dealing with fire demands high attention, and any mishappening may lead to a fierce situation. Therefore, red is being seen as a color to alert, caution, and danger.
The red on flowers, such as rose and lily, is symbolic to love and desire.
Red is also symbolic of dominance. For example, among all power rangers, red is chosen as central and most powerful of all, because psychology makes it.
Ecommerce businesses that relate to beauty and desire, such as women cosmetics, fashion dresses, wedding dresses, etc. use red color to portray their products.
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Yellow
Yellow is a popular color, used for attracting attention.
Action:
The bright Sun is the major source of natural yellow and is the main reason for the psychology of yellow color.
Reaction:
As a result of the above action, the mind perceives yellow as bright, eye-catching, and attention-seeking more like the sun.
And therefore, it illuminates the human’s mind, exciting with cheerful and enthusiastic emotions. Yellow color represents optimization, creativity, and confidence.
This color is more about the analytical mind.
According to researchers, yellow is 1.27 times more detectable than red color.
Yellow is used in eCommerce to grab quick attention, and for those products that demand enthusiasm and excitement. For example, online stores that sell toys and child clothes.
Above all, color is essential in eCommerce. It impacts sales, improves brand recognition, and makes the brand more vibrant with subconscious minds.
A wrong or random choice of color may fire contrasting emotions in the minds of the shoppers and that might go against the desirable action.
Tips to Be a Better eCommerce Artist
So far, we learned about the psychological effects of colors, and the perception they create in the minds.
In this section, let’s go through some useful tips for using colors to extract benefits for your eCommerce business.
1. Sync Color With Your Products
Whatever color you choose for your business, make sure that it’s logically and psychologically linked with the products.
The reason is simple; it makes your product more recognizable.
For example; if you are selling packaged water, the blue color is the most favorable one as it resembles the color of water bodies.
This way, you can connect your shoppers with your product even before they read the details of the product.
2. Leverage Brand Color in Your Marketing Effort
Social media is now an indispensable part of marketing campaigns for all businesses — startups or enterprises.
Almost all businesses are now on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media platforms for marketing purposes.
How can you stand out from your competitors?
And, how your social media marketing can help you in branding your business?
Although there are other factors as well, among all, brand color is one that creates the first impression.
Therefore, leverage your brand color in your social media campaign at every possible place.
Checkout how MakeWebBetter uses its brand color on Twitter posts.
3. Brand Color in Your Blogs
Blogs are resourceful content for your customers.
It is well used in the B2B model but that doesn’t mean that it cannot be implemented in the B2C model of business.
Sellers have leveraged product based articles and blogs to engage and present their product in an interesting manner to their audiences.
For example, a telescope or scientific products selling online stores write blogs on their products.
Since, buyers spend time on blogs, reading, and thinking, which provides a good opportunity to build some subconscious links with the readers using the brand color.
And, that’s what Highpoint Scientific does in their blogs. They leverage brand color in their blog and CTAs.
Now,
You may be curious about how to use color in blogs?
Here are some ways:
- Use your brand color in the blog banner.
- Leverage your brand color in the feature images and other blog images.
- Use for anchor-text color
- Use in-text highlighter
- Scroll indicator
4. The Color of CTAs
Call To Action (CTA) is like a doorknob to your revenue.
But, not always. Sellers can use CTA for various other purposes as well.
Types of Call To Action:
- Buy now
- Add to cart
- More info
- Form submission
- Social sharing
Each of these CTAs has different objectives. And these objectives demand different moods to encourage shoppers to click.
But, mood and action are not the only factors that decide the color of CTA. The brand color, the product type, gender, and age of the audience, etc.; all matters in deciding the right color of the CTA.
Let’s check some of the CTAs.
Amazon: The color of Amazon’s CTA is yellowish-orange. Yellow and orange make it more recognizable.
Nykaa: Since Nykaa sells beauty products, and so pink is a perfect choice for their CTA. Further, it matches the brand color which adds to the additional benefits.
5. Brand Color in Your Emails
Email marketing is an evergreen marketing strategy.
What are the best practices for email marketing?
One of these is sending a well-structured email. A structured email has a higher open rate and click-through rate and converts more than flat email messages.
Email templates are the most useful way to send a structured email.
But, structuring is not enough! The right choice of color based on the purpose of email impacts the performance of their email. The color psychology for emails is equally important as that in other marketing efforts.
White color is one of the most preferable background colors in emails. It fits with all the other colors.
The red color psychology is used to grab attention in case the email is meant for a security alert or other urgent reminders. Similarly, other colors can be leveraged that fits with the purpose of the email.
6. Color in Video
Video marketing is rising at a very rapid rate, about 95% of marketers use video for their marketing purpose.
Color Psychology in video marketing can be a good way to orient your views mindset towards your brand as well as towards the purpose of your video.
For example, MakeWebBetter uses its brand color on the YouTube channel page, that helps to connect the viewers easily with the MakeWebBetter
HubSpot has mastered the art of color branding. They don’t leave any chance of using their famous pumpkin brand color.
HubSpot videos, slide-shares, banners, all have traces of pumping color shining and reminding the viewers that it’s HubSpot.
7. Choosing Color Based on Gender and Age
Different genders have different sets of color preferences.
If your products are for men, the color should be men-oriented. And, whether you are selling to men or women, based on that you need to fix the color for your website.
Thus
The chart below shows the gender-based preferences of men and women.
Conclusion
Color psychology marketing and branding are vital in eCommerce.
And, using it carefully in your eCommerce business can make a significant change in brand recognition and improves sales.
Choosing the right color scheme for your brand is not just based on one or two factors but on a set of several factors. The psychological effects of color are the central factor.
And, with the right use of color psychology, it is possible to drive more sales, increase engagement, increase recognition, and other benefits.
I hope this article is helpful. Don’t forget to share your opinion on your favorite color in the comment section.