The colors that are used in the branding of your business reflect what a brand conveys. The colors in the brand are not just for aesthetic appeal, it communicates what your brand stands for and infact can highly influence the buying decision of your target audience. Using the right colors in your brand, can help your brand reach the right audience.
1. How Color Psychology Works & Understanding Color Psychology
Color psychology deal with how colors impact human behaviors. Each color evokes different emotions when a human see it. Here are few reasons on what kind of emotions each color evokes
Red – When it comes to red it emotes passion and energy.
Blue – The color blue is often associated with professionalism. You can see several international brands you the color blue in their branding activities.
Green – Green is associated more with nature, health and growth. Businesses that are into health, nature, agriculture based can be seen using the color green more in their branding activities.
Yellow – Yellow is always considered to be the color associated with warmth and optimism. Business that targets young audience can be seen using Yellow more.
Black – Black is often associated with elegance and luxury. Several of the luxury brands can be seen using the black color, which shows elegance and class.
By understanding the color psychology you can choose the right colors for your brand that will align with brand’s value and mission.
2. Know Your Target Audience
Understanding the target audience will help a business to understand what kind of colors a business should use in their brand. For example, if the target audience for business is young people, then the business should focus more on colors that will resonate with young people. In this instance, the business should use more of bold colors in their brand. The bold colors can be selected based on the cultural background, the product or service marketed by the business.
3. Researching Your Competition
Analyzing the color schemes used by the competitors can provide you with an idea of colors used by the competitors in their branding. Also, research the most common colors used in your industry, and see how you can make your brand stand out by using different shades of the colors used in your industry.
4. Reflect Your Brand’s Personality
The colors you have in your brand should reflect your brands personality. The colors should show who your brand targets or whether your brand is a fun youthful one or a professional brand. For example, the new age industry companies like AI can opt for more vibrant colors, and a modern logo. Whereas matured industries like manufacturing can opt for professional colors like blue and more matured and professional logo.
5. Consider Cultural Significance
Also finalizing the brand colors based on the target market is really important. Each color represents different emotions in different cultures. In western cultures white is regarded as purity and peace, and whereas in some cultures in eastern countries, it is considered as loss and mourning. So before finalizing on the color, you should carefully asses what emotions does that color represents in your target market.
6. Test and Improve
Choosing and finalizing the brand colors is a continuous process. Once you finalize on the brand colors, you can share with your colleagues and a set of loyal customers, or do A/B testing. Get the feedback on the colors and based on the result and reactions you can finalize on the colors used on the branding activities.
Choosing the right colors for your brand is a long process which needs to be carried out in detail. The process involves knowing the psychology of the colors, cultural impact, audience preference and analyzing what colors the competition is using.
It also involves understanding what common colors are used in the industry and how a brand can use the different shades of those colors to look different and stand out from the competition. Moreover, the colors you choose should reflect on what your brand stands for and should associate with your target audience.
Following the above 6 steps can help you to understand the color psychology and will help you to choose the right colors for your brand.
