Did you know that over 50% of users spend fewer than 15 seconds viewing a page? During this time, your prospects are viewing the content, imagery, and web design of your page. Very few will read through the entirety of your content copy, in fact, most will only look at the imagery and colour of your webpage. This is because the human brain tends to process visual content a lot faster than words, around 60,000 times faster to be exact!
What is Colour Psychology?
Colour psychology is the study of how colours affect perceptions and behaviours. In marketing and branding, colour psychology is focused on how colours impact consumers’ impressions of a brand and whether or not they persuade consumers to consider specific brands or make a purchase.
It’s a significant field of study to think about while developing marketing assets, starting a new business, or rebranding an existing one. Conversion rates measure the percentage of customers who finish a task set forward by a company. The task may be pressing a call to action (CTA) button or signing up for an email newsletter. According to research, simply altering the colour of CTA buttons can enhance conversion rates. Consider the following: Researchers discovered that up to 90% of rapid judgments about products can be based just on colour in a study titled “Impact of Color on Marketing.”
Specific colours and their traditional associations:
Red: The colour red has the ability to raise a viewer’s pulse rate and blood pressure. This primary colour represents passion and vigour. Companies may use the colour red to convey a sense of urgency.
Orange: Orange is a hue synonymous with playfulness. Orange can convey eagerness and other strong positive feelings.
Blue: Different tints or tones of blue have various colour associations. Light blue is often connected with calm and kindness, whereas dark blue is associated with power, strength, and reliability.
Green: Green is a secondary colour that is associated with growth and nature. Green provides a relaxing effect.
Purple: Sophistication, Success, Imagination. Purple is the colour of luxury and sophistication, but its shades have slightly different impacts on perception. Light purple appeals to women’s sense of class and sophistication; great for companies selling products to women like jewellery and beauty items. Whereas, dark purple is generally associated with seriousness, gloom, mystery, and luxury.
Black: Bold, Classy, Different. Black is a lot more sophisticated than purple, making it a good colour for brands that cater to the wealthiest clientele. Proper use of black lets you create a high level of contrast, helping a website in any industry make a bold statement.
When in doubt, use white
Friendly, Sophisticated, Classy. White is simple and uncomplicated, yet it is elegant, artistic, inviting, and pleasant. It gives your site a minimalist style and directs visitors’ attention to the most important components, such as your products and services. However, establishing the appropriate balance with the other stimulating colours is critical, because too much white might come across as cold and uninteresting, which can hurt your SEO. The usage of white space in margins and between lines of paragraphs enables you to divide texts, graphics, and sections in order to convey specific ideas/concepts more organized. It allows you to highlight CTAs by using strong contrast.
The problem with the psychology of colour in marketing
However, not everyone reacts to colours in the same way. Color, in reality, is too dependent on human experiences to be uniformly translated to precise sentiments. Personal preferences, experiences, upbringings, cultural variations, and context all muddle the effect that individual colours have on us. This implies there are no promises about how it will affect conversions and branding.
However, this does not negate the importance of colour psychology. The best thing you can do is to find your target audience and test a variety of colour combinations before selecting what works best for each campaign or site.
Conclusion
Take an active role in selecting your colour scheme rather than relying on a designer. You are the only one who knows what you want your website or social media handles to say and what you want your visitors to do when they visit your website or Instagram profile.
Colours certainly have the ability to transmit various emotions and ideas. You can use them to express indirectly what your content explicitly states. Having said that, one cannot underestimate the power of good design in instilling trust and confidence in a brand. However, if used correctly, colour psychology can have a huge impact on your website’s user experience and conversion rates. It’s easy to underestimate colour psychology’s promise in digital marketing. However, the colours you choose for your website, branding, and marketing may be more impactful than you realise.