How to: Use color to your advantage

It’s no secret that there is power in color. But it has to be used in the right way to be effective. In her journal article, “Impact of color on marketing” Satyendra Singh states that it takes less than 90 seconds for people to make up their mind about a product, and 62 to 90 percent of the assessment is based on color alone.

Jeremy Smith recently wrote about color psychology for KISSmetrics, a blog focusing on online marketing and analytics. Here are some of his tips.
 

Blue communicates trust. Companies that want you to trust them (Facebook, PayPal, many banks) often use blue throughout their websites and marketing materials.

However, edible growers should stay away from using it. Studies have shown that the human mind has a natural aversion to the color blue when it comes to food. This is because naturally-occurring blue food is uncommon in the environment (blueberries and blue corn are notable exceptions).
 

Yellow is a color of warning. Think traffic signals and wet floor signs.

There is a chance that yellow can suggest playfulness. Yellow stimulates the brain’s excitement center, so that feeling may be a state of heightened emotion and response, not exactly sheer joy.

Color psychology is closely tied to memories and experiences. So, if someone had a very pleasant experience with someone wearing a yellow shirt, eating at a fast food establishment with yellow arches, or living in a home with yellow walls, then the yellow color may cause joy by memory association.
 

Green is ideal for environmental and outdoor products. Perhaps the most intuitive color connection is green — the color of outdoors, eco-friendly, nature, and the environment. Green essentially is a chromatic symbol for nature itself.

If the focus of your website has anything to do with nature, environment, organic, or outdoors, green should be your color of choice.
 

Orange is a fun color that can create a sense of haste or impulse. The positive side of orange is that it can be used as the “fun” color. According to some, orange helps to “stimulate physical activity, competition, and confidence.” This may be why orange is used heavily by sports teams and children’s products.

However, orange can be slightly overwhelming. And sometimes, orange is interpreted as “cheap.” Compare this to black, which is the color of luxury. Forbes posed the question, “Does orange mean cheap?” in an article on the “Effect of Color on Sales of Commercial Products.” The resounding answer was “yes.” If your product offering is cheap, or if you want it to be seen as such, orange may be a good choice.
 

Use bright primary colors for your call to action. In strict testing environments, the highest-converting colors for calls to action are bright primary and secondary colors – red, green, orange, yellow.

Darker colors like black, dark gray, brown, or purple have very low conversion rates. Brighter ones have higher conversion rates.
 

Don’t neglect white. White is often forgotten, because its primary use is as a background color. Most well-designed websites today use plenty of white space in order to create a sense of freedom, spaciousness, and breathability. Take, for example, Google, the most popular website in the world.

Jeremy Smith is a conversion consultant and trainer. Read much more on this topic at http://blog.kissmetrics.com/psychology-of-color-and-conversions/. Follow him on Google+ (JeremySmithSaid) or Twitter @JeremySaid, or visit his website, www.jeremysaid.com.