It likely comes as no surprise that marketing is essential to building a successful business. And there is a simple trick to making sure your advertisements stick with potential customers.
No matter what your business is, if you follow a few easy guidelines in your visual marketing, you’ll make sure everyone remembers you.
The secret to success?
Color!
Turns out that color has way more importance than just aesthetic appeal. Different colors can actually increase cognition and memory.
By using color, you can convey certain emotions to potential customers. You can even elicit desired responses from consumers just by choosing the right color.
Want to learn how?
Studies have shown that just by putting a colored frame around an image or phrase, you can increase recognition by 77-80%!
And beyond that, using particular color tones to convey different messages can increase memory function up to 40%!
Can you guess the worst color background you can use?
The answer might surprise you—it’s white!
Despite the widespread use of white, the blank background has actually been proven to aggravate dyslexia, and makes it harder for the average person to focus as well.
Because white reflects every color of the rainbow, it produces a glare that makes it harder to focus on words and logos printed on the blank background.
So when in doubt, steer away from white!
Different tones of colors have affects on cognition as well.
There’s a reason why ‘vibrant’ is such a memorable word when describing color. The brighter and warmer the color (like red and orange) are more stimulating and therefore help viewers remember them clearer and longer.
Contrarily, cool colors like blue have a soothing effect. Though they don’t increase stimulation in the mind the way warm colors do, don’t sell them short!
Depending on the sort of message you want your advertising to send, soothing may be the perfect angle.
Just think of some successful businesses and their logos, and then consider the number of companies that have blue logos!
Facebook, HP, Samsung, Ford, Jetblue, and Twitter are just a few.
So why is blue successful for them?
Because all of these companies advertise leisure, comfort, and/or speed and ease in completing tasks. Because blue is calming, it fits with the business models of these industries.
Similarly, companies like Lego, NASA, CNN, and Red Bull have bright red logos to impart a connotation of energy and excitement.
Lego wants to make kids excited to play and CNN reports the constant activity of sports and news. Red Bull is essentially selling energy, and NASA is selling the idea of rockets and space travel—doesn’t red seem natural?
Other color associations include green, which infers a sense of freshness and plenty. Green is great for promoting the environment or wealth. Yellow makes people think of clarity and positive energy, purple brings luxury to mind, black invokes feelings of seriousness, and pink is associated with playfulness.
There’s a reason why we connote certain colors with certain feelings, and if you use these associations to your advantage, you’ll have consumers in the palm of your hand.
If you combine the emotional response to color with the way color influences cognition (vibrant colors increase cognition by 31%, color frames increase memory by 77-80%, and white decreases recognition, etc.), you will ensure that your business is advertised in the very best light.
With color on your side, no one will be able to refuse you.
Time to break out the color wheel and get to work!
