Discover The Uncanny Reasons Why Colour Can DIRECTLY Influence Your Bottom Line!

Did you know that the colours you use in your business can have a direct impact on your bottom line? It’s true! Colour has the power to influence our emotions, perceptions and behaviours. In fact, businesses that use colour astutely can see a HUGE increase in profits.

So how can you harness the power of colour to help your business succeed? Read on to find out!

How Colour Can Dramatically Improve Conversion Rates 🎨📈

When you think of the colour red, what is the first emotion that comes to mind? For most people, it represents something that is associated with warmth, such as love or passion while blue represents emotions associated with cold such as calmness, sadness or refreshment. Throughout human history, various colours have been used to send out a range of messages. For example, purple was considered to be the colour of the royals because it was difficult to make and thus, purple-dyed clothing became a rare and expensive commodity that could be afforded only by the royals. In more recent years, waving a white flag became the symbol of truce while a black flag represented anarchy. From the blue-painted warriors of the Aztecs to modern-day pink ribbons worn for breast cancer awareness, colours play a key role in provoking certain emotions in people. 

Successful brand creators have been able to figure out how customers’ reactions can be influenced by the colours used to represent their products. This is especially important for e-commerce sites to consider, seeing that it can result in high conversions. For instance, The Body Shop, a brand that manufactures natural and sustainable products uses earthy colours such as forest green to reflect the brand’s inclination towards nature. 

Customer perceptions can change dramatically based on the brand’s colour and the website’s use of the colour palette. 

Does Colour Make A Difference? 🤔💭

Studies have suggested that when it comes to purchases, up to 90% of product judgement is based on colour alone as it triggers emotions. Many brands use colours that represent the company’s ideologies to send out certain messages regarding their products. You may have noticed how many fast-food chains use bright colours such as red, yellow or orange in their branding. Big brand names in this industry such as Mcdonald’s, KFC, Burger King and Pizza Hut use colours that are known to stimulate the appetite of customers. Red also represents urgency so using red for branding in fast food chains sends out the message that they serve their food within minutes, hence why it’s also called ‘fast-food’!

“Kissmetrics  shows that colour increases brand recognition by up to a whopping 90%!“

Colour might even be the reason a certain product is purchased over against a similar one that is cheaper. Many buyers depend on the visual appearance when deciding which product to buy. Think of the last time you were given a choice between two products where the only difference was in their colours. Which product did you choose and why? 

For e-commerce sites, the importance of colour transcends way beyond product design and it is even more important to consider how it is used while designing websites. From the ‘Call To Action’ (CTA) buttons to the sales tags, colours can influence how a user sees your website and it can even trigger buyer urgency. Using the right colours can help guide customers to purchase a product, take a survey or convince them to sign up for email lists. 

Preferences Can Vary Depending On Your Target Audience 👉🎯

There are many factors that influence which colours to use for e-commerce design and marketing. It depends on the key products and target customer demographics such as age, gender and even location. Websites targeting women generally go for soft, pastel tones like pink that reflects femininity and romanticism. However, studies have shown that women also prefer blue, purple and green over pink. While websites targeted toward men go for darker shades such as blue, green and black. Black is also used in websites that sell luxury items as this colour represents sophistication. 

When it comes to targeting consumers with products or services for children, there is no doubt that bright, vibrant colours are the best choice. Primary colours like red, blue and yellow are the most attention-grabbing for children and we can see them being used for many products, for example, toys, clothes and food packaging. Muted or neutral tones do not appeal to children and hence you will rarely see them being used for marketing or branding purposes to that target audience. 

Thus, when it comes to building an e-commerce website, it is important to keep your audience in mind and go for tones that are most likely to appeal to your users. You can create a buyer persona to help identify your target audience. Or, you can even conduct a survey to see which colours your target audience favour most and apply those colours to your site. 

What Colours Should Be Used For CTA Buttons And Promotional Sales Banners? 🧲✅

Most websites use bright shades such as red, yellow or orange to create a sense of urgency in the buyer. Thus, it is most suitable for clearance sales and big sale events such as flash sales or Black Friday sales. Sales and discounts are an exciting event for any consumer and the website should reflect this excitement as well. That is why when there’s a sale happening, bright colours are mostly used to spread a feeling of festivity and celebration. It allows the customers to know that you are also excited about the big sale. Therefore, such hues promote optimism and encourage customers to buy the products. 

Bright tones can also be used for CTA buttons to make them more noticeable. However, it is not necessary that a Call To Action button needs to be red. The colours can vary depending on which shades are used for the rest of the page. This is best done by using contrasting or complementary colours. Contrasting colours are those that sit opposite of each other on the colour wheel. When placed together, they create the strongest contrast. Thus, it makes the CTA buttons instantly stand out. For example, a page that has blue as the dominant can have a yellow or orange CTA button that stands out. 

You can also use accents to highlight the buttons and place them so they cannot be missed by visitors to your website.. By making it virtually impossible for your customers and prospects to not see your CTA buttons, it will make it the conversion path for them a lot more frictionless.

You can also choose to run A/B testing on your site using different CTA buttons (including the text within CTA buttons) and measure which ones receive the most clicks. In this A/B testing done by Hubspot, the website tested green buttons against red and the red button received 21% more clicks than green! Of course, A/B testing can be done on a variety of colours and designs to determine which is the best design for your own situation. 

Consider Inclusivity When Working With Colours 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦👨‍🦽

An important thing to consider incorporating into your website is to make it inclusive. People with colour blindness need to be able to easily navigate through your site and be able to differentiate between shades. There are many forms of colour blindness.

“According to Colour Blind Awareness, 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women have colour blindness around the world”

Hence, this makes it even more important for eCommerce sites to consider making their sites more accessible for everyone. One way to make your website inclusive is by using colours with textured overlay for CTA buttons. Trello, the collaboration tool, uses colours and textures for its labels which makes it easily distinguishable to anyone regardless of whether they are colour blind or not. 

There are many tools available that you can use to check how accessible your website is. Toptal’s Colour Blind Filter helps to visualise how websites appear for four types of colour blindness. You can enter a website URL and check how the page appears to a colour-blind person. This can give an idea of how your website will appear to people that suffer from colour blindness and allow you to modify your site accordingly. If your brand’s colour theme does not allow you to modify the shades, take the help of text or symbols to guide users. But remember that the text should always be clearly readable and not blend into the background. Similarly, links can be underlined or bolded to help people identify them more easily. 

Using the right colours and design for an eCommerce website is important to increase conversions. Users generally rely on good, high-quality images and easy navigation when it comes to buying products online and using the right colours adds immensely to making that user experience positive.

If you are looking for help with creating an attractive e-commerce website that provides a premium user experience your target audience can’t stay away from whilst most importantly, growing your revenue and profits then contact WEBO Digital for a chat today!