5 Steps to Picking the Right Colors for Your Branding
Color plays a significant role in consumer decision-making. It influences a customer’s perceptions and emotions and can also attract attention, set a certain mood, or convey a message.
Customers initially rely on brand colors to decide if they want to engage and learn more about your brand.
Whether you’re rebranding or launching a game-changing new startup, understanding the impact of color on consumer behavior can help you pick the right colors to boost brand image and recognition.
This article will enumerate five steps to choosing the right colors for your brand mark.
1. Learn How Colors Affect Mood and Perception
Color psychology studies how colors impact behaviors and perceptions. From color meanings and symbolism to their impact on consumers, the study behind color theory enables us to understand color and maximize it in branding and marketing strategies.
Moreover, every color holds a story, which can shape your customers’ moods and perceptions.
A successful brand means your audience can recognize your brand by color alone. Also, understanding color and researching your targeted brand image can help you develop a recognizable and lovable color palette.
2. Study Color-Related Terminology
Effective brand managers or leaders know how to communicate well with their design team. We recommend researching and learning the basics of color-related terminologies to ensure an efficient and accurate color selection process.
Additionally, educating your team can help them articulate thoughts or suggestions as you develop your color palette.
So, you should know color hues, shades, tints, saturation, and tones. HSL Color Codes, CMYK and PMS, and RGB and HEX are crucial color elements in web design, emails, printing, or digital publishing.
3. Observe Your Competitors’ Brand Colors
After educating yourself and your team on color theory and terminology, you must research and audit your competitors’ brand colors. We also recommend looking for ways to differentiate your brand and boost brand recognition and preference.
Your product usually appears among competitors, whether online or on the shelf. Understanding your competitors’ color choices for their brands can help your team make branding decisions to help you stay unique.
So, as you research your competitors, you must ask what brand colors your competitors use and how they reflect their brand identities.
You can better understand their brand reputation by researching through forums, brand review pages, and releasing a survey to your audience. Finding color patterns in their content and determining your unique points can also help create a standout color palette for your brand.
4. Select the Colors Reflecting Your Brand Identity
Select the colors that reflect your brand identity so that your audience can immediately recognize your brand when they see your colors.
Plotting a mind map of all the aspects of your brand identity is one of the effective ways to brainstorm your brand color scheme. Therefore, sit with your marketing team to brainstorm color ideas using your competitive analysis data, brand identity, and core values.
Also, consider the characteristics that best represent your brand personality and attract your target audience.
5. Plan Where the Colors Will Appear
Once you’ve polished your brand’s color palette, start creating guidelines around which colors to use for various branding needs. These guidelines can help you maintain a consistent brand image.
This step is crucial, primarily if you work with a big team, freelance designers, or influencers. Your target audience will also expect to see your specific color palette on digital platforms.
How to Color a Successful Brand
Colors can significantly impact customers’ perceptions of your brand, whether rebranding or launching a game-changing company. Familiarizing yourself and educating your team on selecting the right colors can boost your brand image and increase sales.
Misfits Digital offers creative and dynamic branding services in Beirut to help businesses create meaningful brand experiences across all consumer touch points. Get in touch with us today!