This is an article “Using Color in Online Selling” by Marc Primo Warren
E-commerce is fast becoming one of the most preferred transactional platforms for consumers today. With 1.8 billion people all over the world purchasing goods online, businesses are trying their best to boost traffic and increase sales in their websites and social media pages. For those who have just transitioned to digital due to the pandemic, one factor you can’t ignore is how your website’s color schemes can influence your target audience.
By now, most marketers know how color psychology can do a lot for a brand’s marketing efforts. For smaller businesses who are left to tend to their own digital marketing strategies, designing your e-commerce website to attract visitors and increase the likelihood for potential conversions is very important. Selecting the wrong colors can garble up your brand’s messaging or simply turn off consumers while meticulously designing each visual element and colorway can make you stand out from the competition.
Want to know how you should use color for your online selling efforts? Read on!
Color scheme application
Before you decide on which colors you’re going to incorporate in your website design, it’s first important to identify who your target audience is and how you can better understand them. Review how gender colors work like how women prefer softer tones such as blue, purple, and pink; while men prefer more solid colors such as green, blue, and monochromes black, grey and white.
Taking note of the importance of color schemes to your website can greatly increase not only your visual aesthetics but also make you a top-of-mind choice among your visitors in terms of brand perception, which can then lead to more conversions.
Adding complementary colors to your main ones associates your key visuals to your branding and helps your audiences to familiarize themselves to your online personality. And after you’ve chosen the right color scheme that establishes your branding, amp up your website’s speed to layout your website’s aesthetics smoothly so that visitors won’t be turned off by staggered loading.
Establish a color theme
Some vibrant colors are perfect for designing your e-commerce website. Combining warm colors with clean and bright ones can suggest professionalism and give a welcoming sight to your visitors, while neons and sharp contrasts like what you see in most smartphone or tech websites give visitors impactful and striking images.
Knowing what theme will go well according to your branding and which colors you should choose requires you to take a good look at how you want to position yourself in the market. An artful mix of warm and cool colors will give off a dreamy effect that suggests modern concepts and the willingness to be unconventional, while soft hues like cool blues, whites, and greys will usually signify cleanliness and serenity. If you want to keep your website real and appear to be welcoming, choosing warm earthy colors such as brown tones, grain, blackboard, or tan is definitely the way to go.
Choosing complementary colors
Aside from your main colors for your key visuals, complementary colors that add more vibrance and contrast to your design should always be opposites with your main colors. For example, blue and orange can help each other stand out when they are paired and offer more impactful images.
Another thing that can make your visual design stand out is by choosing stimulating complementary colors that go well with your entire color palette. Some good examples of harmonizing color contrasts are logos from Firefox, Tide, and FedEx among many others.
Choosing the right colors for your e-commerce website can provoke certain emotions from your potential customers which can help them decide if your products or services are worth trying out. They are part of the whole marketing and communication process that can influence them to respond to how you sell things and engage with your campaigns for retention.