How Color Psychology Affects Sales
Did you know that the color of your labels can affect your sales? In fact, using specific colors for your product labels can influence 85% of customers’ purchasing decisions. This phenomenon is known as color psychology — which can impact how buyers perceive different brands and products.
That’s why it’s so important to choose the best colors for your product labels. Choosing the right color can increase brand awareness and recognition by 80%. And, since 93% of consumers make purchasing decisions based on visuals alone, it’s crucial that you make the right color choice from the get-go.
So, how do you choose the best colors for product labels? We’re breaking down each color to help you make an informed decision.
What Popular Colors Mean
Blue
Blue is the most popular logo color, with 33% of top brands featuring it in their logo. It conveys trust, loyalty, dependability, logic, serenity, and security. Because it conveys these feelings, it’s commonly used in the following industries:
- Banking and finance
- Software and programming
- Social media
- Communications
- Airlines
- Pharmaceuticals
- Hotels
- Home improvement
- Oil and gas
- Publishing
- Courier services
You must also be aware of the possible negative effects blue can have on your product labels. Some blues can come across as cold, emotionless, and unfriendly. That’s why it’s important to choose the right shade of blue for your product label. It’s also best to stay away from blue for food products, as the color is a known appetite suppressant.
Purple
Purple conveys wisdom, wealth, spirituality, imagination, and sophistication. Therefore, it’s best for product labels that promote youth and creativity. Common industries may include:
- Health and beauty
- Skincare
- Children’s products
Purple can also promote decadence, suppression, excess, and moodiness, so it’s important to choose the right shade for your product labels.
Orange
Orange is a great color for conveying courage, confidence, warmth, creativity, friendliness, and energy. Some theorists say orange increases the oxygen supply to the brain, which stimulates mental activity and creates curiosity and interest in your product. It can also inspire food purchases, but mostly for natural products.
Orange is best for brands that bring balance, making it a popular choice for these industries:
- Sporting goods
- Outdoor recreational equipment
- Home improvement and construction
- Food and beverage
- Health and vitality
- Vitamins
- Pharmaceuticals
This color can also convey deprivation, frustration, immaturity, ignorance, and sluggishness. Therefore, it’s important to choose the shade wisely.
Red
Red is a common color for expressing power, passion, energy, fearlessness, and excitement. Brighter shades convey high energy, while darker shades signify elegance.
Red can also make you hungry, which is why it’s a popular choice for the food and beverage industry. It’s known to increase heart rate and raise your blood pressure, and escalates appetite by increasing the metabolism. It’s commonly used in these industries:
- Lifestyle and entertainment
- Food and beverage
- Electronics
- Oil and gas
- Real estate
- Airlines
- Courier services
Like all other colors, red has some potential negatives. It can convey anger, defiance, warning, aggression, pain, and danger. It’s important to choose the correct shade to avoid these negative connotations.
Green
Green is a great color to signify health, hope, freshness, nature, growth, and prosperity. It’s known to slow down heart rate to create a sense of calm. That makes it the best color for product labels in these industries:
- Food
- Health and wellness
- Organic and natural products
- Eco-friendly products
- Banking and finance
Green can also convey boredom, stagnation, envy, blandness, and debilitation. Like all other colors, it’s important to choose your shade wisely.
Yellow
Yellow is great for conveying optimism, warmth, happiness, innovation, intellect, and extroversion. It’s commonly joined with red to combine feelings of hunger and happiness. It’s also best for products that inspire consumers to take action. Yellow is predominantly found in these industries:
- Food and beverage
- Cleaning products
- Oil and gas
As with all colors, yellow can convey negative feelings as well. It can signify irrationality, fear, caution, anxiety, frustration, and cowardice. Because of this, it’s best to choose your shade wisely.
Black
Black is known for signifying sophistication, security, power, elegance, authority, and substance. It’s best for products that convey elegance and information, making it perfect for the following industries:
- News
- Publishing
- Banking and finance
- Beverage and alcohol
- Communications
- Apparel
- Broadcasting
- Hotels
However, black can also convey feelings of coldness, heaviness, and mourning. You could balance black with other colors to mitigate these feelings.
White
White is often used to signify innocence, purity, cleanliness, simplicity, and pristineness. Common industries that use white are:
- Electronics
- Broadcasting
- Health and beauty
- Beverages and alcohol
- Medicine
- Science
- Religion and spirituality
- Airlines
- Communications
- Courier services
White can also make consumers feel sterile, empty, plain, cautious, and distant. Like black, you can balance white with other colors to combat these feelings.
Get Expert Advice on What Colors are Right for Your Product Labels
Need help with your product labels? Contact the DRG team. We are a leading label products and solutions manufacturer headquartered in Safford, Arizona. While we don’t have in-house design capabilities, we can help you create long-lasting labels, no matter the industry. Every day, our team is hard at work identifying industry-leading solutions that help our partners streamline production, reduce costs, consolidate supplier bases, and deliver better products.
As a private, family-owned company under second-generation ownership, we can operate with greater flexibility — not only in identifying solutions and manufacturing best-in-class products, but also in how we work within the industry. With extensive equipment, product solutions, a UL certification, and a relentless commitment to solving our customers’ greatest supply chain challenges, we’ve become the manufacturing partner of choice for organizations across the U.S. and Mexico.
Start Creating the Best Product Labels Today
Ready to learn more about what we can do for you? Reach out to our team for a no-strings-attached consultation.