In the world of marketing and advertising, your business’s colors and fonts make the first impression on your customers. They serve as the face of your company, and they need to be perfect. Whether in your logo or your marketing efforts, colors and fonts matter.
They convey certain messages about your brand, so it’s important to make sure you choose the right colors and fonts to communicate those messages effectively and professionally. This guide will cover all aspects of choosing colors and fonts in your business.
If you haven’t read our article on crafting a customer persona, we highly recommend you start there, as this article builds upon creating an effective .
Colors & Fonts Explained
As a business owner, you have a lot on your plate every day. You likely find yourself faced with challenges that you had hoped would have already taken care of themselves. Moreover, you often find that you have little time to tackle all of your business’s responsibilities in a 24-hour window.
Did you know that effective marketing can help resolve many of your daily struggles? If there’s one thing consumers demand of the brands they buy, it’s consistency. Business owners that fail to convey an attractive but easy-to-understand message will usually find themselves inundated with challenges.
One way that you can help alleviate some of your business’s stressors is by establishing a clear and direct brand voice and image. Consumers feel more comfortable with a company that knows what it is.
When you choose the right balance of colors and fonts and use them effectively in your business and its operations, you can provide your clientele with a more welcoming experience. Take, for example, the following points revealed through studies:
● 93% of consumers buy based solely on visual appeal.
● 7% of shoppers use a brand’s color to determine whether they buy it.
● 52% refuse to return to a business if they don’t like its colors.
● And as much as 90% of consumers use color as a guide to where they shop.
Keep in mind that the colors and fonts you choose extend far beyond your company logo. It’s important to think about how you will incorporate them into your customers’ shopping experience, as well.
Why Do Colors & Fonts Matter?
Choosing colors for your business can be a tricky decision, as colors are capable of conveying a wide variety of emotions and feelings. If you’re not careful, the wrong color can have a negative impact on your brand.
For example, colors like white, gray, yellow, brown, and black are seen as the least effective in marketing. Why? Consumers react poorly to these colors. The last thing you want is for your brand to evoke a negative response from potential customers.
Fortunately, there are many colors that can help you convey positivity to your audience. Blues and greens often represent calmness or safety and, in fact, are the two most-liked colors among men and women.
Improve Marketing Targeting
Along with considering which colors best fit your brand’s personality, there are also other factors to keep in mind when determining which colors to use.
For one thing, if you’re targeting a more specific demographic, like women, you might want to avoid using bright, bold colors because they could make the target audience feel uninterested. Women are shown to lean more towards softer hues, whereas men like the brighter colors.
When you know who your target audience is, you will have a much easier time narrowing down the most suitable colors for your business.
From there, you can apply your chosen colors to things like:
● In-store signage
● Your website
● Store layout
● Online ads
● And more
The colors you choose play a significant role in the identity of your brand. So much so that it can make or break your business venture. Therefore, you want to be sure that you’ve conducted sufficient market research to determine your ideal customer base. Then, you can model your operations around these colors.
Just as important as colors are fonts. What role do fonts play in the grand scheme of your marketing efforts? Read on to find out.
Better Company Perception
Fonts are a vital part of any business. Not only do they play a role in how your brand is perceived, but they also play a huge part in how people see your work. Choosing fonts for your company is all about finding the perfect mix between form and function.
Moreover, the fonts you choose should depend on what kind of message you want to convey, especially if it’s different from your typical branding message. You also want to establish what kind of feeling you want people to associate with your business when they see it.
It’s important to take into consideration how legible the font will be when printed small, as well as how much space it takes up on a page or screen. One way to choose fonts for your business is by thinking about what words you want to use in the design and then choosing a typeface that best reflects those words.
For example, if you want to include the word “fast” in your logo design, using an italicized font might work better than using a standard bold font. It not only conveys speed but also implies action (which might relate back to speed).
Considerations like this can go a long way in helping you create a brand identity. What’s more, it will give consumers something tangible to relate to.
How to Choose the Right Colors & Fonts for Your Brand
Many business owners make the mistake of choosing colors and fonts that suit them rather than the general public, or more specifically, your target audience. At the end of the day, your goal should be to grow your business.
That means researching and choosing a combination of colors and fonts that appeal to your target audience. In doing so, you can build an effective marketing strategy that centers on that audience.
Pro Tip: Use a free service like Coolors.co to help generate color palettes
Identify Your Target Audience
So, who is your target audience? You will need to figure this out before attempting to narrow down the most suitable colors and fonts. We wrote an entire article on crafting your ideal customer persona, but in short ask yourself the following questions to help you determine who your business model centers on:
● What is the average income of my shoppers?
● What is the average age range of my clients?
● Whom do I serve most, men or women?
● What interests do my customers share?
● What are my clients’ likes and dislikes?
● What do my customers tend to buy?
Conducting some fundamental research will help you answer these questions and determine your target audience. When you have the necessary data, you can proceed to choose colors and fonts to use throughout your business.
Choose Colors & Fonts Based on Averages
If you decide to use the law of averages, you can narrow down the most suitable colors and fonts with greater ease and efficiency. For example, both men and women prefer blue among all other color options, while white and gray are their least liked colors.
Men don’t like purple at all, but women prefer it next to blue. Using this system, you can apply the same practices to font styles to narrow down the best option for your business.
Contact Us Today
You love being your own boss. But you have a lot of challenges that you’d like to overcome to make life easier. Let us help you craft a personalized brand strategy that connects to your target audience. Contact us today to schedule a free consultation to discuss your needs, and let’s work together to grow your brand into a success!