The guide to colors in marketing: know the color wheel to better stand out.

All existing colors are part of the color wheel, they are arranged in order of the colors that make up the rainbow. These are used in all forms of art such as painting, fashion but also in design and even in dyeing. These pigments are perceived thanks to the cones located on the retina inside the eye. We will give the colors their meanings, their separations as well as how to use them properly. In addition, we will see the practice of colors when publishing on your networks, sending emails to your customers or even on your website.

To begin with, there are 3 colored sectors:

1. The primary colors which are composed of blue, red and yellow.

2. The secondary colors bringing together orange, purple and green.

3. The tertiary colors therefore representing orange-red, orange-yellow, light green, turquoise and purple.

Each new sector follows from the one that precedes it, therefore the shades which make up the second division are products of the first division. For example, blue mixed with yellow will give green, and so on for all the colors in the following categories.

To continue, we can make sets, represented as follows:

- Analogous colors being 3 colors following each other in the color wheel.

- Complementary colors made up of 2 opposite colors found, once again, in the color wheel.

- Monochrome colors resulting in the shade or degree of a color.

- Triadic colors opposing 3 colors, therefore forming a triangle in the color chart.

You must also worry about the harmonization of these, we normally do not choose more than 3 or 4 colors to succeed in catching the eye without it being too much. These sets will be used when you want to combine several colors together while maintaining a beautiful finish.

The meaning of the colors:

- Blue: calm, truth, freshness and serenity or melancholy

- Yellow: energy, confidence, friendship and enthusiasm or lie

- Red: love, passion, heat, triumph or anger, danger

- Green: nature, balance, luck, concentration and harmony or failure

- Orange: joy, creation, optimism and security or bad taste

- Violet: delicacy, peace, meditation and friendship or melancholy and solitude

- White: purity, innocence (Absence of color)

- Black: elegance, simplicity, mystery and rigor or death, sadness, darkness (All colors)

It is important when choosing the colors you want to use to understand their meaning. It is certain that poor use of these can cause misunderstanding, on the part of the reader, around the connotation of the chosen colors. Let's not forget that an agreement of several colors brings together a maximum of 3 or 4, they can be, as mentioned above, analogous, complementary or triadic for your assortment to work. You also have the task of respecting the context to have a good association of colors in your environment.

Here is some information related to consumer preferences according to their gender or age:

Preference by gender:

- Men = morning blue, brown and dark red.

- Women = baby pink, pale blue and lime green.

Preference by age:

-18 years and - = pale blue, red, pale green, orange and mauve.

- 19-25 years = purple, blue, red and green.

- 25-35 years = blue, purple, yellow and green.

- 35-60 years = blue, flash green, gray, brown and lavender.

- 60 years and over = off-white, gray, blue and brown.

Finally, you can also help yourself by using colors to attract consumers' attention in certain places, either on your website, on your publication or in an email intended for them. By using a vibrant color where you want the reader to click, you will immediately catch their eye. (For example: “Click here” or “Confirm” or “I’m registering”). Then, to soften the reading a little, you can use, on a white background, dark gray writing rather than black, this will make continuous reading easier for the person in front of the screen.

We have therefore seen some UX/UI as well as marketing tips for the effective and pleasant use of colors. In addition to having seen the basis of the colors included in the color wheel, their arrangement, their meanings, we have also described in what circumstances to use them and the preferences for using colors. These tips can be useful to you through all the images, publications, emails and even videos that you will produce, so it is essential to use colors well to attract attention, to define yourself well and to properly target your audience.