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Hi friend,

The college football (American football for my non-American friends) season kicked off last week. And for us football fans this is a great time of year to get caught up in the excitement of the sport.

One of my personal favorite games I look forward to each year is Penn State University’s annual “white out” game. 

I love this game more for the atmosphere than the game itself. I’ve never attended the game in person but to see over 100,000 fans dressed in all white supporting their team is a true spectacle. You don't need to be a football fan to be in awe. 
 

This tradition began to prevent Nebraska (a rival team) from showing up in their red apparel. 

Color whether used in a sporting event or in marketing instantly sets a mood, it evokes emotion and even triggers a psychological reaction.

When you set up your email, do you ever think about the colors you use and how that may impact your reader’s behavior? 

There are so many different ways you can use colors in your emails - background, call to action, links, and images - and the cumulative effect of those colors says something about you and your content.

So how are you using colors? Do you use the email template default colors? Do you pick your favorite colors? Or do you stick with your brand colors?

If you’re not thinking about the colors you use in your emails - it’s time. 

Why?

84.7% of consumers surveyed believe color is important when buying a product. And color increases brand recognition by 80%. That makes it an incredibly important part of  your brand identity. 

Let’s take a look at some examples

Canva uses a purple to draw attention to their call to action. Now purple is part of their branding but this color is also known to encourage creativity. 

Canva is a graphic design tool so it’s possible they strategically choose purple for their branding and also use it in their newsletters to psychologically inspire creativity with their audience.
 

A lot of newsletters I receive use a shade of blue when linking to text. Blue is the default color for text-based links, but The Publish Press switches it up by using red. This is a good choice as red psychologically promotes an action.
 

I love this example from Harry’s. This all black email is meant to position this product as classic and sophisticated.

Color meaning

Let’s take a look at how you can use color to potentially influence your audience's behavior in your emails.

To start, it’s important to know how people perceive different colors.

Now that you have a quick overview of the different color meanings, let’s see how you could potentially use them in your next email.

Drive an action

When you want your audience to take a specific action like buy a product or download a guide or read your blog post use a red or yellow call to action button.

Red tones represent passion, adrenaline, and action.

Yellow is a color that grabs attention. It’s also associated with happiness, self-esteem, creativity and friendliness.

From a marketing psychology standpoint, red and yellow are your more action-oriented colors, but that doesn’t mean other colors won’t work. Just look further down this email, you’ll see that we use a blue call to action. And the Canva example I shared earlier used purple. 

My recommendation would be to test different color CTA’s to see what works best for you.

Backgrounds

Draw attention to a product, cause, or event by promoting it on a colored background. 

Here’s a few color examples and when to use them. 

Green represents a freshness/newness, use when: 

• Promoting a new product
• Wellness coach promoting a service
• Showcasing an environmentally-friendly product or service

Choose for each type of email

The colors you use in your marketing emails should be chosen based on the purpose of the email you’re sending.

For example:

Email newsletter: These types of emails are typically used to send your subscribers regular updates with news, information, or educational content. 

Use a lot of white in these emails with just a splash of your brand colors. The idea is to get your subscribers to read the content, so you don’t want secondary colors drawing their attention away. 

The only exception to this principle is if you want your newsletter readers to click a link in the newsletter, say to read a blog article or watch a video. In that case, use a call to action button that will draw their attention and make them click.

Welcome email: This email is usually one of the first interactions a customer will have with your brand, so use your brand colors to reinforce your company’s visual identity.

Sales email: The colors used in your sales emails will vary depending on your offer. Use the color meaning chart above to guide you.

How will you use colors?

The colors you use in email to influence your audience’s behavior is just one of many ways you can use the psychology of color in your overall marketing efforts. 

These principles can be applied to your website, landing pages, sign up forms, social media and more.

Read our article “How to use the psychology of color in marketing to increase your results” to get additional insights.

What did you think of this email?

❤️❤️❤️ Loved it. Can't wait to get the next one.

💔 I didn't really care for it.

Learn your color impact

Should you change all the colors of your next email or newsletter? Not without testing first.

Based on the psychology, you may have a theory that a red call to action should perform better than say blue. Time to see if you’re right.

I would run a 50/50 split test, then apply the winning color to your next email.
 

Here’s some other email test ideas you could try.

Helpful Keyboard Shortcuts

AWeber has keyboard shortcuts to help you cruise around AWeber with minimal mousing.

• d - Dashboard
• b - Sent broadcasts
• m - Drafts
• s - Subscribers
• p - Landing pages
• shift + m - New message
• shift + a - Switch account

Instagram Reel of the Week:

Check out this awesome Instagram Reel we created based on last weeks newsletter where we talked about making your subscribers feel special.

Get our latest expert advice and helpful tips 

As always, thanks for reading!

- Sean T. and the rest of the AWeber team