Choosing Colors For Your Opt-In Page

 One VERY overlooked aspect when designing an opt-in page (or even a sales page) is how color will affect your opt-in rates. You should choose the colors for your background, graphics, arrows, bullets, button, and opt-in box in order to achieve the result you want. Please note that colors have different meaning in different cultures.

• Blue - Using navy blue with gold is the best combination when targeting men and the second best when targeting women. Blue is the favorite color of men so you might want to use blue if your target audience is men.

• Pink - Pink is associated with femininity, sensuality and romance. Use pink if promoting to women, especially if the product you are promoting is associated with romance or sensuality.

• Green - Green is associated with health so use green if you are promoting a health related product. Dark green is associated with wealth. Use dark green if you are promoting a money-making product. Blue greens are the most accepted color group for both genders.

• Purple - Since approximately three-fourths of pre-adolescent children prefer purple to any other color, use bright purple when your product is targeted towards children.

• Black - Black is associated with authority, reliability, and elegance. Use black if your product is associated with any of these.

• Red - Use red as an attention getter as this color creates feelings of excitement or intensity. It works better as an accent color rather than a background one.

• Turquoise - Turquoise is associated with emotional healing. Light turquoise is considered feminine. Turquoise is popular with both men and women.

• Yellow - Yellow can increase irritability so it should only be used as an accent.
Since yellow is the most attention-getting color, use this color to highlight important points. Men associate yellow as being untrustworthy so don't use yellow if trying to sell an expensive item to men.

• Gold - Gold is associated with wealth, masculine power, happiness, wisdom, and attainment. Using gold with navy blue is the best combination when targeting men and the second best when targeting women.

• Orange - Orange is the color most associated with appetite so it would be a good color choice if you are promoting food products, cookbooks, etc. Orange is associated with cheap so using orange can make your product seem more affordable. However, orange is one of the least favorite colors in the US.

• Brown - Brown is associated with comfort, security, reliability, and credibility. Light brown conveys genuineness.

• Gray - Gray enhances the psychological response of other colors. Dark gray would be a good color for any text if you don't want to use black.

• Silver - Silver is associated with high-tech, graceful aging, communication, and, riches. Use silver with gold and white to promote a feeling of control and power.

The age of your audience affects what colors you should use. In general, children prefer bright colors while adults prefer more subdued colors.

The gender of your audience also plays a part in your color selection. Men prefer cooler colors while women prefer warmer ones. Red, orange, and yellow are exciting colors (warm) while purple, blue, and green are calming ones (cool).

Also keep in mind when choosing colors that some men, as well as a small percentage of women, have some form of color deficiency and are unable to see certain colors. Red-green color blindness is the most common form, followed by blue-yellow color blindness and total color blindness. Red-green color blindness affects up to 8% of males and 0.5% of females of Northern European descent. The ability to see color also decreases in old age.

Working class visitors to your opt-in page will prefer named colors such as red, blue, purple, green etc. while more educated visitors will prefer more obscure colors such as mauve, taupe, salmon, violet, etc.

As you can see, the colors you choose will depend on the audience you wish to target. Before choosing a color scheme, spend some time thinking about who you will be targeting. Remember, no matter how much you like a color scheme, your goal is to elicit a specific response from your target audience.