Using Color Psychology in Your TPT Branding

Kirsten 0:00

Let's find out what's working well for you in your TPT store, introducing the free TPT store audit for teacher sellers after over 10 years on TPT. And with many flops and mistakes under my belt, I've been able to hone in on my strengths and what my audience wants. digging deep into what's working, and what's not working in my store has yielded amazing results with continuous growth year over year. Inside your free self guided TPT store audit, you'll get important audit questions covering areas from storefront design to sales and performance guided questions to help you reflect and analyze your results. And a video walkthrough filled with valuable tips for successful implementation. Don't miss out, head over to the southern teach designs.com forward slash TPT audit or you can check out the link in the description

you're listening to the creative teacher podcast, a show for busy teachers looking for ways to engage, inspire and make an impact in their teacher businesses. I'm Kiersten, a teacher business owner who is all about simple and actionable tips, strategies and resources that result in wins, big or small. If you're looking for that extra spark of creativity, you've come to the right place. Let's dive in together.

Hello, welcome to another episode of the creative teacher podcast, I'm always glad to be able to share my tips for you today's gonna be a fun one. And also speaking of fun, I have a fun fact for you that you may or may not know about. So before I even went into education, I didn't think I was going to be a teacher. When I graduated high school, I was going in thinking I was going to get a psychology degree and go in do my master's doctorate and become some type of psychologist. I wish I could tell my high school self what ride I was in for, because I'm definitely not doing much in psychology. But in a way, maybe I am. I don't know. I have always enjoyed psychology though. In general, I've enjoyed how we think and how we interact with each other and just different people and personality types and just why we do things. Why? What makes us tick what you know, humans in general, how our behavior is influenced by things around us and by other people. So I thought that it would be kind of cool to talk a little bit more infuse it I guess with this episode as far as color psychology because that is a thing, and how we can use color psychology and just different statistics that are out there into our TPT branding. So believe it or not, colors do play a huge role for us as a consumer and as a business. Whether you're rebranding your TPT store or you're launching a new TPT business or teacher business or course or membership, or whatever it is, you want to make sure that you're selecting colors that represent your brand, represent your personality and represent the message you want to convey to others. Today, I'm going to share with you some interesting information and statistics on color psychology. And I will also share with you three steps to relate color psychology to your teacher seller branding.

Alright, so color psychology, if you're not sure what it is, is a theory of how color can influence mood and feelings in human behavior. certain colors evoke emotions, and are associated with certain traits. One example that I'm already gonna throw out there, the color red, red is usually associated with passion and energy and drive. And before I even tell you, I'm sure you can think of several brands that have red as their main color. Target is one of them. Of course, that's one, but also Netflix, Coca Cola. Those are three pretty popular brands that have red as their main color and they're trying to they didn't just arbitrarily pick the color red just like let's do it. They actually have some type of strategy in that. In addition to red of course there are different colors, that mean certain things. I'll go through all of them ones that I see here in this color emotion guide. orange represents friendly, cheerful, confident, a few different brands that we might recognize would be Nickelodeon. There The brand colors and their logo is orange, Fanta. And also Amazon, you have the Amazon in black, but then there's that little arrow in Orange. Yellow shows warmth and clarity and positivity or optimism. A few examples of of brands with yellow mostly in their logo would be National Geographic, shell, and Best Buy. McDonald's green is more of health growth peaceful. Some examples would be Starbucks, Animal Planet, Spotify Whole Foods. Blue has trust, dependability, and strength. So you'll see Oreo, Oral B, Lowe's, Dell, those are all those logos are mostly blue, and then purple, you have creative, imaginative and wise. So I would say this is more of like a combination of pink and purple logos. So it's kind of similar, but there's Taco Bell. There's Barbie. There's Welch's grape juice, and then you've got the, you know, the neutral colors that represent like a gray or black that represents balance, neutral, calm. So you've got Apple in that category Honda, Nike, then you've got some outliers, you've got some that use more than one color in their logo. And that's kind of where we're at as TPT sellers, I think we're usually using multiple colors. But some brands that utilize multiple colors would be eBay, and Microsoft, Google and NBC. Here's something really interesting. This was this was from a study of the world's top 100 brands. And the color that is used the most by these top 100 brands, is the color blue 33%. Coming in second place is red 29%. And then 28%, use black or grayscale, and then 13% use yellow or gold. So you've got mostly primary or neutral colors that the top brands are using the most 95% use only one or two colors, and 5% of the top 100 brands use more than two colors.

Colors are pretty important because statistics show that color is the first thing a consumer will notice about your logo. So it is always important to make sure you're integrating your brand colors across the board, your logo, your Instagram page, or TPT products your landing page so that you can achieve the highest return the highest impact. Now let's talk a little bit more about purchasing decisions. 84.7% of consumers cite color as the primary reason they buy a particular product. So a very large, that's a very large majority of people. When people buy the 93% Look at the visual appearance 6% Look at texture, and about 1% Decide on sound or smell. I would think that, you know, if you're buying a handbag or you're at a store, there might be that you know looking at the texture and sound and smell. But for the most part, whether you're online or buying a physical product, a lot of the times people buy based on visual appearance. So we cannot convey texture, we cannot convey sound or smell because these are mostly digital resources that we're selling in general as TPT sellers. So it's really mostly about visual appearance. Research reveals people make a subconscious judgment about an environment or product within 90 seconds of initial viewing between 62% and 90% of that assessment is based on color alone. So for me, this is telling me that we as TPT sellers, need to make sure that when we have our product covers and our thumbnails and previews like our product listings in general, we need to make sure that it visually conveys what they could be getting if they buy our resource. We only have a minute and a half to really kind of stand out in their own way.

Something else that is interesting is that 52% of shoppers did not return to a store due to overall aesthetics. And I can think of a couple of weeks variances where I went shopping in one store. And like it, maybe it wasn't maybe the the clothes that they had or anything, but the vibe was kind of off, maybe nobody was really helpful, you know, that kind of thing that kind of deterred me from coming back. And then there are on In contrast, other stores that I've gone to, that I love going back to again and again, because I always get a really great experience. The same could be said with our TPT stores, if maybe they are looking at our product, and then they leads into our TPT store, they're looking to see what else is in our store, they may not really see anything, or what they see color wise may not really aligned to what they like, or it's just not aesthetically appealing. And so you, they kind of just lose that and they just go off and find something else or do something else. So I think having some type of inviting storefront with your brand colors that are that convey some type of welcoming, friendly message or professional message. Whatever your brand message is, make sure you convey that in your store so that you align with the right people who want to buy your resources to make sure that they're for them. What I take from this information is that while a lot of us may not have only one or two colors, like most of the top 100 brands, we usually use a lot of different colors, we want to make sure we use those multiple colors to our advantage, using it in a way to not be another TPT store that also has flashy colors in their product covers, and all of that with the same mock ups and all.

You want to make sure you're using your colors in a way that aligns with your wording, your messaging that, in general, like all together can help increase your brand recognition, if you like to use a lot of rainbow color in your branding, that can really invoke something really creative and fun and bright, that can inspire teachers to feel good about the resources they buy, they feel refreshed, they feel how there's this young invigorated perspective. So I would think of why people use rainbow color palettes. Maybe if you're more of somebody who likes some simplicity and organization, maybe that just using one color with black and white, or maybe two or three colors instead of five or six. That can also be another way to evoke the right emotion and create connections. So color is important. And basically add your brand colors as much as possible wherever you can. Because it does increase brand recognition. It does help convert customers it's it's what customers consider when they buy a product. It also aligns potential customers or audience members with some type of feeling when they see your colors could be happiness, it could be exclusivity, it could be purity, clean. Whatever feelings you want to evoke, or emotions you want to evoke, make sure you use those colors that align with it in your brand. Now with that information if you're looking for more tips, well just stick around because I'm going to share with you three ways on how to pick the right colors for your teacher brand. So step number one, start with one core brand color.

After you define your brand, and you identify those certain emotions or personality traits or adjectives that describe your brand, pick a color that represents those traits. If you already have your brand colors, it can be your favorite color out of the bunch, or it can be the one that you naturally or subconsciously use the most across platforms. So my business both my teacher design business and my TPT store business I always use the bright cheerful pink as my core brand color. It's just something that I naturally have used more than the other colors.

The second step is to create a color scheme that matches your brand. So here are four different color scheme types to help you start or build or refine your brand colors.

Option one would be to combine your core color with neutral shades such as black, white, and gray. This is pretty common that a lot of top brands follow. So that kind of aligns as to why most of the top brands are using only one color in their logo. Spotify has mostly green as your core brand color and they pair it with black and white.

Option two, you could use two to three colors that are similar to your core brand color. PayPal is a great example of this because they use different shades of light and dark blue.

Option three would be to try a contrasting accent color that complements your core color. Pepsi does this, they have their signature blue, but they also pair it with red. And this helps many people around the world recognize this well known brand.

And then the fourth option, you would balance your core color with three to five equally bright colors. This is great for us TPT stores, you have a lot more options to play with when making your covers and social media templates. And then as mentioned earlier, in this episode, Google is one of those brands that have multiple colors. They have four main colors that are bright and bold, they've got the green, red, blue, and yellow. After you have your core brand color and you create a color scheme that matches your brand.

The third step would be to play around with it and see what you like the best. Take the time to start with one of the options I mentioned. But don't be afraid to mix in and add a new color scheme or two. As long as your color scheme fits together makes sense and is appealing to your ideal teacher customers you cannot go wrong. Well, I love my rainbow colors for my TPT store and my southern teach side of the business with my the southern teach designs, I decided to kind of lean into the pink and black, I'm doing option one for my designs business. And then I'm using option four for my TPT seller business. If you're feeling a little overwhelmed on all of these colors, or narrowing your colors in general, if you're feeling a little overwhelmed on narrowing down your colors or adding more colors, that's okay, because there's really no hard or fast rule, you can have one color, you can have two color, you can have three to five brand colors, which is pretty typical in TPT seller businesses. But some well known brands have up to 10 colors. So there's no hard or fast rule. Brands are always changing their look and color scheme in order to stay current and relevant. So it's okay that your colors are you're not really 100% sure about your colors, it may not it may change down the line, let your brand, transform and grow as your business grows. If you have refined and honed in on some new colors, consider using those colors to give your TPT store a little zest and sprinkle those colors in, the more you sprinkle it around in your business. And wherever you have some type of presence online, the more people will continue to see you over time and recognize you and be more likely to trust and buy from you.

All right. So that's a lot of information. I know like a lot of color information that I have. I don't think I've ever talked in depth about different colors and what they mean and all of that. So I thought this was a pretty fun episode. I think knowing that the why behind certain things we do as far as branding in our businesses will help us understand a lot more than just like, oh, we need bright rainbow colors. Okay, why do we need bright rainbow colors? And I think I hope this episode has answered that question for you. I want to explore more of that. Not just with branding, but also with graphic design. And that is why if you've spied on my website, I am in the works for having a brand new self paced series of trainings called the creative teacher lab.

If you like to nerding out with me on this color psychology and all of the you know, really in depth information about brand colors. There's more where that came from. I plan on doing more of that in the trainings I offer. I don't think we have anything like that in the TPT world that's applicable to our businesses and that relates to our businesses. And so that's kind of what I'm going to work on for my TPT seller people out there. So if you're interested in the creative teacher lab, you can go to the waitlist, and I'll link that in the show notes of course, but it is the Southern teach designs.com forward slash waitlist very simple. But I hope this helps So that's been helpful for you and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week.

Thanks for tuning in to the creative teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode, feel free to subscribe and leave a review. I'd love to hear your feedback. You can also find me on Instagram at the southern teach. I cannot wait for you to join me in the next episode for more tips and inspiration. Have an amazing day.