The Direct Creative Blog wrote a great post about “The power of color in direct marketing“. Check out their write-up on the “vocabulary of color”. How does color affect your marketing? I suspect that for most, color selection would already be limited to your brand colors and you would be hard pressed to change them. Using a different color would even confuse your customers (Expect to see a Coke advertisement in Blue?)

However, color still plays an important role in whether your creative sells and using it well is an important element in getting better response from your marketing.

Here are some tips for using color in your campaigns:

• Use contrasting colors to highlight certain text
• Orange does draw attention: Use it to highlight your call to action
• Some colors have added meaning on special occasions (Red/Green in december)
• Use different colors for clickable and non-clickable links
• Using different shades of the same color can provide enough contrast
• Having more than 3 secondary colors is generally a bad idea

Remember though, Direct Marketing is still about getting a response/sale from your campaign.

While many agencies would probably disagree, sometimes the most professionally designed campaigns might not get the best response and vice versa. Getting the combination right is the real key to success!