Color has a huge impact on how customers react to a product. Understanding how colors affect consumer purchasing behavior is highly important for marketers. As the following graphic (via Kissmetrics) shows, 93% of customers place visual appearance and color above other factors when shopping. Customers are persuaded by visual cues, the strongest of which is color

So how does color affect consumer behavior? Different colors are associated with different types of products and shoppers. When designing your product, packaging and logo, make sure to consider who your customers are and what colors will have the greatest influence on them.

Now that we know color is important, what about other factors that influence consumers purchases? Overall design also plays a significant role in consumer purchase decisions, particularly for online shoppers. This graphic shows that 42% of online shoppers base their opinion of a website on overall design alone and 52% said they would not return to a site if it had bad overall aesthetics.

Whether your designing a website, product, or logo, make sure you are using colors and aesthetics that speak to your target customers.

Have more questions about color? Ask us.

Cheers,
The Ruby Porter Team

What is differentiation? Differentiation is a product or service that offers higher quality levels and/or has unique features and characteristics than the competition. Benefits of differentiation include increased market share, customer loyalty, decreased price sensitivity and less rivalry.

According to McMilland and McGrath in their article Discovering New Points of Differentiation there are six stages to the buying process: purchase, delivery, use, supplements, maintenance and disposal. At each of these stages a brand can differentiate itself based on consumer productivity, simplicity, convenience, risk, fun and image, environmental friendliness and more.

Where does your brand fit in the buyer utility map? Where does your competition fit? Are there any gaps in your industry that your brand could fill? Ask these questions to determine how your brand can use a differentiation strategy. First, select just a few characteristics that are widely valued by your target market on which to differentiate your brand. Next, concentrate on what differentiates your brand in all of your communications (marketing, advertising, etc.) so customers know what makes you special or unique.

Here are some great examples of brands that have differentiated themselves by using packaging to create a fun image:

Kleenex and Diet Coke both face fierce competition in their respective markets, yet they have managed to differentiate themselves by implementing a creative design with their packaging. There are many differentiation strategies out there, fun and creative packaging is just one example.

Questions on how your brand can differentiate itself? Contact us to find out how.

Cheers,
The Ruby Porter Team