Dental Marketing and Practice Management

Editorial
by Jim Du Molin

How Colors Can Influence Your Dental Marketing

Color is a valuable tool in the marketer’s arsenal. Are you using color to your advantage? Proper use of color leads to eye-catching designs that create the right sort of feeling in the viewer’s mind. Knowing the connotations of the colors you use is one of the ways you can help maximize your marketing efforts.

Red
Red is an emotionally intense color, one that the human eye readily distinguishes - no surprise, then, that it’s the color of stop signs and “Buy Now!” buttons. The color of fire and blood, it generally indicates boldness, passion, intensity, danger, strength, courage, desire, and love. The color is also associated with China, where it represents happiness and good fortune. In design, red is often best used as an attention-getting accent color.

Orange
Orange is a warm color, obviously associated with fire. Subtle orange tones lend a feeling of warmth, comfort, and harvest; brighter shades speak of fun, youth, good cheer, and citrus fruits; intense orange can suggest exuberance or anxiety. Less aggressive than red, orange is still an excellent highlight color. Because they are complimentary colors, designers often use orange in conjunction with blue. Gold is widely used to connote wealth, quality, and prestige.

Yellow
The color of sunshine, yellow is associated with cheerfulness and springtime. In China, it’s the color of royalty. Yellow is seen as happy, optimistic, energetic, fresh, and spontaneous. It’s a youthful color, one not always taken seriously. In design, yellow accents can add energy and liveliness.

Green
Green is the color of nature; it’s also the color of money and envy. It generally suggests fertility, growth, health, hope, and safety. Yellow-green tones can speak of springtime and new growth, but they can also suggest inexperience and jealousy. Darker tones speak of security, ambition, and money. Brighter tones connote vitality and safety; red is green’s opposite in more ways than one. The color has also become shorthand for environmental sensitivity.

Blue
Blue is an enormously popular shade, the color of both sky and water. Dark blue tones suggest depth, seriousness, masculinity, and corporate responsibility. Aquamarine tones speak of water, cleanliness, serenity, and infinity. Soft shades of blue connote tranquility, serenity, health, trust, intelligence, and sometimes sadness. Blue has long been a favorite of designers; though it’s not generally the most innovative color, it’s rarely a disastrous choice.

Purple
It’s only in modern times that purple dye has become affordable and widespread; for hundreds of years it was the color of European royalty. The color still has connotations of royalty, wealth, elegance, luxury, and sophistication. The color can also be artistic, romantic, spiritual, and mysterious. The rarest color in nature, purple is often a favorite of young children. Purple can give designs an upscale, artistic edge - one that’s not going to work on all audiences.

Black
Black is the color of formality, strength, and mystery. Large amounts of black can be somber or morbid, but touches of black speak of elegance and prestige. Designers often use black accents to make other colors look brighter and add a sense of depth.

White
White is the color of light and purity. It symbolizes not just virginity but also innocence, goodness, truthfulness and cleanliness. Though too much white can render a design sterile, white is fresh, simple and refined.

Are any of these hard-and-fast rules? Of course not! You always want to let good taste guide all color choices. But it’s also wise to think for a moment about the connotations of the colors you choose and if your color scheme is sending the right message!

Read more about color meanings here and here!

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