It’s an important step, choosing your brand color.

Your brand color choice has a powerful impact on how your customers perceive your business.

No pressure!

Here’s the good news:

Adding color to your online marketing materials doesn’t cost anything. The only cost? The time it takes you to decide what brand colors to use.

Maybe that’s why so many people go overboard with color. How can you possible choose brand colors from the millions available? 

Rather than develop a recognizable set of colors that people will associate with their brand, people add color with no restraint at all.

Using too many colors, ironically, dilutes the power of color to brand your business.

There’s a better way …

Minimize your colors for maximum impact

Your goal is for your prospects and customers to remember your colors, and begin to associate them with your business.

If you want this to happen, you can’t give them a long list of colors to remember.

Instead, pare down your color choices to two main colors.

Put your brand colors to good use starting today

There’s a lot you can do with your brand colors once you choose them.

Register for my free on-demand branding workshop to discover how to use your brand colors to create stunning visuals you can use on your website, in ads, on social media, and in your email marketing … even if you’re not a designer. 🙂

How to choose your two main brand colors

My favorite online tool for choosing two main colors is ColourLovers.com.

For inspiration, click the Browse tab on the top left, and choose Palettes. If you see a color you like, make a note of the HEX number so you can try it when you create your own color palette from scratch.

(Not sure where to start? Good branding choices always begin with your ideal customer. Read about finding your ideal customer here.)

Step 1. Pick your two main colors

With your ideal customer in mind, click on the green Create button, which is where the fun begins.

Remember, your goal is to choose just two main colors. Look for colors that are similar in tone.

For example, these color combinations are similar in tone. They’re equally saturated, pale, dark, or bright.

They match each other:

These color combinations all have different tones. They’re weird combinations of dark and pale, dull and bright, pastel and saturated.

They’re mismatched:

In the hands of an experienced designer, two main colors that have two completely different tones can work.

But to be on the safe side, if you’re not a designer, choose similar tones.

Take a look at the tool at Paletton.com for extra help picking similar-toned colors.

(Look at the examples again if you’re not sure what I mean. In the top set, the colors have similar brightness or darkness. In the bottom set, they’re different.)

Once you’ve chosen your two main colors, your next goal is to put them to use in all your marketing materials.

Step 2. Add an accent color to your brand

The first part of this exercise is to select two main colors. Use those colors consistently in everything you do to market your business.

Ready to take your color palette to the next level?

The next part of the exercise is to choose one accent color that will “pop” out from the rest of the elements on your pages.

The accent color should stand out because it’s different — brighter, darker, or in some way distinct from your two main colors.

When your site consistently uses two main colors you’ll find that it’s easy to come up with an accent color that “pops” out. Like this:

Notice how your eye runs down the page and goes straight to the “Get Started” button? That’s because it’s the only place on that page you can see such a bright color. The main colors are subdued and used very consistently across the rest of the page.

Some websites use way too many colors, and they compete with one another for attention.

But when you use too many colors like the example below, the accent color is just another color in the crowd:

That “Get Started” button gets lost. And that’s a shame because it’s the most important call to action on this page!

Think of the kitties that won’t be adopted because someone didn’t know how to use color on their website. 🙁

Now … are you ready to put those brand colors to really good use? Register to watch my branded images workshop.

This post was originally published on July 9, 2014 and has been updated with new information.