You’ve decided to go out on your own and start a small business. You’re going to take that leap of faith and do it the right way with lots of marketing that involves your targeted customers. You’ve got great, creative ideas for integrated campaigns involving printed brochures, post cards and mailings, e-mail, landing pages and social media marketing. Your tag line and copy are all coming together nicely and everything is moving along. You’ve thought of everything, right?

Almost. What are your colors?

When choosing the colors of your business and the ensuing web site, blog, marketing campaigns/materials, don’t just pull out a color wheel and spin it to win it. No, you’ve got to put a little more thought in than that. Believe it or now, there is a big psychology game when it comes to colors, products and buyer behavior. I’ll put it to you another way: It’s no coincidence that most childrens companies and products are loaded with primary colors (because kids can easily relate to those colors).

For those of you developing lots of search engine marketing, colors can even play a huge role in your click-through and web conversion rates.

The folks over at Branding Strategy Insider put together this list of colors and the behavioral qualities associated:

Red: excitement, sex, speed, passion, danger, strength

Yellow: sunshine, happiness, cheer, warmth

Blue: reliability, coolness, belonging (also the most used color)

Green: abundance, cool, nature, growth, fresh

Orange: vibrant, warmth, playfulness

Pink: security, soft, nurture, sweet

Purple: dignity, spirituality, royal

Black: mystery, sophistication, seductive, elegant

White: mild, pure, youthful, clean

Silver: scientific, prestige, cold

Gold: expensive, prestige

So which color is best aligned with your small business targeted customer? Make sure you use lots of red if your company’s products have to deal with love and passion, and purple if it deals with anything to do with religion, for example.

What colors did you end up using for your company or marketing campaign and why?