Here's how to advertise your business.

• Author: Phelps, Jack E.

Have you ever stopped to think just how pervasive advertising is in the world around you? About the only time you are not exposed to it is when you are asleep. A study done in the 1980s showed that the average person is exposed to 1,200 messages a day. Of those, he will remember 30, and of those 30 only five will be remembered positively. The question is: How do you get businesses ads to be among that elite group of positively-remembered messages?

You don't have to hire a Madison Avenue whiz-kid to make wise and productive advertising decisions. The company that begins with a sense of its identity, does careful market research and sets realistic goals for its advertising strategy is the company that will consistently see a good return on its advertising dollar.

IDENTITY AND IMAGE

Gregory Galik, president of Aadland Marketing Group, likes to talk about the relationship between a company's identity and its image. Identity, he says, is knowing who you are as a company, and what you have to offer or sell. From that identity, says Galik, "comes an image. It's like a mirror, it reflects your identity to the community and to your clients." Your company's signs and logo, for instance, should project that image.

There are basically two schools of thought on marketing research as it relates to Alaska markets. Both sides agree that research is an important part of marketing strategy, but differ over the degree of detail needed to make strategic marketing decisions.

One school holds that traditional demographics are no longer sufficient to give adequate guidance for developing a marketing plan, and adds psychographics to the formula. While demographics may look, for instance, at potential customers in terms of age, sex and level of income, psychographics builds lifestyle decisions into the mix.

So, to the psychographic analyst, the potential customer is not just male, 25 to 35, with an income of $35,000, but he also drives a pickup, owns a shotgun and listens to country music. Or the target customer is not only female, 40 to 50, with an income of $65,000, but she owns her home and goes to the opera.

The second school questions whether such fine distinctions can consistently be applied to Alaska's small population. One proponent of this approach says, "We have a diverse, bizarre mix of people in Alaska. Alaska is an incredible melting pot. Just how refined can we get in marketing to a population of 250,000?" This school relies on pricing and competition...