Advertising Costs
A few years ago M.J.Gilhooley (of Gilhooley Consulting and Plants At Work fame) gave a terrific presentation on how small companies can make a huge impact not through advertising that costs money, but through publicity which costs nothing.  She cites the example of The Body Shop, a company that used no advertising but massive amounts of publicity to achieve worldwide name recognition.  M. J. suggests that “branding” is built through publicity and that “branding” creates an emotional connection, elicits a response, creates trust and makes the audience feel good as opposed to “advertising” which is viewed as self-serving.

You Can Do This 
Now, how can the average ‘scaper company achieve brand status in their community?  By figuring out what may be newsworthy and of interest to the local media. Here are two examples from my own experience.

Think Photo Op  
Several years ago around Thanksgiving we were going to be installing decorated trees in our local library.  I called our local newspaper, spoke to the writer in charge of local human-interest items and suggested she have a photographer on hand while we carried these beautiful items of the season into the building.  A few days later there it was in the Middletown Journal, a photo of two Something Different employees (in company uniforms) carrying in a beautiful tree.  The caption underneath said, “Something Different beautifies the Library for the season”.  We got tons of comments.  Now why would the Newspaper think this event  worthy of a free photo?  Because we were doing this the week before Thanksgiving, the beginning of the Holiday Shopping Season and the paper has all those retail advertisers.  Perfect win/win situation.

Another time we were installing a 30 foot Christmas Tree in a local Riverboat Casino.  I met with the Casino marketing people and gave them particulars about this huge tree. The item they jumped on was “27,346” white lights on the tree.  This number was then used in all their media releases newsprint, radio, and direct mail and, in most instances, our company name was part of the article.  The next year they used, at our suggestion, a picture of the tree on the Holiday Greetings postcard they sent to all their patrons.  Talk about free advertising.  Through a little moxie combined with a little creativity ,we had established ourselves as the local Holiday Décor Interiorscape company.  And it cost us – NOTHING!  The opportunities are there – you just have to work it.