Being a guest on Oprah or appearing on the front page of a national publication like USA Today would make any business owner think they’ve hit the publicity jackpot. The odds of that happening are exceedingly low, of course, but that doesn’t mean you must rely on press releases and advertising to generate business-changing attention. Often, a guerilla marketing strategy that includes word of mouth can pay big dividends. Here are some clever guerilla marketing ideas to promote your business, overtly or subtly.

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1. Reveal your true colors. During the Los Angeles Lakers’ run to the NBA title this past spring, Scott Harris, founder and president of Mustang Marketing in Thousand Oaks, Calif., bought purple bagels, nicely wrapped them on plates with purple ribbons, and delivered them to current and prospective clients. Emails poured in throughout the week praising the clever guerilla marketing, which put the company top of mind.

2. Go back to school. If your business is in a college town, recruit students to blog about your business, write reviews, or pass out flyers, suggests Scott Lorenz, president of Westwind Communications in Plymouth, Mich. “Thank them with free stuff, discounts, or dinner at a local restaurant,” he adds.

3. Socialize online. Use social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to build trust with journalists as an industry expert, recommends Laura Ackermann, senior entertainment publicist at Los Angeles–based Much and House Public Relations. “Don’t pitch journalists,” she warns. “It’s about relationship building.”

4. Break out the chalk. To help publicize the opening of a local hospital, Vladimir Jones chalked the universal symbol for hospital — the white H in a blue box — outside libraries, on downtown street corners, and in other high-traffic areas. “It got a lot of press and helped build buzz in the weeks leading up to the grand opening,” says Joe Hodas, senior VP of brand communications for Vladimir Jones.

5. Seek out partnerships. A friend of Shel Horowitz, author of Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, struck a deal with cereal giant Quaker to sell her grits cookbook, published 13 years earlier, to customers almost at cost. “It was a win for Quaker — people have more reason to buy grits if they know what to do with them — and a win for the publisher of a book long past its traditional marketing window,” Horowitz says.

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