When it comes to small business and marketing, few companies are as as successful as Safety King, Inc., of Utica, Mich. The company consistently makes headlines in local and regional newspapers, as well as industry trade publications. Safety King has been the subject of television specials and positive local news features. The company president, Mike Palazzolo, is a frequent expert guest on syndicated radio. How Safety King achieves this level of exposure provides a lesson to all small businesses on creating winning publicity campaigns.

Safety King is a 25-year-old air duct cleaning firm. The company maintains a fleet of 15 duct cleaning trucks and stays busy six days a week.

"We run an average of nine trucks per day and we're booked solid for the next 31 days," Palazzolo told IE Connections. Safety King is among the largest residential duct cleaners in the country. The firm also performs a sizable share of the Detroit metro area's commercial HVAC system cleaning.

Getting their name in the news comes as a result of a combination of factors: clever publicity stunts, good reputation, a commitment to public service, and generosity toward employees and the local community. Knowing a PR opportunity when he sees one and retaining a good marketing firm with insider industry connections has also helped Palazzolo gain so much exposure for his company.

Volunteerism, including a term as president of the National Air Duct Cleaners Association (NADCA), has helped Safety King establish their name in the industry. Shortly after his NADCA presidency, Palazzolo was asked to author the ductwork chapter of McGraw-Hill's HVAC Maintenance and Operations Handbook. Although it was time-consuming and challenging, the effort provided Palazzolo with widespread recognition throughout HVAC engineering circles as an authority on duct systems and their maintenance. "It's pretty cool to be able to say that you literally 'wrote the book' on your profession," Palazzolo said.

When it comes to gaining public recognition, Safety King uses every tool at its disposal.

"Even our trucks are business-generators. We ask our customers how they learned about us and 'saw the truck' is one of the highest ranking replies," Palazzolo said. Safety King hires a professional graphic artist to paint their service vehicles with the company name and telephone number in giant letters. "It's like a moving billboard," he added.

Most companies view a truck purchase as just another capital investment. Not Safety King. When Palazzolo took possession of "The BOSS," a powerful vacuum truck from Biltwell Duct Cleaning Equipment, the purchase made headlines. His marketing firm wrote a press release about the truck and distributed it along with a photo to dozens of trade publications.

"Because the truck was newly engineered and our release included some interesting statistics - like the truck's ability to suck bricks off the ground from 250 feet away, we got a lot of press," said Palazzolo. This good press resulted in several referrals and jobs from other professionals in the IAQ marketplace.

One of Safety King's most successful local PR campaigns came last February when the company marked its 25th year in business. Palazzolo celebrated by taking 32 staff members and their spouses for a Las Vegas vacation. Promoting the trip both before and after it occurred to his local newspapers and radio stations netted big results - a front page story and photo in The Oakland Press plus several feature articles in other small community papers.

"The next week we did a home show, and I was inundated with people who recognized my picture from the paper. We booked job after job at that show," says Palazzolo.

The photo in The Oakland Press showed Palazzolo hanging off the back of a vacuum truck - with his company phone number prominent in the background. The trip to Las Vegas cost Palazzolo more than $14,000. The PR it generated, however, brought in thousands of dollars worth of business and a reputation in the local community for generosity that won't soon be forgotten.

Recognizing a good PR opportunity is key. Safety King requires its cleaning technicians to take before-and-after pictures of customers' ducts. It gives them a way to record their work and demonstrate its effectiveness to customers. Plus, the photos ensure their technicians don't cut corners. Palazzolo runs a contest each year to see who can take the dirtiest picture.

"Even the notion of a dirty picture contest is a guaranteed headline grabber," Palazzolo said. His company contest and its $1,000 award given to the technician who took the winning photo is always popular with the local press.

Safety King has proven that you don't need a million dollar budget and a Madison Avenue PR firm to capture headlines. With a little creativity, any small business can come up with newsworthy accomplishments.

Glenn Fellman is publisher of Indoor Environment Connections. He is also president of Fellman Business Consulting, LLC, a full-service marketing and public relations firm that includes Safety King among its IAQ marketplace clientele.