Depends a lot of where you live...big cities are very different than smaller towns.
But grassroots, "gorilla" marketing can be very effective for businesses like yours. I would recommend going to the bookstore (or shopping online for used books) and buying some marketing books such as the "purple cow" book (forgot full name), the "gorilla marketing" series, etc.
Some possible ideas:
-Sponsor a little league team, and look for a team where the kids' parents are likely to be part of your target market.
-See if the any of the local TV or radio stations need any work done around their facilities, and try to do a trade deal (you provide services to their facilities, they provide advertising in return). I worked with a landscaping company that did some work for the local NBC affiliate, and they got a ton of great on-air promotion. I suppose that also might work for the local newspaper.
-Direct mail can work pretty well. The good thing about direct mail is you can target the right people by choosing zip codes and other factors. Include some kind of coupon.
-Similar to direct mail...try door hangers. Meaning the little flyers people leave on your door step. Again, put a special offer on there and people will respond much better. Word of warning: most of the time you pay per flyer, and some of these companies have problems with hourly employees not actually distributing the flyers (meaning some $6 a hour kid dumps the flyers in a dumpster and takes the rest of the day off). Its a good idea to hire someone you trust, or make sure you check up on the company to make sure they're delivering.
-Referral service - like the other poster said, establishing partnerships with other non-competing service providers makes a lot of sense. Maybe get a card printed up with each of your businesses listed on them...a landscaper, a pool guy, a painter, etc.
-Another type of referral service would be to partner with local real estate companies. Not just real estate agents, but maybe mortgage people, insurance, etc. They are dealing with people that are buying homes, and in a lot of cases people make major home improvements in the first year or two after they buy a home.
-Tell the newspaper you're going to stop advertising b/c they're too expensive. They might back down in price.
-If you do something newsworthy, like sponsoring the little league team perhaps, get the community newspaper you're advertising in to do a write up in the editorial section. The smaller the paper, the more likely that they will bend the rules to help out advertisers.
Anyway, those are some ideas off the top of my head...
