Home Depot stores to offer'how-to' clinics

Free, weekly in-store clinics to answer questions and give doityoursellers handson experience with home-imDrovement materiais will be offired each Saturdav and Sunday, Feb. 9 to 24.

The weekly clinics are held at all area Home Depot stores located at 13400 Market street 7110 Bellerive Drive; 1100 Lumpkin Road; 8{15 FM 1960 West; t'ZgSO Gulf Freeway; and 7703 Stuebner l{EtitfSPAPER clippings similar to this can have the name of your store if you use the ideas presented in this article.

Airline Road.

Sessions are led by Home Depot personnel, professionally trdined home-repair specialists.

For more information, contact any Home Depot store.

Ll OME DEPOT, grumbles a I I small independent retailer, that's all I hear.

Yeah, agrees another store owner as they leave an association meeting, you'd think there weren't any other home centers.

It's no accident that almost every homeowner knows about Home Depot. Inch for inch, the chain probably gets more press coverage than any other home improvement retailer. Newspapers quote Home Depot employees on do-it-yourself and home improvement projects, print news articles, often with pictures, on their how-to clinics, drug programs, grand openings, site selections and plans to build new stores. A policy of briefing the media on store happenings and a public relations department ready to assist reporters makes it happen.

"Any positive exposure is good for business. but press coverage is magical, " marketing consultant Sheila Ring Danzig explains. "All media coverage brings the implied endorsement of the press."

"When you achieve free publicity your business will grow in several ways," she adds. "New people will be attracted. Your current customers who see you in the news will start talking about you to friends. News coverage will add immediate credibility to your business."

How does a small, independent store owner get into the press? How can he make his store newsworthy? The same way Home Depot does, by contacting the local media when his store has news or by volunteering to act as an expert information source for a story. Everyday happenings at a store can be news, but an owner or manager can also create events with news value, be helpful to someone writing a story on home improvement or assist a program chairman looking for a speaker. A look at some Home Depot