In all likelihood, these folks are defining "advertising" as paid promotional efforts. With so many tools at our disposal for doing organic (non-paid) marketing, many companies are able to get off the ground and start seeing success by focusing their efforts on these organic channels (email marketing, blogging, SEO, social media, website optimization, lead nurturing, etc).

By leveraging these inbound marketing channels, building out a strong content strategy, and developing a strong and diversified online presence, you should be able to get your business in front of many new audiences, without having to pay for banner ad placements and Adwords campaigns.

As the manager of the paid marketing channel for an inbound marketing company, one of my most important endeavors is finding ways to scale back our advertising spend and help increase our yield of new leads and customers from our organic channels. I'd be happy to discuss organic vs. paid strategy with you greater detail if you want to hop on a call.