Yet, is this any way to be hopeful and positive about your business? Is that any way to be prepared for the better times to come? During tough times, if your competitors that don't cut back on their marketing efforts, those who don't curl up into their shells will out-compete you. They will take your business away. What about making use of Internet marketing to help you stay alive and stay profitable while you have to deal with your tough budgetary constraints?

Yes, Internet marketing. This is one of the greatest aspects of modern marketing. If you are not taking full advantage of what the Internet offers you in terms of marketing, you are only slitting your own throat. It's really that simple.

Perhaps you have a website now. Most businesses do these days. Yet, what do you really do with it? Is it anything more than just some online brochure with perhaps a touch of animation here and there? Is it just a bit of a splash page where people come when they are directed there by your "more important" collateral materials? If you are like so many businesses, that's all you've got.

Yet, what does your website cost you compared to your other marketing materials? Have you thought of using or taking full advantage of even more online marketing tools like Pay-Per-Click advertising, where you always know how your marketing budget is getting spent and how effective it is because you only pay for actual, measurable marketing response activity? Have you ever thought about some of the least-expensive--almost free, in some cases--methods of leveraging the Internet to market to your customer base and targeted prospects?

Just a couple of these include:

Article marketing: You can write and, for free, publish articles about your expertise at dozens of Internet sites. If you or someone in your marketing department is good at writing, you can make enormous inroads just with this. People will read your articles, trust you, be impressed with your expertise, and contact you by coming to your website. The more articles you publish (again, for free) all across the Internet, the more people you can reach. And, let's remember, you are reaching them on a global level.

Online videos: If you have a marketing department, you probably already have more than enough money to purchase the equipment needed for this, and you likely can produce the videos entirely in-house, making them quite inexpensive as compared to the usual type of commercial. Videos will act in the same way your articles do.

But, these things will drive traffic to your website. Think for a minute what your website is, or can be, for you: *Your website is a 24/7 store-front. Anyone can come by, and come buy, anytime. The door is always open, and your prospects and customers from all over the planet never need to wait in line. You pay very little rent and no electric bill to keep it open for business. *Your website is a very inexpensive, 24/7 marketing and advertising piece. The more attractive, the more exciting, the more informative it is, the more people will search through it. The more they will tell others about it. The more they will socially bookmark it. The more they will buy from you.

So, during the "credit crisis", ask yourself a few simple questions. Is your web design up to snuff? Could you invest a little in getting a new, dynamic web design? Could you take more advantage of Internet marketing? Instead of diminishing your advertising and marketing budget, could you increase your use of online marketing?