It's hard to be creative when big expenses are breathing down your neck, and a recession is just time when you NEED to let your creativity show.

Advertise! The BIG mistake companies make during a recession is they let their marketing director go and cancel all their advertising. Intel did that back in recession of early 90's and later admitted it was a huge mistake. Competitors had a chance to market when Intel wasn't and grabbed a lot of their customers. Now smart thing to do is to take advantage of recession's lower ad rates and market, market, market. Your ad gets extra attention when competitors aren't advertising.

Business and economy go through natural up and down cycles. The Internet, which is a more pure type of market, goes up and down with even wilder cycles. Ride wave. Change your business as economy changes.

Look for what prospects need, for where they hurt, and offer helpful solutions that cut right to problem. You'll have a lot more customers and they will be grateful you are there to help in times that are less than best.

Kevin Nunley is Net's #1 copy writer. Thousands of businesses have relied on Kevin for quality sales letters, web site copy, ads, and press releases. You get sizzling copy in style you need, fast service, and affordable prices that are hard to beat. See http://DrNunley.com Reach Kevin at mailto:kevin@drnunley.com or 801-328-9006.

Third, don't underestimate difficulties both novice and experienced computer users may have in downloading files and accessing that information. Nancy Hendrickson, co-author of a genealogy e-book, had to stop offering her e-book as a PDF file because customers had a multitude of difficulties:

* The buyer couldn't figure out where saved file was on their computer.

* The buyer couldn't figure out how to open PDF file (even if they already had Adobe Reader installed on their system).

* Those without Adobe Reader couldn't figure how to download and install it.

Even after including in "thank you for your purchase" message a detailed "here's how to download and run file" note, Hendrickson continued to get complaints from almost 25% of her customers. She and her coauthor then converted e-book to a self-executing .exe file and complaints fell off to almost nothing. However, her e-book is now not available at all to customers with Mac computers.

If you're tempted to dismiss her experience because your customers are technically sophisticated, more knowledgeable or adept computer users, consider my experience: I've been online since 1994, have purchased and downloaded several e-books or special reports and have never been able to figure out why hyperlinks that are supposed to be able to transport me from a page in a PDF file to corresponding Web page don't do anything when I click on them. I've also downloaded a few PDF files that were practically unreadable because I didn't have font in which they were created.

I don't say this to dismiss potential of downloaded content. On contrary, I love getting an e-mail notifying me that someone has bought one of my digital products without any intervention on my part. Just realize: This is not a trouble-free medium, and be prepared for technical problems and complaints.

In this light, perhaps best option is to offer both print and digital versions, so that people can select medium that fits their needs and capabilities. When one of my colleagues offered print, PDF and both print and PDF versions, about 15 percent chose "both"!