Love fest The result was a love fest. The gift giver looked like a spontaneous Santa Claus. The recipients were excited because they received an unexpected goodie from a friend. Lastly, our company got more mileage out of campaign than a '76 Datsun in Tijuana. First, a vast majority of registrants opted in to our e-mail list, so we ended up with a big database of potential customers to whom we could send relevant and tailored marketing messages. (Ten percent of number of people we originally e-mailed ended up on our opt-in list.) Second, we gained a detailed snapshot into our prospective customer, as thousands of people told us everything from income to dressing style. Lastly, nature of gift and spirit of campaign reflected well on our brand.

All told, it cost us less than $3 to acquire an opt-in user about whom we have several data points. By comparison, it can cost more than $7 to execute same campaign through a big affiliate network (the "per form" deal). With venture community growing increasingly critical of viability of B2C business models, a humble e-mail marketing campaign with a twist might make more sense than a Times Square billboard.

Get your web site listed high on search engines. With tens of millions of people using major search engines daily, a prominent listing on even one can send an avalanche of traffic to your site.

Use Web Position Gold to build doorway pages and check inexpensive shareware selection continuously updated at Tucows.com. You can get personalized search engine help from experts at WebMarketingNow.com and FirstPlaceRanking.com.

Write a one page article each month and send it to newsletter editors and appropriate discussion groups. People automatically respect an author as an expert. With so many ezines looking for content, writing your own articles is easy free promotion.

There are a lot of substandard articles floating around. You can get a jump on competition by finding a professional editor to help you write and/or polish your article. You can find low-cost help at CheapEditing.com.

More than anything else, be consistent. Customers and prospects notice when your name and good information turn up time and again, year after year.