With the economy on a downturn, the only way to be profitable is to watch costs.  If you are into internet marketing, it is not wise right now to make a huge splash in the market place.  There are many cost saving options to advertise, get noticed and increase your sale.  You do not really need to pay expensive consultants thousands of dollars just to secure your position in the marketplace.  
Given below are some marketing ideas that can really help you :

Press Releases.
This is often a neglected area for internet marketers.  Draft killer press releases which are newsworthy, and get them published in newspapers, or get them aired on television and on the radio.  If even one media, be it a magazine or a popular TV channel airs it, you have gained access to millions of prospective customers.  Design your headline to be catchy, use present tense, get to the point quickly and it will attract customers.  Ensure that you have your website url displayed prominently.

Free online publicity
Article directories, search engines, online classified sites allow free posting of ads.  Choose a site that has high page rank, develop your content which is optimized for search engines, and post it.
In case you are not a good writer or do not have the time, outsource it.  Use freelance sites where people from other countries offer low cost service in this regard.

Use Trade Shows.
Even though renting space may not be cheap, it is the best and oldest way to build business.  Keep flyers and catalogues ready, displaying your website url.  Get fresh leads and pursue them.  This is the best way of building business and you will recover your cost in no time.

Hold Contests
Surprisingly contests on internet do not cost much and give you immense amount of publicity.  You may have to pay an expensive prize, but you will have more than made up your costs even before the contest is over.  You could play smart and hold the contest on your website and get an established company to sponsor the prize.  This way you save on the prize money too.
Online contests attract a huge number of participants from all around the world.  One does not really have to elaborate on the benefit you get by way of traffic and publicity.

Trade Banners
Some established businesses are willing to trade banners with you.  You place their banner on your site for a certain period of time and in return you display theirs.  If you can work this out with an established business, you will have gained a lot of publicity and back links.

Use Yellow Pages
People have got accustomed to flyers, so much so, that most flyers and sales letters end up as wrappers or go into the dustbin.  Advertisements often do not register in the mind.  A cost effective way to advertise your land based and web based business is to use the Yellow Pages.  
Follow these steps and you will have an effective marketing campaign going for your website.