Savings Plan

16. Take the electronic avenue. By setting up an e-mail box on the Internet, you can virtually eliminate many courier, overnight and postal fees. Get an e-mail account either through an Internet service provider (ISP) or a commercial online service. For further savings, read and compose all your e-mail offline.

17. Start your search engines. Research your market and find potential visitors for your Web site by looking through Usenet newsgroups (forums on the Internet where people post messages for public viewing) and special-interest groups related to your target market, product or service. Or, visit America Online's Small Business Center, which includes libraries of small-business information you can download at no charge. For more extensive online information, use Yahoo's Business Resources (http://www.yahoo.com).

18. Advertise on the Net. Check out the Internet Advertising Resource Guide (http://www.voyager.net/adv/internet-advertising-guide.html), a Web site that includes information on everything from online advertising to how to get to other useful sites.

19. Cut costs with a cyberstore. More than 50 cybermalls offer advertising space on the Net. The Branch Mall (http://www.branchmall.com), for example, helps you set up a Web page in a virtual mall for under $1,000.

20. Create your own Web site. Visit the Web Marketing Info Center at (http://www.wilsonweb.com/rfwilson/webmarket) for links to Web marketing resources, as well as information on creating your own site for less than $1,000.

21. Advertise on someone else's site. Many Web site owners will provide a link on their page to your Web site for a fee. For information, visit the IPA Online Advertising Index at (http://www.netcreations.com/ipa/adindex/).

22. Get free software. Dial into one of the many 24-hour online software stores that let you download freeware and low-cost shareware. (It's easier if you have a high-speed modem.) Look for freeware and shareware through your online service provider, directly through the Internet or through online bulletin board services.

This article was originally published in the February 1997 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Savings Plan.