Q: With the economy in the tank, I don't have much money to spend on advertising anymore. What can I do to stretch my ad dollars the furthest?

A: There's never been a better time to get great deals on advertising, marketing and public relations. Not only are newspapers and magazines scrambling to survive, but marketing professionals who were too busy to return your calls when times were flush are now sitting at their desks waiting for the phone to ring.

The best way to get the biggest bang for your advertising buck is to focus on the lowest hanging fruit--the type of customer most likely to buy--and spend your ad dollars in one or two media channels that will target them most effectively, says Angela Cason, CEO and president of CasonNightingale Creative Communications in New York City. For example, Cason says, if you run a small furniture store, turn your loyal customers into freelance sales reps by offering them a tell-a-friend discount for referrals.

You can also use the internet to market your business cost-effectively. While sponsoring keywords on Google can be expensive if you bid on popular search terms such as "apparel" or "beauty," you can snap up more targeted search terms such as "gender neutral baby clothes" and "sleep enhancing toothpaste" for pennies, Cason says. By including coupons and other valuable offers in your e-mail messages, you can avoid a trip to your customers' bulk mailbox. If your business targets a mass market (e.g., a supermarket or an electronics store), broader media such as print or radio may be the way to go.

"Don't believe the hype that print and radio are dead," Cason says. "There are still healthy audiences to be found in much bigger increments than silo media like the web." The key to any of these media strategies, of course, is to be consistent and to test, measure and test again. Advises Cason, "Set a strategy and plan to stick to it for at least three years."