The Economy Sucks !

I'm sure I don't have to explain to any American how badly the economy sucks right now. Sales are at an all time low and us homebased business owners are not exempt from the hard times . Luckily we have such low overhead costs , and we are usually our only employees , so riding out the economic downturn shouldn't be as hard for us as some others.
People keep asking how to make money in these financially difficult times and the answer is really simple , I was watching The Godfather the other day so it just dawned on me , "give them an offer they can't refuse". If someone is looking to buy earmuffs and you sell earmuffs you need to do a little research. How much is the competition selling earmuffs for , how much is the competition's shipping, and how can I out price my earmuff competition ? Alot of HBB owners balk at the thought of drasticly cutting their prices but I'm going to ask you , if you can sell 1 pair of your earmuffs at a 10 dollar profit or 10 pairs of your earmuffs at a 3.00 profit you tell me which is better for you ?
How do you let people know you have these low priced earmuffs without spending your meager profits on advertising ? The answer is equally simple , end stage advertising where you pay for results only ! I just heard a collective "HUH?" . So I will make it even simpler by naming my top choices for this paid advertising method .

1 Price Grabber
2.Shopzilla
3.Live Search Cash Back

Since you only pay for results , you don't end up spending more than your actual sales which can and does happen with pay per click. If you insist on using Pay Per Click advertising I recommend Yahoo and MSN , Google seems to be getting a tad over priced and their features are diminishing . I have always had more sales from my clicks on yahoo than google . Make sure your key words are very specific and as always do your research to see which products that you carry are popular ..mysimon.com is a good place to start your research.

My one semester of Marketing in college by no means qualifies me as a marketing expert. Trial and error has made me marketing savvy , however, and it seems to me that there are 3 stages of the online buying process . Research, Comparison Browsing and Purchase..you always want the customer in purchase mode. You want the credit card out and the fingers typing exactly what they are looking to buy in the browser. Any other stage and you will have an Anemic ROI . How do you know you are hitting the marketing sweet spot ? Your advertising reports will of course reflect this but if you are seeing alot of clicks and purchases from your key phrases like "Buy red pom pom adult earmuffs" , you'll know .