HISTORICALLY, small business has had no chance of competing with large corporations in the marketing area. The costs of using traditional advertising channels, such as TV and print, were high and small businesses couldn't afford to employ the people to do the non-advertising marketing such as PR and promotion.

The emergence of the web in the '90s provided small business with the opportunity to reach a global market but again the cost of technology solutions and lack of IT people meant that many small enterprises set up websites that cost a great deal and had little impact.

That all changed radically in the early part of this decade. Small businesses can now access

best-of-breed software tools and a great local example of how to leverage the internet as a

small business with no IT people is the Melbourne-based Circus Oz.

The company's website has video, podcasts, games, a shop and a database of fans or "mates", and promotions from around the world.

The video clips have been uploaded onto You Tube and Circus Oz pulls through these videos onto its own website. This provides Oz with free video-hosting capability as well as exposure to You Tube's huge audience.

Circus Oz uses a hosted email marketing solution from RippleDirect which allows promoters or mates to sign up online and it then uses RippleDirect to send regular emails to them.

Circus Oz has also recently launched an online shop using ECorners-hosted ECommerce solution.

The beauty of all of these tools is that they are either free or have minimal set-up costs and you only pay for what you use.

A simple way for the online novice to get started could be to start a blog. Blogger.com allows you to set up a blog and apply your own branding, and again the service is free.

Small business can now participate in the

world of e-marketing by using the range of

available software tools that are either free or come at a low cost.

The key is to experiment and understand how these tools can help you grow your business.

Peter Williams is a partner with Deloitte, CEO of the newly formed Deloitte Digital, and was CEO of Australia's largest online mobile and emerging technology firm, Eclipse.