The most powerful internet marketing tools available anywhere today can be found at freelance web sites like elance in the form of skilled contractors willing to work for pennies on the dollar to promote your business.

How do you use these resources to their greatest effect? It's easier than you think.

First, consider the problem.

You already know you need to market your business in order to succeed. This much is obvious. However the question of "what to do" and "how to do it" becomes a little more murky - especially for the new entrepreneur.

So, you need a plan.

You can find one in a number of places - you can read a book, study a course, even hire a consultant. All of these resources will help you with a high-level view of what elements should exist in your online marketing plan.

But when all is said and done, what you have is a lengthy list of tasks you need to accomplish in order to market your business. Are the dollars rolling in yet? Of course not. You have a list of jobs to do. Now you need to do them.

This is where things get a little bit tricky.

Many of the tasks on your list will require you to have skills that you probably don't have: graphic design, website creation, sales copy writing, search engine optimization, ad writing, blog creation - just to name a few.

It is true that you can learn these skills. It might be interesting and fun to do, but before you rush out to become a jack-of-all-trades, consider this:

Even if you have the skills to do all these things, do you have the time? Seriously. If you're like most online entrepreneurs - especially if you're starting your business "on the side" - your time is very limited. You need to be spending your time doing the "value-add" activities that nobody else can possibly do.

For some people, that's creating products. For others, that's doing deals with joint-venture partners.

But for sure, it's not doing things you can easily hire out to contractors. This is where the Internet marketing tools I mentioned earlier come in to play.

On elance, you can post projects for every type of Internet marketing task on your list of jobs to do. Every day, thousands of skilled contractors browse through the projects looking for work to do. When they see your project posting, if it matches their area of expertise, they'll bid on your project.

You get to review their portfolio of past work, study their "report cards" showing past customers' experiences and ratings, and then choose the best contractor for the job.

You can repeat this process for each and every task on your list and before you know it, your work has been done. Best of all, it has been done by experts with virtually no impact to your time.

But wait - I sense an objection coming on. Can you afford to hire these contractors?

The answer has to be "yes". Your job as a business manager is to sell something for more than it cost to create and market it, right? (Right? If you disagree with this premise, then we need to have a different discussion about how business works. Online business is the same as offline business in this regard. Don't be fooled into thinking otherwise!)

All you need to do is ensure that your business model incorporates the cost of hiring contractors into the "product creation costs" or the "marketing costs" of doing business, and that whatever price you're going to charge more than covers the cost. (If your revenues can't possibly cover your costs, then stop right now. You don't have a viable business. Don't waste another minute on it. You absolutely need to fix this problem immediately.)

When your business model works with the cost of hiring out the "work" in your business, then you truly have a business - and not merely a job. Better still, you have a business that can tap into the most powerful Internet marketing tools in the world: a team of skilled experts eager to help you succeed.