Know yourself. Is your company’s strength the speed of service it offers? Is your point of differentiation the award-winning creativity you offer? You need to know what makes your company special or different, and then promote that differentiation relentlessly. It’s better to be different than better. Find something unique about your business.

Know your market. There’s not necessarily a right or wrong answer in determining the customers for your business. It’s just a matter of figuring out which ones make most sense for you.

Who is your prospective client? Do you want to sell to the bowling team that needs five shirts, or the corporation that needs 500 shirts for a company picnic? You may be marketing to a group of customers you’re already familiar with, but if you’re reaching out to an unfamiliar customer base, spend some time getting to know the audience. Trade associations are great for market research. For instance, if you’re into hospitality, the restaurant association is great.

Identifying your target market will simplify your marketing efforts tremendously. If you only want to reach car dealers, for example, you’ll be able to eliminate broad-based marketing vehicles like newspapers in favor of more focused efforts, such as direct mail sent to car dealerships. If you have a special focus and a lot of contacts in that area, you’re way ahead of the curve.

However, your business model may dictate a more general approach rather than a focused one. For instance, you may be trying to reach all types of small businesses within your area. That’s fine, too. The point is to figure out who you want to reach, or who in your existing customer list you should be reaching more frequently and in a more meaningful way.     

Ask questions like: Who do I need to spend more time with or less time with? Where are my opportunities?

Know your goals. Depending on your business model, your goal may be to build revenue from new customers by 10%, increase walk-in traffic by 50 people per month, or generate 25% more in sales from existing customers. In the long-term, you may want to generate $1 million in sales annually and have four locations. Whatever your goals, the point is to clearly define exactly what you hope to achieve.

Ask yourself: How are you going to make more money? Am I going to increase sales with new customers? Make higher margins? Get bigger orders?

As for your short- to mid-term goals, make sure you can handle the additional business you’re hoping to generate. Be sure that you can meet the cash flow and increased labor required. For example, you may buy a list from your local Little League and send an offer to 1,000 teams, and you hear from everybody. Suddenly you have more orders than your production or your suppliers can handle.

The key is to design your marketing plan so that it builds your business in small, manageable steps. Then you can handle the increase in business as it comes.