1. Define Your Company Background 

2. Understand Your Market and Your Competition 

3. Know Your Customer Intimately:This is very important and is usually that “elevator speech” (in most cases a run-on) that is translated into everything you do. It should include your value proposition, the problem you are solving and need to solve now for your customers. In addition, the key message should include the benefits you offer and your USP. For example, “SMART Marketing Solutions, a leading full service integrated marketing agency, delivers to medium to large-sized businesses over seven years of strategic, high-return, marketing execution and experience (Playtex, Bic, Rogaine, NYU, and others) in marketing planning, website development, email marketing, and other tactical marketing services at competitive prices to support clients looking to gain and/or sustain a competitive advantage.”

5. Identify Hurdles/Obstacles/Risk:Determine how you want to reach your target audience and what media you plan to leverage (in order of priority) that will yield the greatest return on investment. Some examples include television, radio, classified ads, email marketing, word-of-mouth, tradeshows, direct mail, telemarketing, etc.

7. Set Sales and Marketing Goals: What’s your cost to acquire one customer? And/or, what’s your cost to sell one product? If you’ve executed some marketing over the past year you can compute this by dividing annual sales and marketing costs by the number of units sold (or customers acquired).Then simply take your cost to sell one unit or acquire one customer and multiply it by your respective sales/marketing goal (units or customers). This should give you some idea on what it will take to meet your goals for the upcoming period.