4.Jump "Out- of -the- box": Get creative. The best ideas are ones that catch customer by surprise. A small Non-profit organization, which raised funds through its events, created a painting contest for kids and called it "Colors of Concern". The paintings sent for competition could only be in shades of blue; which was organization's corporate colors. A challenge like that got them entries in thousands and caught attention of local papers and news channels as well. A winning idea does not necessarily have to get you praying for a fortune; just some creative, lateral thinking would work wonders.

5.Follow up: Follow up on sales calls made earlier, on emails sent out and with your contacts to see if they have any new references for you. Go all out keeping in touch with your contacts. It not only allows you to keep a sales lead hot, but also gives you opportunity to talk about new developments at your company, fill in any communication gaps and well, just stay in touch!

6.Talk to your existing clients: More often than not, one of biggest mistakes business owners make is to get complacent about existing customers. A rule of thumb to go by here is: "80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers". It is anybody's guess that 20% of big business generating customers are ones that you've already been selling to for some time. Don't ignore them. It is easier to retain old customers than to make new ones. Build a system to get regular feedback from existing customers on products, services, new requirements, post-sales support and new requirements that they may have. Remember, that in end it is more about how much your customers value your services than about how satisfied they are.

Success is not a function of size. Success is all about being an effective marketer and a creative one at that. So get out of box and get smart about your marketing with these simple, time tested rules, and watch your business break into a faster pace.

Also see: http://www.powerhomebiz.com/vol109/cashcow.htm

In my opinion, targeted traffic that relevant links pointing to your site will bring can be as important as traffic that comes to your website from people using search engines. This is where linking philosophy comes in. If you limit yourself to exchanging links only with websites that have a theme highly relevant to your own, traffic you receive from those links will be far more targeted (valuable) than traffic you might receive from links with websites that have nothing to do with your theme.

Not only do highly relevant links bring you more highly targeted traffic, but they also play a "customer satisfaction" role for visitors to your website who arrived there as a result of a search engine query. If someone arrives at your website after performing a search for, lets say "work at home" and then finds your website full of links to a bunch of off topic sites (Viagra, online casinos, hotel reservations, sports betting, etc, etc) impression is often not favorable and may actually drive your visitor away before they consider whatever it is that your website itself is offering.

Keep your eye on bullseye and develop highly targeted traffic by having good content on your website and exchanging links with highly relevant sites that also offer good content. Always keep in mind that...traffic is one thing, but targeted traffic is everything.