However, without solid advertising and marketing, you won't get customers. Even worse, you can spend a fortune on advertising in wrong places and you STILL won't get customers.

Here are four must-do things to remember when you start to promote your new business.

1. First, decide who your best customers are. Are they home owners in a particular part of town? Are they certain sized business in your industry?

Unless you have billions in investment capital, you can't afford to advertise to everyone. Even if you sell something that ANYONE would want, a limited budget means you must focus only on your best potential customers.

After all, that only makes sense. Just twenty percent of your customers will usually account for eighty percent of your sales. So focus on that special twenty percent.

2. Find out what media your customers use. If you run a nightclub, your customers probably find out about a business like yours from radio commercials and local entertainment newspaper listings. If you build web sites, your customers probably find someone like you with search engines, in email newsletters, or from referrals on popular sites.

Now focus only on media you can afford to use again and again. People will need to see your ad several times before they decide to buy. Far too often I see new businesses blow their entire ad budget one big newspaper ad, TV commercial, or live radio spot. They may get a flood of people in store first few days, but then people stop coming. Now, business doesn't have enough money left to continue advertising, and they eventually close their doors for good.

The nightclub owner above could advertise with cheap commercials late at night on pop stations that closely target age group and lifestyle that comes to his club. The web designer might limit his ads to a few popular ezines that provide web design tips.