Im not usually one to assume anything, but Im going to assume youre a small business owner who already knows the value of marketing to your success. So, Im not going to waste one single word trying to convince you.

And Im going to make another assumption (two in one day is hard on the ol noggin, but here we go). That assumption is that although you know marketing will help your small business succeed, you have no idea how to go about it.

What I want to say might be overly simplistic because theres more to marketing than can fill hundreds of pages like this one. But, we all have to start somewhere dont we? What I want to do is to simply give you, the average small business owner, a few things to think about.

1. Find you target market. Theres old marketing wisdom that goes something like this: if you target everyone, you really target no one. There really is nothing that doesnt have a target market. Ok, thats a double negativemight be a little confusing. Let me rephrase: Everythingevery product and every service has a target market. And you cant have much of a message if you dont know who youre talking to.

2. Know your target market like the back of your hand (actually, better than that). Once you figure out who your target market is, you better know them well. You might want to make it a goal to get to know him or her better than your competition. Cuz thatll give you a pretty good advantage.

3. Know your competition like the back of your hand too. See them as the enemy (metaphorically of course), and we all know, the better you know your enemy, the fewer surprises they can pull on you. And if you know them well enough, youll soon figure out how to exploit their weaknesses to your own advantage, wont you?

4. Spend some time discovering your benefits. Theres a benefit hiding behind every one of the features your product or service has. Because its the benefits that your clients are interested in. Not the features. And thats particularly true if your market is consumer-based.

5. Differentiate or die. Quite the gloom-and-doom statement, that one. Problem is, its true. Theres either tons of competition for what you do, or theres going to be. I dont care if youve just invented the newest and greatest thing-a-ma-bobby of the century. If you dont have competition right now, you will. And soon. Because if your invention is so great, somebodys going to come along wholl figure out a way to make it even faster and better than you did. So if you want to keep your business doors open, better figure out a way to be different from your competition.

6. And while were talking about competition, which of your benefits makes you unique? What do you offer that nobody else does? And I dont want to hear you say youre more affordable, or you offer high quality either. These days, thats a given. Your unique benefits need to be something far moreunordinary (if thats actually a word). The more unordinary, the better.

7. Those unique benefits are your competitive advantage, and form the bones for the meat of your marketing message. Theyre what you use for your main theme for every piece of marketing material you send directly to your target market or put on your web site.

Knowledge is power. It doesnt much matter whether you start at one end or the other of that list. Figure out your target market first, or sit down and write out a list of benefits for every feature you have, and then figure out who your target market is. The point is, spend some time working through those steps. Your chances of success will go way up.