Take time to understand your target market and find out what your audience wants. "Make it your business to know their daily and long-term concerns," says Ruth Willatt, director at marketing consultant Tetrarch Associates. "Target your top 10 – take them out for breakfast if you can."

Spend time with your audience to find out how they like to be approached. Use this knowledge to intelligently differentiate your materials and develop a range of appropriate marketing initiatives for each target sector.

Convey confidence, ability and trust
Wear smart clothes that get you noticed, but don't intimidate the potential client by being too trendy. Make sure your audience knows about your company's achievements and excellent services through well-targeted marketing material. Quality is the key, it's not about bombarding the market with 10,000 stress balls emblazoned with your logo. "Cheap and ill-considered materials will waste your budget," says Willatt.

Find out whether your campaign worked
Spend a reasonable amount of time assessing your marketing activities in terms of their cost against expected return. (You did calculate that, didn't you?). And ask your audience for considered feedback. "If it seems to have worked, don't change it, do it again," says Willatt. "If it hasn't worked, however wonderful and expensive your campaign might have been, ditch it."

Always try to find an extra something special to offer your clients. What else do they want that perhaps you can't provide directly, but can help them find? "Go the extra mile," advises Willatt, "but keep it appropriate."