2) Re-evaluate your prospect lists. Your business is constantly facing new challenges and changes in the marketplace that you must manage. It’s unlikely that every top prospect from even a year or two ago will remain a top prospect. New prospects should emerge and older less likely ones will be downgraded in your priority list.

3) Review your company marketing material and marketing messaging. Are they up-to-date and easy to understand and distribute? Do they say what your company really does and can do for your prospects and customers?

4) Clean up your direct mail and email marketing lists. Postage went up May 14 and is expected to increase again in 2008. So it makes sense to consider who is getting your physical mailings. The bottom 10 percent of your customer database holds that distinction for good reason! Mail them less frequently, send them email instead or cut some of them altogether. Take your postal savings and invest it in the top 10 percent of your customer database.

5) Think about how you can use new media to promote your business. Ask yourself how a variety of new marketing channels – mobile marketing (cell-phone/PDA) or social marketing (Facebook.com and MySpace.com) and blogging, product or business placement in places like Secondlife.com – can help your business reach new customers.

If you do even some of the things noted above your business will be in a much better position for the holidays and beyond and there will still be plenty of time to dig your toes in the sand, read the latest John Grisham and bask in the sunshine.

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