What kind of businesses are they in? Are they large companies or mom and pop operations? What level/title are they (CEOs? Shipping Managers?) Are they young, old, new parents? car owners?
Where they are located?
In your local neighborhood? Your own city? The entire country? Other countries?
Where can you find them?
You wouldn't look for teenage boys at a Barbie convention, but you will probably find them at a computer gaming event or a science fiction conference. If you're selling to IT Managers, read Information Week; if your target audience is new moms, look at Parenting magazine.
2) Attract Their Attention
You can't catch fish with strawberries, but they do like worms. To attract particular kinds of people you have to lure them with something relevant and appealing (to them). For example, new moms might want an article called "Top 10 Ways to Keep Your Baby Healthy".
3) Recognize Their Problems
For instance, the problem might be time and billing software that crashes every twenty minutes and is so complicated that the businesses who bought it track time and billing by hand (making it difficult to generate reports). Make it clear that you "feel their pain".
4) Offer Solutions
Next, show how your product can help stop the pain your prospects our feeling. If you're selling an alternative to hard-to-use accounting software, emphasize that your product takes only 15 minutes to learn and runs reports in minutes instead of hours.
5) Stand Out From the Competition
It's not that you've been in business for 20 years, or that you have a guarantee. It's that your guarantee is completely unconditional (no questions asked, ever), or that your customers can get live phone help in under 30 seconds (no long waits on hold).
