Here are 10 techniques to improve your marketing right now:

1. Call a customer and ask him “What do you say about our product or service to your friends and family?” His language becomes your best marketing language. Of course, ask a number of customers, and you’ll see consistencies in the aggregate.
2. Stop sending press releases to the media. Rather, build relationships with them, one-on-one. In fact, call one key press person on the phone today and ask her if you can comment on a story she’s working on. Then, say something terrific, surprising and memorable.
3. How do you improve customers’ lives? Write it down. What’s your value? How are people better after they’ve experienced your product or service? That is what to market with.
4. Stop advertising on TV and radio. Unless you can invest millions in a long-term campaign, there are far more effective and productive platforms for you to leverage.
5. Build a good, long, accurate list of prospective customers.
6. Send them value: helpful, useful, life or work-improving information. Demonstrate your greatness. Work in details about your product or service. Nieman Marcus sent over 500 communications to its email list in 2011. Surely you can send something helpful to yours once a week.
7. Write, think, create. Have one idea per day. It doesn’t have to be a great idea, just something useful.
8. Call or email on prospective customers with a recent work of yours, and explain that you think this may be helpful to their work. Again, demonstrate your value.
9. Move when you’re nearly ready, not when you’re all the way ready. As Alan Weiss says, the last 20 percent is dysfunctional. So act when you’re 80 percent ready.
10. Do something. Anything. Activity beats paralysis every time.