Small business marketing is the rough and ready frontier of the marketing world, a land where shooting from the hip isn't considered reckless, but a necessary survival skill. In this harsh world, hesitation will get you gunned down faster than you can say "Jesse James." Small business marketing is not for the faint of heart.

You just might be feeling a bit faint yourself after reading that. You own and operate your small business and don't have the resources, time, or budget to develop a comprehensive marketing plan, or so you think. Have faith. Learning the tenets of successful small business marketing takes little time. Weave in a bit of trial and error, get some experience under your belt, and you'll be devising spiffy marketing promotions left and right.

Your biggest asset is that you know your market. Those big corporations have to target millions of people with their marketing efforts who may or may not ever become customers. As a small business owner, you already know who your customers are or who will most likely become your customers. Your target market is much easier to define and track.

Combine the valuable advantage of knowing your customer base with a few key components, and your marketing plan will practically reveal itself to you.

Here are those key components:

Your business: define how your product or service is unique. How do your prices and quality compare with your competitors? How is your business better able to serve the market? What advantage does the consumer gain by using your business rather than another? Will you be selling your business as a whole, including all your products or services, or will you focus on individual products or services?

Your customers: where are your customers? How will they hear about your business? What types of media do they watch? Local television or radio? Which channels? Newspapers or magazines? Websites? Would they see flyers in certain locations? What other businesses do they visit? Might there be opportunities for parallel promotion with these businesses? Where do they drive and would billboard ads work?

Your action: you've defined what you need from your marketing plan and you've developed some ideas, messages, and media that you think might work. Now you need to act. This is where the sharp-shooters separate from the city-slickers. Apathy is the death of the small business owner. You shouldn't throw caution to the wind of course; the frontiersman never does. But he is always prepared to act quickly.

Your first marketing attempts might not get you the results you want. But that first try is valuable experience. Knowing what not to do is just as important as knowing what will work. Try again.

With a bit of practice and experience, you'll be throwing out marketing strategies like a pro. The brave folks who thrive on the frontier of small business marketing act fast, shoot straight, and trust what they see before their eyes. They act, they know their customer, and they see the results.