1. First, define your prospects.When you're making initial contact, the channel to use depends on what you're selling and how many potential customers you're trying to reach."If it's a retail product, you might send an e-mail blast to 20,000 different prospects," says New York sales trainer Wendy Weiss, author of "Cold Calling for Women." To find so many new targets, you'd likely benefit from renting marketing lists or relying on outsource services, such as Microsoft Sales Leads, which enables you to select from a database of millions of prospects.Selling professional services requires a different scenario. "It's a more complex sale. You need to have a comprehensive conversation and touch one customer many times," Weiss says. In that case, she advises skipping e-mail and going straight to human-to-human contact-phone calls. As for whether to leave voice mail or to keep calling until you get the customer on the line that, too, depends on your prospects.Your goal is to contact as many prospects as possible. If you have a list of 200 or so, leave voice mail, move on and circle back. But if your industry is limited to a half-dozen or so big fish, keep calling until you get someone on the phone.Doing your homework is a must. Research your industry and prepare your list or database of high-level targets before you start.

2. Then calculate the costs.Figure out how much it will take in time, money and resources to make a sale. "It's critical for a business to understand the cost of acquiring paying customers," says Janet Muto, chief marketing officer at Constant Contact, an e-mail marketing service based in Waltham, Mass. For e-mail, that means actual conversion rates, not click-throughs to your Web site, she points out. For offline sales, it means analyzing the numbers so you know exactly how much you must invest — upfront — before you bank one check or ring up one sale.No question, this takes sustained effort. But think it through. If you send out 100,000 e-mails and get 10 sales in return versus mailing 10,000 postcards that generate 1,000 sales — the higher postage and print costs probably provide the better the ROI. Or, set up a one-two punch that combines two channels.Just because a channel is cheap to use doesn't make it cost-effective. Run some tests to get the mix right for your business.Many marketers like to send early e-mail notices or offers to "warm up" prospects. After that, Muto says, "think of other ways to reach customers, including the yellow pages, online advertising, paid search, trade shows, print pieces and networking." (For information on Microsoft online services to attract customers, see this page.)To quickly identify your best prospects and high-paying customers, you need to be able to electronically manage customer information, such as through using Business Contact Manager, a sales-contact application that seamlessly integrates into Outlook 2003 in the Microsoft Office 2003 editions.

3. Know that effective messages match the medium. Before choosing any channel, create a consistent sales message. This should be your product's point of difference, which must be clearly communicated in any and all contacts. What's your sales story? What's your response to every customer objection? Why should anyone buy your product?Even commodity products, such as janitorial services or fast food, must have a story that makes them stand out, whether it's an emphasis on experience, reliability, convenient locations or better service.Then adjust the message so it's appropriate for the channels you choose. Do not, for instance, cut and paste company brochure copy into a PowerPoint presentation. Likewise, don't lift an e-mail pitch and plunk it down as a sales letter. Instead, customize the story for every medium, while maintaining all your branding elements, of course.This step is all about preparation. You need a written script on the desk when making cold calls by phone. If you're selling through e-mail, "the subject line must immediately give people a reason to open it," urges Josh Schneck, chief executive at Snow Communications, a Minneapolis marketing agency. "The message should have one paragraph of copy, max."For more sophisticated pitches, invest in the relationship by researching your prospect's industry and company weaknesses and strengths. Then, when you do get in touch, you can actually talk about what he or she needs, whether that's over a cup of coffee or in a formal proposal.When you're ready, be specific about requesting contacts. If customers e-mail a query, call them back if you have a phone number to find out when you can talk more. "Ask, 'Are you free on Tuesday at 8 a.m. for a meeting or call?' If they say no then give them another choice until you get the meeting," says Jeremy Porter at Reaction Marketing Group in Atlanta.

4. Always plan your follow-up.Frequently, small-business owners give up too soon on a prospect and that's what loses the sale. "Fear of rejection is the biggest thing that holds people back but you have to take it out of the realm of the personal," Weiss says.Here's a step-by-step example of one company's four-month campaign to boost its profile and sales, using e-mail, phone calls and unscheduled face-to-face contacts. "It's a strategy we've had success with in the past," says Charles Epstein, president of Backbone, a Boca Raton, Fla., business communications agency.