Identify who it is you are trying to influence. Once you've defined them, start to gather data about them. Your potential data sources include, but are certainly not limited to:
social media marketing PR seo sem website optimization web analytics measuring dataSo how does the Internet come in handy? It's perfect for doing research before you hit the road so you know exactly what you want and where to get it.
Check out this infographic by Milo.com, a startup that checks the inventory of real world stores to tell you whether products are in stock or not. We focus on e-commerce because it's so big and still growing, so it's easy to forget that e-commerce is actually a very very small part of commerce.
e-comm drupal website optimization conversion rates website goalsSeth Godin, marketer, author, and blogger, has a great post about basic web usability.
marketing website optimization visitors usability google analytics user interfaces conversion rate conversions