If you’re a business owner, you know how hard it is to attract new customers to your startup. Owning a business almost always means a rocky start. What’s more, if we know that almost 90 percent of startups fail within the first five years in business, we’re much more aware of the urgency of building a solid base of customers.

With years in the industry, and as a successful business owner, I decided to share a few tips on how you can attract customers to your startup and scale your business effortlessly.

1. Offer discounts and promotions to new customers

The generation that now holds the biggest shopping power, Millennials, runs on deals and offers. Burdened by their student loan debt, almost two-thirds of Millennials say they’d try a product from their favourite brand’s competitor in exchange for a 20 to 40 percent discount.

With that being said, we can see how much leveraging power discounts have when it comes to attracting customers. Offering discount prices, one-time deals, loyalty cards, and special offers might be a good way to attract new customers to your startup and keep them retained.

2. Know who your ideal customer is

Finding customers is much easier once you know who they are. If you want to win over customers, and increase your business’ revenue, you need to make a buyer persona.

Make sure to think about what they like, where they work, how old they are, which gender is more likely to be attracted to your services, how much they make, what hobbies they might have, etc. When you respond to these questions, you’ll have a clearer picture of who you should be targeting.

3. Offer better payment options

Price has probably the most influence when it comes to making purchasing decisions. If you cannot go much below the competition, a good way of attracting new customers would be to offer better payment options. You can split payments and invoices, allowing them to purchase a product by the price you’re comfortable with, but make it easier to pay it off as well.

Even though this tactic might be good for customer acquisition, it might create some backlog on your side, as you might find it hard to navigate between payments that are made and those ones that still need to be achieved. If that happens, you can always implement invoicing software to help you manage your finances, avoid a headache, and still have a leveraging power with customers.

4. Make the most out of online ratings and review sites

Most shoppers today grew up on paid advertising, and they have an ingrained distrust for the brands. They value more online reviews that come as genuine and unbiased advice from people that went through the same struggles.

That said, making use of review websites and monitoring online reviews that talk about your products is the best way to attract customers to your websites. You should engage in social media advertising, link building, and PR activities, to build a voice for your brand and make customers more likely to try your products and services.

5. Make yourself the expert in the field

Content is the king, and for a reason. Creating engaging content to talk about the things you know the best will make you an expert in the field, and make people more likely to use your product and services.

You can share and create your content as a way to attract new customers to your startup in several ways – by creating blog posts, guides, sharing your expertise on forums, and social media such as LinkedIn.

6. Incentivize current customers

Studies have shown that acquiring a new customer is up to five times more expensive than retaining an existing one. The point is: consumers love to buy from someone they trust. They are ready to spend around 60 percent more with a brand they’re loyal to, compared to the brand they know little about.

That said, retaining existing customers is crucial for small startup success, as it is a cost-efficient and proven method of scaling your business. You can work on your customer retention by offering special deals and “members only” pricing to your existing customers. Furthermore, you should strive to make the experience more personal by celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, and milestones. Sending a virtual thank-you note or a congratulations card won’t cost you a dime, however, it can pay off greatly.

7. Ask for referrals

Another great way to win over customers to your startup is to ask existing ones for referrals. Current (satisfied) customers can be your best brand ambassadors, and you should leverage this. You can make and organize referral generating activities, such as sending discount codes, or other deals to speed up the process.

Wrapping it up

Attracting new customers to your startup can be demanding and time-consuming. Luckily, with these tips, you’ll be able to ease your way into this process. As your business and customer base grows, you might notice the signs you need an invoicing software as it will become harder and harder to manage everything yourself.

Luckily, there are solutions to help you with this as well, and allow you undisturbed growth!