Establishing a Market Presence: Innovative Ways for Startups to Boost Revenue

Getting the word out about your new company and securing startup revenue is challenging for most entrepreneurs. You might be competing with more established brands with a loyal following or trying to break ground with a fresh, new idea. Grabbing attention may be the biggest part of your growth battle.

Most new business owners are aware of basic ways to market, such as advertising online and offline. However, finding untapped innovative ways to reach your target audience can help you boost revenue when you need it most. Use these techniques in the beginning of your startup and any time along the way when you need to improve cash flow.

1. Get Personal

Experts predict spending on personalization software will pass $9.5 billion in 2024. People are overwhelmed with advertising, influencer marketing and companies begging for their money. If you want to stand out, you have to personalize the user experience as much as possible.

Start by researching your typical customer. What is the age, gender and income? Consider specifics of your audience, such as parents, homeowners or working singles. Once you have an idea of the type of person most likely to buy from you, create a buyer persona and gear all marketing to them.

Use brands such as Walmart, Target and Amazon as examples. If you visit one of their sites, they’ll suggest purchases based on what you’ve bought before or what you were browsing for. They’ll likely greet you by name. While not all communication can be first-name personalized, you can at least hit on how you’ll solve their likely pain points and why you’re the best person to do so.

2. Partner With Other Businesses

Boost startup revenue by tapping into the customer base of complementary businesses. Approach business owners in your area and see if they’d be willing to share a coupon with their customers and send a note about their new neighbor in the building.

For example, if you offer dance classes, the local daycare might be willing to mention that their families get a special $10 discount on the first series of lessons through you. Once you’re more established, you can work out equal trades that benefit both businesses. In the beginning, you may need to ask for a favor and hope some of them will share what you do with others.

3. Embrace Changes

When you begin hiring employees and bringing in revenue, you’ve reached the revenue stage of your accounting and financing journey. The stage offers some unique challenges. Your customers have certain expectations but you may find it difficult to stock enough inventory or service staff to meet their needs. You’ll also begin a dance to collect payments and keep cash flow moving.

Appointing someone to be in charge of tracking down late payments can be a game changer during growth spurts. Use automated software to send out timely invoices. Anything you can do to keep money flowing during this phase helps with market growth.

4. Create Better Content

Attracting new customers is half the battle with establishing a strong market presence. Engage site visitors with stronger content. Look for ways to engage them and get their participation through quizzes, interactive games and augmented reality.

Know what your competition publishes and do something better or more interesting. Learn strong SEO tactics or hire someone who is an expert. Create content that pulls people in and helps you rank. You also want things you can share on social media to gain more traction with users.

Create TikTok posts or team up with influencers to help your product or service go viral. One strong social media campaign can drive growth.

5. Establish a Brand Guide

Your brand is the thing that makes you stand out from everyone else. Spend time choosing colors based on the psychological impact. Create a guide so your company is consistent no matter where customers and investors interact with your brand.

Imagine you’re a potential customer. You visit the company Facebook page and there is a fun vibe and posts about new customer discounts. You hop over to the website and it is blah and bland with drab colors. You can’t find a mention anywhere about the coupon code.

Prevent this type of harsh contrast by creating brand guidelines everyone working on the website, social media pages and advertising can follow.

6. Attract the Right Investors

Starting a new company often costs more than you planned. Attract experienced investors who understand your industry and will pour into you and your business. As a new entrepreneur, be cautious of your agreements. Get everything in writing and consult with an attorney if uncertain about any of the terms.

An investor who gets overinvolved, insists on only doing things their way or isn’t reliable with money is worse than no investor at all. Ask for references from other people they’ve worked with. If they are honest and transparent, they won’t mind your questions before committing to a long term business relationship.

7. Offer a Referral Program

One of the easiest ways to boost revenue is to have people who already love what you do refer their friends to you. Give them an incentive to share with others. Base the value on what the value of a new customer might be.

Around 92% of people look for personal recommendations to companies before buying. The power of word-of-mouth builds as your name gets mentioned multiple times.

If you sell golfing courses, you might offer a discount off the person’s next lesson when someone they referred signs up for a package. Look for ways to encourage both parties by offering a discount for new customers and the reward for the person who recommended them.

Find Startup Revenue With Ingenuity

Listen to stories about startups and how they overcame early troubles. You’ll glean nuggets of information that will help you rise to the top of your industry. With startups, getting through cash flow issues and growth pains is often the biggest barrier to success. Figure out how to establish a strong market presence and bring in more money and you’ll soar above other companies in your field.

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Eleanor is editor of Designerly Magazine. Eleanor was the creative director and occasional blog writer at a prominent digital marketing agency before becoming her own boss in 2018. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and dog, Bear.

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