Startup growth is a numbers game.
Between building buyer personas, hiring your startup core team, and developing marketing campaigns, sales growth acceleration is always a top priority. If you don’t want competition to devour you, a comprehensive growth strategy is essential to a startup.
However, with lean budgets and resources, you don’t have the luxury of testing out tactics or using traditional methods like established corporations. After all, 70 percent of tech startups fail by the first 20 months. When it comes to startup growth, there’s no such thing as “build it and they will come.”
You need to concentrate on sales growth acceleration tactics that are going to propel your company forward and set yourself up for long-term success. Let’s discover five top growth strategies to help you get started.
Quick takeaways:
- Your sales growth strategy will evolve as your company scales through stages.
- Focusing on the customer experience through early adopters will allow you to improve your services for future customers.
- Offering pricing incentives and positioning will drive engagement and highlight the most effective future tactics for your audience.
5 Top Sales Growth Acceleration Tactics for Your Startup and Scaleup
Ready to take your startup from the early stage to the scale-up stage? To accelerate long-term growth, you need to think of creative solutions to connect and convert your target audience. Here are five proven ways you can boost your bottom line through sales growth:
1. Find Early Adopters
14 percent of startups fail due to not meeting customer needs. To focus on your sales growth tactics, early-stage startups need to find and attract early and defined adopters. Your early adopters should be innovators and willing to experiment with your brand or product. However, to earn adopters, you need to offer an incentive, like a creative cross-promotion, collaborative press release, or case study that drives traffic back to them in exchange for becoming an early customer. Through adopters, you not only earn new customers to kick off your growth but you also receive valuable feedback so you can improve the overall customer experience.
2. Get Aggressive with Pricing
Early startups can also consider offering aggressive pricing strategies, like discounts or pricing structures for commitments that are under market to drive revenue. While you’re paying to acquire customers, you’re also gaining velocity in the market with new customers to further your growth.
When you’re focusing on long-term growth, landing early customers at a discounted price will allow you to convert more down the road with an improved experience. After all, by landing 50 customers at a discounted price, you’ll be more prepared to earn the next 500.
3. Utilize Competitive Positioning
When you’re a scaleup, you’ll need to focus on competitive positioning that highlights why you’re stronger than competitors. To get started, conduct in-depth competitive research so you understand where you outweigh their strengths and vice versa.
How can you use their strength to your advantage? In your customer journey, recognize that the competitor is doing well and then tie their strength to your own value proposition. While you don’t want to denigrate them, highlight positive features and why you’re stronger. Utilizing competitive strengths to your advantage allows you to gain traction and discover what drivers are going to be most effective for your target audience.
4. Leverage Forecasting Tools
Technology is a game-changer for startups and scaleups. Scaleups need to use forecasting tools to understand the right time to provide pricing incentives to customers. Forecasting tools will provide you insight into when you can provide new pricing, like the end of a quarter or year, so you’re ahead of the curve. You can also leverage case studies with your forecasting tools to drive more growth to different customer segments.
5. Build a Community
Your customers are your most important asset. After all, 86% of buyers will pay more for a better customer experience. To instill loyalty with your customers, utilize incentives to create an advisory panel of your best customers. By holding quarterly or annual meetings, you can earn valuable feedback about your products and services to find improvement gaps. Through this proactive approach, you can leverage your most loyal customers to learn about their experiences — allowing you to drive more engagement for overall growth in particular audience segments.
Amplify Your Startup’s Sales Growth Acceleration Strategy
Your startup growth acceleration strategy takes creative thinking, aggressive pricing, and the tenacity to learn from your customer’s experiences. Whether you’re in the early or scale-up stage, it’s essential to adjust your strategy so you can increase engagement, conversions, and loyal customers.
Discover Sellerant’s Growth Acceleration Starting Grid to put your company on a clear path to success.