The early stages of running a small business are often considered to be the hardest, but you may also find yourself at a point where your business has grown to a certain point only for the growth to stagnate.

In order to circumvent this, you should begin thinking about increasing your revenue, and the best way to do so is to connect with your customers through solid marketing plans and sales efforts, as well as reviewing some of your current strategies that may no longer be effective.

Regardless of your budget, there are always a number of different things you can do to help increase your revenue, and we’ll go over some of the simplest, cost-effective ways to increase your profits.

Essentially, it’s all about the balance between your short and long-term goals, and this article will try to introduce you to some tips for increasing revenue streams as well as increasing revenue from already existing customers.

Focus on your goals

You can’t jump into entrepreneurship without first making yourself familiar with your revenue goals, as you must first identify what success means to you, and once you do, create a route that will lead you to it.

This comes up in every stage of running a business, and you’ll find that knowing what you’re working towards is one of the most effective ways to learn about what changes you can make to your current approach.

In the start-up period, your main goal is achieving profitability, but once you’ve reached that, you must define a follow-up goal that’ll keep your business growing, and the next step is always to generate enough funds for the strategic growth of your company.

When you finally outline what these goals are, you can begin focusing on the things you need to do to achieve them.

Discounts

Nothing draws in customers like a well-placed discount, as it generates an incentive for someone to actually purchase your product, due to it being sold at a far lower price than what your competition has to offer.

Oftentimes, companies place discounts on limited products or by giving your customers the opportunity to get one product at a discount if they purchase it in greater quantities.

Other times, discounts can be storewide, which can draw in even more customers, and while you may end up generating less profit during this time, it’ll create a following for your business that’ll eventually end up paying tenfold than what you normally would’ve gotten.

Rebates, however, are a form of deferred discount that your customers can get on certain products, meaning that they’ll receive a certain percentage of the product’s purchase price back in cash.

This is yet another great strategy to generate more sales in a short amount of time.

Online presence

With the digital age evolving at lightning-fast speeds, you shouldn’t let your business fall back in terms of popularity, and the best way to stay relevant is to connect with your customers through social media by generating an online presence.

Keep updating your websites while also taking note of how much traffic you get on the many different devices that customers use, ultimately optimizing your website for those customers that are the most likely to actually boost sales.

With the help of website analytics, you can get a good idea of how your websites are performing and what you can do to further improve their profitability, and with a combination of organic and paid search engine marketing, you may just be able to reach a much greater amount of customers through the world wide web.

Increase revenue from existing customers

It’s very easy for a business to get too caught up in finding new customers, to the point where they’ll forget about the people that kept their business afloat in the early stages.

Your existing customers are much more valuable than those you’ll attract, as it costs much more to draw in a new customer than to keep a current customer coming back for more.

Your past and current customers can offer you the best return on investment, and you should always value them more than a new customer who may or may not become a returning one.

To help understand this, you should create a list of all your customers and clients, as well as a list of the products and services you provide, and once you cross reference those two, you’ll see what’s your best-selling product and who your most loyal customers are.

Brand loyalty has become a big deal in recent years, and it’s not uncommon for people to stick to a brand even if another one may be offering a better product, and it’s these relationships that help small businesses outgrow their shells and evolve into a large business with an immense following.