It is a fact that most start-ups will fail. One of the primary reasons is that new business owners don’t have the ability to attract and retain their customers. Regardless of your business models and products, there are similar ways that can help you to attract customers.

Here are things that new business owners should do:

1. Designs products that match the market: Your business is doomed to fail, if your products don’t match with the wants and needs of your target audience. If your products don’t fit customer expectations, they will fail, no matter how good your sales teams and marketing campaigns are. You need the right product, if you want to set up a sustainable business. If you listen to the feedback of customers, it will be much easier to design an ideal product for them.

2. Choose the best marketing channels: Depending on your business models, product and customer characteristics, some marketing channels are better for you. You should know what channels that are effective to outreach your customers. As an example, search engine is a common marketing channel. If you rank higher in search engine, you get more visitors, which can be converted into real customers. However, in a market where giant corporate dominate, it can be a fruitless attempt for start-ups to even reach 1st page of the search results for specific keywords. In this case, you may need to focus on local SEO campaign or outreach local potential customers using social media.

3. Train salespeople: An effective sales team is crucial for any start-up. They should be among your smartest and most persistent employees. Salespeople are the real representatives of your company and they interact with your target audience. If your salespeople poorly understand the market, it will be more difficult to attract potential buyers. The performance of your sales team should be bench marked against the rest in the industry. If your sales team has subpar performance compared to the sales teams of your competitors, then there could be an issue with your training program. If you have poor sales, check whether sales team is the actual weak link.

4. Understand customer characteristics: Your marketing department should fully understand about the psycho graphic and demographic makeup of target audience. Your marketers should know how to effectively approach and communicate with the audience. If there’s an inaccuracy in how your organization understands customer characteristics, it will be harder to appeal to potential customers.

5. Use the right pricing strategy: You shouldn’t expect people to buy your products, if they are not reasonably priced. Prices should make sense based on the value of your products. Improper pricing could be caused by poor understanding on customer characteristics. A proper pricing strategy will convince consumers that your products are worth buying.

6. Perform regular internal market education: Most markets are dynamic and employees should understand about new changes. Your competitors may have released new breakthrough products and services that didn’t exist before. Once your marketers and the rest of the employees are properly educated, they will be able to create new strategies that ensure better sales.

7. Ensure satisfactory customer service: Poor customer service experience can be a huge letdown among your existing customers. If this problem isn’t remedied, thousands of people could see your company in a negative light. Eventually, it will become very difficult for your business to attract new customers.

8. Respond to disruptive competitors: It’s a fact that players in the market are working hard to outdo one another. Eventually, a competitor may release disruptive product or service that may attract a lot of attention. A good way is to find out whether you can release something similar or better. If your products are rendered obsolete, you need to immediately make the proper actions.