Increase revenue in your business with smart strategies

Published Wednesday 18 March 2026

Table of contents

• Encouraging more purchases to increase revenue
• Finding new customers
• Expanding your range of products or services
• Upselling to increase revenue
• Lifting prices to increase revenue
• The problem with increasing revenue
• How not to increase revenue
• Increasing revenue is only half a job
• FAQs on increasing revenue

Key takeaways

• Focus on encouraging more purchases from existing customers first, as this is typically the easiest and cheapest way to grow revenue since you've already earned their trust.
• Avoid straight discounting as it significantly reduces your profit margins—instead use bundling strategies where you discount one item while selling others at regular margins.
• Implement upselling by positioning premium options visibly next to cheaper alternatives and building compelling cases based on what matters to your customers.
• Calculate your current margins before lifting prices to ensure you understand the difference between what it costs to provide your product or service and what you make from each sale.

Encouraging more purchases to increase revenue

Encouraging more purchases means getting your existing customers to buy from you more often. This is typically the easiest and cheapest way to grow revenue because you've already earned their trust.

New customers are valuable too, but maximising sales with the customers you've got makes every future customer worth more as well.

Make buying easy

Take away any obstacles that might prevent people from buying:

• Offer online ordering: Let customers get what they want without travelling or calling
• Set up standing orders: Regular customers don't have to think at all, as your products or services simply turn up at agreed intervals
• Use direct debit: Automate billing so payments happen without manual invoicing
• Accept cards: Give customers the convenience of buying on credit while you get paid straight away

Customer-friendly billing

Customer-friendly billing structures payments in ways that work with your customers' cash flow, not against it. Just like you, they'll avoid purchases that run down their cash balances.

Spreading payments over longer time periods makes it easier for customers to fit you in their budget. Consider these approaches:

• Flat fee billing: Predictable costs customers can plan around
• Retainers: Regular payments that spread costs over time
• Subscription models: Smaller, recurring charges instead of large one-off invoices

Relationship marketing

Relationship marketing keeps you connected with customers between purchases, so you stay top of mind when they're ready to buy again. Since sales can be highly seasonal (with one analysis showing 48 per cent of all sales occurred in just three months of the year), you need to maintain that connection during slower periods.

It can be a fine line. Here's how to get it right:

• Do deliver content that's valuable or entertaining to your customer
• Do share relevant products, services, or news they'd genuinely appreciate
• Don't burden customers with spam or clog up their social feed
• Don't make every message about you and your business

Sales promotions

Sales promotions can encourage more spending, but straight discounts eat into your margin and can destroy profitability (see How not to increase revenue).

Bundling is a smarter alternative. Instead of discounting a single item, bundle several products or services together in a bulk deal. Yes, there's a discount, but it's spread across multiple items. You discount one item while selling the others at your usual margin.

Finding new customers

Up your referral game

Referrals are one of the quickest and cheapest ways to find new customers. Your existing customers can be powerful advocates, and they tend to refer people just like them. Good customers send more good customers.

The approach is simple: just ask. Build a referral request into your customer communications to kickstart a word-of-mouth marketing engine. Service businesses often find this makes a big impact, but it works for retail and hospitality too.

Experiment with marketing

Monitor your return on investment for each marketing channel. Every type of marketing eventually reaches a point where results start to drop off because you've reached most of the audience available through that method.

When a strategy starts flatlining, move spend into new areas. Social and digital marketing let you run cheap experiments to test what works.

Get affordable tips in the guide How to do digital marketing.

Grow your footprint (in real life or online)

Expanding your reach puts your business in front of new potential customers. You have two main options:

• Open a new location: Setting up shop in a different part of town gets you in front of fresh eyes. This can be expensive, but it opens up a new pool of customers.
• Sell online: Serve a wider set of customers without lifting a hammer. This works for service businesses too, as plenty of professional services can be delivered remotely.

Learn the benefits and how-tos of building an online presence in the guide How to start an online business.

Expanding your range of products or services

Expanding your range means adding new products or services to sell more to existing customers and attract new ones. The key is doing it without overextending yourself or taking big risks.

Diversify your products and services

Here's how to identify what to add:

1. Ask your customers: Find out what else they'd like to buy from you
2. Suggest complementary offerings: If customers aren't overflowing with ideas, propose products or services that complement what you already sell
3. Research competitors: Check what other businesses like yours sell for opportunities you might be overlooking
4. Talk to suppliers: If you're a retailer, ask them for ideas about what's selling well

Adding new products or services can add cost and admin hassle, so start small. Roll out new service ideas to select customers, or put new retail items in small displays before committing to big orders.

Offering more without actually offering more

You may be able to reach a wider audience simply by repackaging what you already do. The work stays the same, but you position it for different markets.

For example, someone who does landscaping for single-family homes could easily pitch their services to holiday homes, retirement villages, or public venues. Those jobs are made up of the same services, just packaged differently.

4. Upselling to increase revenue

Upselling moves customers towards premium products or services that have wider margins. You earn more from each sale without needing to find new customers.

Here's how to upsell effectively:

• Position premium options visibly: Place higher-spec products or services next to cheaper alternatives and draw attention to the extra features
• Understand what matters to your customer: Build a compelling case for the upgrade based on their priorities
• Be patient, not pushy: Test your messaging with a cynical friend to make sure you won't put people off

Here are three upselling approaches that work:

• Introductory deals: Let customers experience premium products at a lower price, so they discover the benefits before normal pricing resumes
• Add-on services: Offer extras like user training or maintenance calls that create additional revenue
• Relationship builders: Add-ons reinforce loyalty and open the door to repeat business

5. Lifting prices to increase revenue

Lifting prices increases revenue without requiring more sales, as long as the changes don't scare away your customers. The process is more complex than simply adding another zero to your price tag.

Start by understanding your existing margins: the difference between what it costs to provide a product or service and what you make from its sale. Your margin has probably shrunk since your last pricing change because inflation pushes your costs up over time.

Once you know your current margin, you can decide on a new, more sustainable one. An accountant or bookkeeper can help by:

• telling you the margin norms for your industry
• reviewing your cost profile to calculate a workable target margin

Calculate your business's current margin with the gross margin calculator.

If you're a service business that provides estimates or quotes, this analysis reveals where past estimates went wrong. It's often the same aspects of a service that run over budget. Instead of eating that extra cost, build it into more realistic estimating models.

Read more on raising prices, including how to break it to customers, in the guide How to increase prices.

The problem with increasing revenue

More revenue is good, but growth requires investment. For instance, one case study showed stock losses from damage and theft amounted to 11.6 per cent of total product costs. Before pursuing growth, understand what it will require from your business.

Higher operating costs

Growing sales almost always requires upfront spending:

• More stock: Inventory costs rise before revenue does
• More people: You may need to hire staff or pay freelancers
• More marketing: Sales and promotion costs increase

You'll need a plan to meet these costs while you wait for extra revenue to arrive.

Extra capital investments

Revenue growth often requires significant spending on new tools, equipment, locations, or technology.

Before committing, answer these questions:

• How much will it cost?
• Where will that money come from?
• How long will it take to make that money back?

Oh, and more work

Higher output often means longer hours, or hiring and training new staff you'll then need to manage.

Ask yourself: Do you have the capacity to take on those extra commitments? If not, consider other ways to improve financial performance without overwhelming your schedule. You might focus on increasing profitability instead of pursuing more revenue.

How not to increase revenue

Protecting your margins matters more than discounting. Discounting might increase sales, but even modest-sounding discounts significantly reduce your margin. In one case study of a retail business, discounts represented 9.4% of total income for the year.

Here's how quickly discounts wipe out your markup:

• 20% discount wipes out a 25% markup
• 25% discount wipes out a 33% markup
• 33% discount wipes out a 50% markup
• 50% discount wipes out a 100% markup

Rather than straight discounting, consider bundling. You discount one item but get the regular margin on all the other items in the bundle.

Increasing revenue is only half a job

Most small businesses that want to know how to increase revenue really want to know how to increase profits. There's no point taking on extra cost and work if that cash doesn't become profit.

Your costs will go up. The trick is making sure they don't rise as steeply as revenue. Do the numbers carefully to ensure your margin stays intact or increases as you grow.

Accounting software helps you track margins quickly. An accountant or bookkeeper can make sure you're capturing all your costs, including hidden ones, so you understand the risks and returns of growing. Find one in Xero's advisor directory.

Take control of your revenue growth.Track your sales, monitor your margins, and make confident decisions backed by up-to-date financial data. Get one month free when you try Xero's accounting software.

FAQs on increasing revenue

Here are answers to common questions about growing your business revenue.

What's the fastest way to increase revenue for a small business?

Raising prices is typically the fastest way to increase revenue because it requires no extra customers, no extra work, and takes effect immediately. If a price increase isn't feasible, focus on upselling to existing customers since they already trust you and are easier to sell to than new prospects.

How do I know which revenue strategy to try first?

Start with the strategy that requires the least investment and risk for your situation. For most businesses, that means maximising sales from existing customers (through repeat purchases, upselling, or price increases) before spending money to acquire new ones.

Can I increase revenue without spending more on marketing?

Yes. Focus on strategies that don't require marketing spend:

• Raise prices to increase the value of each sale
• Upsell existing customers to higher-margin products or services
• Ask for referrals to get new customers through word of mouth
• Make buying easier to remove friction that prevents purchases

How long does it take to see results from revenue growth efforts?

It depends on the strategy. Price increases show results immediately on your next sale. Upselling and repeat purchase strategies typically show results within weeks. Finding new customers through marketing or expansion can take months to show results.

What's the difference between increasing revenue and increasing profit?

Revenue is the total money coming in from sales. Profit is what's left after you pay all your costs. You can increase revenue but still lose money if your costs rise faster than your sales. Track your margins, not just your sales figures.