Tip: Increase user acquisition by buying out your competitors' contracts

Long-term plans can make it hard to snag your competitors' customers — even if your product is a better fit. Boost sales by buying out their contracts.

If your competitors offer long-term plans, consider buying out their contracts. Zoom did this aggressively in the beginning, and it's also common practice with telecom providers and the like. Your prospective customer will have to verify that they have a plan with your competitor. Then when they sign up, they'll pay the subscription price less the remaining amount on their current plan. This can be set up easily if you don't need it to scale yet — the application can be an email and the discount can be a simple promo code. Obviously, the plan they choose should extend further than their current plan, so you'll have to decide how long that commitment should be. Make the offer known in your marketing materials, landing pages, pricing pages, social media, and so forth. You can also offer it directly to people who give your competitors bad reviews on sites like G2 and Capterra. Contract buyouts work best when you've got some runway and the cost of onboarding new customers is low.