Registered — now how do you get customers?

Registering the trade is the easy part. The hard part comes after: the first customers, then regular ones. These are practical, honest guides — not agency boilerplate, but what actually works for a small business in Austria.

If you are running the business in English, start here There is one mistake that costs international business owners in Austria more customers than everything else on this page combined: a Google Business Profile written only in English. Your neighbours search in German — “Friseur in der Nähe”, “Installateur Notdienst”, “Frühstück 1070”. If your profile is not in German, you do not rank low in those searches. You are absent from them. Fixing it is free and takes about twenty minutes. → How to set the profile up

Data instead of guesswork How contested is your market? How many competitors does your trade have in your district? That decides which strategy makes sense at all. Check it first with the free market check — then you know whether you have to stand out (saturated) or simply become visible (open market).

The basics — for every trade

Order matters: first be found, then build trust, then reach.

1. Getting found on Google, locally Setting up a Google Business Profile — the most important free lever for any local trade, step by step, including which language to write it in. 2. Collecting reviews without begging Stars decide local jobs. How to get real reviews systematically and legally — and how to reply when they arrive in German. 3. The right platform for your trade Not every trade belongs on every platform. What actually works for crafts, beauty, food and consulting — and where language stops mattering entirely. 4. Content that brings customers What to show when you have no time for content. The five types that work for trades — plus the one only a bilingual owner can write. 5. Do you even need a website? Honest answer: often a Google profile is enough. When a site pays off, what belongs on it, and whether it needs to be bilingual. 6. Paid advertising — when it starts to pay off Google and Meta ads on small budgets, plus the offline classics that still work. When to stay organic and when to pay.

For your specific trade

Marketing is not the same everywhere. A hairdresser grows through visibility in the neighbourhood, a plumber through reachability and references, a consultant through niche and referral. The guides are grouped by how a trade actually wins customers — and each one says plainly where working in English helps you, and where it genuinely gets in the way.

Local & visible

Trades that win through Google, Maps, reviews and pictures in the neighbourhood.

Winning customers as a hairdresser A crowded market — how to stand out: positioning, rebooking, content angles with example hooks, and why an English-only profile is the costliest mistake here. Winning customers for a beauty salon Series rather than single appointments, trust through visible hygiene — and the legal line to medicine, which applies to your English wording exactly as it does to German. Winning customers for a restaurant You sell occupancy, not only food: Maps, photos, reviews, and occasion revenue booked early. The one trade where your background is a credential.

Jobs, projects & B2B

Trades where reachability, trust and referral count — not reach.

Winning customers as a plumber Two customers, two systems: emergency reachability, property managers as a B2B channel, and the honest answer about taking German phone calls at night. Winning clients as a consultant B2B rather than local: a sharp niche, authority and referral. The one trade where working in English is straightforwardly an advantage.

To be clear This is marketing practice, not legal advice — unlike the rest of GewerbeCheck, which comes straight from the Austrian Trade Act. The recommendations are tested, but no result is guaranteed. What counts is sticking with it and measuring.

Not registered yet? → How to register a trade in Austria · Check your market? → Free market check