If you’ve been listening to high-ticket affiliate marketers lately, you’ve probably come across the concept of the value ladder.
But what exactly is a value ladder?
A value ladder is a sales funnel designed to improve your sales process’s efficiency. There are many types of sales funnels to bring leads into your online business, but the most effective is a value ladder.
A value ladder can help you gain customers and help you grow your business. It will allow you to repeat business with the customers you already have.
So what exactly is a value ladder and how does it benefit your business?
What Is A Value Ladder?
A value ladder is a sequence of steps or levels in which the value of each level is higher than the previous one.
You can have a series of products or services that range from low-cost to high-cost. The low-cost items are designed to capture leads, and the high-cost items will convert those leads into customers (and raving fans).
The point of a value ladder is to get people onto your email list. Once they’re on your email list, you have an opportunity to sell them more products through email marketing campaigns.
Many people find it challenging to define the value ladder. It’s more than a marketing strategy that helps you reach your consumers and convert them into customers. It’s a set of principles that will help you build a stable customer base and ensure that your online business grows steadily.
The value ladder is the path customers take on their journey with your brand. Each encounter they have with your brand – whether it’s an ad on Facebook or a product they purchased – is a rung on the ladder.
The function of the value ladder is to turn cold traffic into warm leads and eventually into paying customers.
If you’re just starting out, you don’t want to go from zero to 100 and try to sell a $10,000 course or mastermind. You need to start small and build trust with people through a free product or low-cost content. This free offer is the entry-level of your value ladder and where you begin converting leads into customers.
As you offer more value through paid products and services, your audience will move up the value ladder and buy more expensive offerings. The customer journey through different price points of your value ladder is the secret to a successful digital marketing business.
Why are Value Ladders Beneficial For Businesses?
According to Jay Abraham’s philosophy, there are three ways to grow a business. And the value ladder incorporates all of them.
1. Increase the number of clients
A steady flow of customers is vital to any successful business. Most companies spend a lot of money getting new customers and driving sales. But using a value ladder, things can get easier.
Using a value ladder, a business can start off with one or two products at the bottom of the ladder. These products are usually lower in value, and they’re usually sold either as a standalone product or a service. They are called a “lead magnet.”
The goal with these products is to get people to try them out and then buy more high-value products from you.
The only way you can do this is by offering more value to each of your products. If you’re selling a $5 ebook, then you need to sell a $10 ebook, a $50 course, and so on.
Because the entry point of your ladder is a low-cost product, people are more willing to purchase, increasing the number of potential clients. These relatively low-cost products will boost sales.
Also, value ladders allow you to build relationships with your existing customers over time. You take them from one product to the next, building a relationship with each step. This increases your trust with them and makes it easier for them to invest in your products and services in the future.
You’re increasing your customer lifetime value when you create a value ladder.
2. Do repeat business with existing customers
A profitable business model should have the ability to deliver more than what was initially offered. That means offering new products or services to customers who were previously satisfied.
By creating your own value ladder, you can start offering as much value or more as you provide your customers with entry-level products or services.
Value ladders let you make more money from each customer over time, which is critical for any business looking to increase their revenues without having to spend more money on advertising to get new customers all of the time. This increases customer value.
3. Sell high-ticket products or services to increase profit
Most successful businesses offer higher-priced items and tend to be more profitable than those selling cheaper products.
With a high-ticket product or service, you are allowing a small but highly profitable percent of your customers to ascend your company’s value ladder.
Value ladders increase the profit margin of your business because they enable you to get more sales from each customer without increasing your advertising costs, which makes it easier to grow your business and make more money, even if you’re not able to add new customers all of the time.
Related: Best High-Ticket Affiliate Programs
What Is A Lead Magnet?
A lead magnet is a term for a free incentive offered in exchange for an individual’s contact information, such as their name, phone number, and email address. The term “lead magnet” emphasizes the fact that you should use them to attract and gather leads.
Customer acquisition is directly tied to lead magnets, the first step of sales funnels.
In the online world, lead magnets can come in many different forms. Still, they are usually digital assets that are delivered via email. A lead magnet can be a:
- PDF document
- ebook
- checklist
- template
- coupon code
- webinar recording
- video tutorial
For instance, if someone signs up to your email list to get your ebook, then the ebook is the lead magnet. If a reader fills out a form on your blog to download some content, then the content is the lead magnet.
Lead magnets are used as a way of capturing prospect information from leads who have shown interest in what you have to offer but are not ready to buy yet. And by providing them with a valuable resource for free, you can grow your email list and generate more leads for your business.
Lead magnets don’t necessarily mean they’re free. Your initial offer can be a one-time purchase of a low-priced product or service, and then you can nurture your leads via email marketing campaigns.
What Is A Sales Funnel?
A sales funnel is basically a pipeline for traffic.
It allows you to guide that traffic into a single place, and then it will enable you to offer them the product or service of your choice.
If a page builder is built-in, you can easily create landing pages, which can be tailored toward your specific niche and audience. In this way, converting leads into customers becomes much easier and more streamlined than before.
A sales funnel is a lead generation strategy that can help businesses and entrepreneurs grow their customer base. It’s a resulting sales process that increases the number of qualified leads.
If your business has a marketing manager, they should be focusing on getting leads to your business, making sure they follow the ascending order of your value ladder.
A sales funnel puts your product first, and that’s the way it should be. While a website can get very distracting because you have lots of links and menus pointing to different sections, a sales funnel focuses the reader’s attention on the product or service. There are no distractions.
Related: Best Sales Funnel Software
Value Ladder Examples
In this section, I will illustrate two value ladder examples in online businesses.
The value ladder in ClickFunnels
The dream for most business owners would be to provide the most amount of value for someone and get the most amount of money. However, it doesn’t work that way.
In ClickFunnels, Russel Brunson has a coaching program where he charges $1 Million to create someone’s funnel for them. While that may sound amazing, if he offered that service in the real world, people would think he was insane.
That’s because he’s providing zero value to the person at this point. As a business owner, if you are pitching your most expensive final offer at the very top, but people have not received value from you, they won’t want that.
We, as humans, naturally want more. When a free product provides us with value, we’ll be curious about what’s next. By making your customer happy, you will start moving him up the value ladder, where you’ll have a chance to offer more value.
Russell Brunson can get people to pay him a million dollars to build a funnel for them because he provided value to all levels (free books, software, training, events, webinars, etc.). People trust him and have a rapport with him. They believe in him, and that’s why they pay him big money.
The value ladder in Legendary Marketer
Legendary Marketer has several low-entry and low-cost products, like the 15 Day Challenge ($7) or The Insider’s Guide to Affiliate Marketing ebook ($1.99). On the back end, they have high-ticket products that cost as high as $9,500.
By providing high value in the low-ticket products, people can choose to purchase the high-ticket ones inside Legendary. The value they offer is not limited to the low-entry products. They also provide high value in their community, the updates they keep doing, and the interviews they do with their customers.
When you join Legendary Marketer, you become part of a community of entrepreneurs mentored by Dave Sharpe himself, Legendary Marketer’s CEO. It’s one of the most exciting communities I’ve ever been a part of.
This is why I recommend people who want to start an online business but have no idea where to begin to join the 15 Day Challenge. It’s essentially a course on creating an online business using affiliate marketing techniques.
Affiliate marketing is one of the best business models for beginners because you don’t need to create a product or service. You’re just promoting products that people already want to buy.
And it’s because of Legendary Marketer value ladder that many people are seeing success promoting them.
The Value Ladder in the Real World
While you may be thinking that value ladders and sales funnels are only applied to online businesses, here are some value ladder examples in the real world.
The value ladder in relationships
In the real world, if someone asks you, “What do you do for a living?” and you tell them, you are building some rapport.
And after you try to explain something, also give them some information for free, they’ll likely accept it and build trust. Because there’s value there, you can then offer them something else.
The same happens when you meet your spouse. The first time you meet them, you probably ask them on a date, and you provide value. If they have a good time on the date, you go on a second date. It then keeps going on until you get married or start sharing more of your life together.
There’s a logical progression.
Yet, for some reason, online, some businesses forget that.
In the online world, we’re used to thinking about traffic. But traffic is people! Real human beings. And we have to understand that.
The value ladder in eCommerce
Suppose you’re selling physical products, whether in a physical retail store or an online store. In that case, you can apply the value ladder model to your business.
Utilizing a safe QR Code generator, you can seamlessly integrate digital experiences with your physical products.
Suppose you’re selling a flashlight.
How else can you provide value to your customer? Why not offer your customers a second flashlight for 50% off? Probably most people will say yes.
Continuing the ascension of the value ladder, you can now offer a kit, like a carrying case, for people to store their flashlights.
Fast shipping for an extra fee could be next.
And that’s how you continue to ascend customers through your value ladder. You just have to think about how you can provide value to those customers. That’s the basic idea.
The value ladder in a restaurant
When you go to a restaurant, what’s the first thing they ask you? “Would you like some drinks?”
Usually, everybody starts with some drinks, whether water or something stronger. The waiters will not bring the main entree or the dessert right away.
The same concept is valid for a business. And just like in a restaurant, some people will only have drinks and won’t go for the salad, the main entree, and the dessert.
Some people might just take your front-end product or appetizer offer in your own business.
Successful restaurants have more stuff people can buy.
The value ladder in dental practice
The same is true for a dental practice.
Some dentists offer people on the street free teeth cleaning. Most people will say yes to that. Once you go to that dentist’s office, they’ll offer you something else, like some cosmetic procedures.
And before you know it, you’ve been going to this doctor for six months, and you got whole new braces on your teeth.
That’s how people build, grow and scale multi-million dollar internet digital marketing businesses.
As your customers ascend up that value ladder and stay a customer for a longer time, you make more valuable offers that are more expensive, creating more profit for you.
Is There Software To Build A Value Ladder?
There are many different ways to build a value ladder, and the right software largely depends on your skill level.
If you lack coding skills and want software super easy to use, I would recommend the ClickFunnels platform. It’s the easiest way to build a sales funnel without writing any code.
If you want to build a value ladder with Clickfunnels, I recommend going through Russell Brunson’s One Funnel Away Challenge. You can read my detailed review in this article.
On the other hand, if you have some coding experience or want more flexibility than Clickfunnels can offer, I recommend learning about WordPress and the Elementor page builder plugin. Although there’s a learning curve that can take you some time to adjust, it’s way cheaper than ClickFunnels.
How Do I Learn More About The Value Ladder
If you haven’t had a chance to read the Dotcom Secrets book, I would recommend it because this is where Russell Brunson goes deep into funnels structure and all about value ladders. It’s an excellent book to understand the strategy behind funnels.
The book is free. You only have to pay $9.95 for shipping and handling.
Value Ladder FAQs
Here are some of the most frequent questions people ask about the value ladder.
What is a value ladder?
In online business and in life, a value ladder is a progressive set of incentives ranging from small to significant commitments that can drive customers further up the buying process.
The value ladder is a strategic method to help you prioritize which user actions you should use in your online business marketing.
It’s not an easy process to implement. Still, the reward for you is that your marketing will cut through the online clutter and do a great job of attracting exactly the people you want to your online business.
What is a product ladder?
A product ladder consists of various products which range from different prices to features.
Product ladders can facilitate the purchase and retention of a potential customer for a company’s products.
All products and services on the ladder should offer great value, especially free ones. The product ladder provides good opportunities for the start-up of new businesses.
How to create value for your clients?
You can create value for your clients using a value ladder in your business. A value ladder is a sequence of products or services that a client moves through as their needs, wants and skills evolve.
The value ladder starts with free content, then moves up to low-cost product offerings and eventually to high-ticket packages or services.
For example, if you sell digital products or courses, the free content might be a blog post, video, or email series. The following steps up the ladder might be an inexpensive ebook or short course. Then there’s a mid-priced video course or group coaching program. Finally, you have your high-end offering: a VIP day, one-on-one coaching, or a premium group program.
What’s the benefit of a value ladder?
The benefit of creating a value ladder for your business is that it gives people the opportunity to build trust with you before making big purchases.
For example, say you’re selling a $2,000 coaching package that includes three months of one-on-one sessions and extra bonuses like behind-the-scenes videos and cheat sheets.
If someone new to you lands on your website and sees that offer without being exposed to anything else from you — including lower price points — they may not have enough trust in you yet to make such a big investment.
What Is A Value Ladder – Conclusion
A value ladder is a marketing tool that emphasizes a progression of higher quality goods/services at a slightly higher price that can be created by creating a lowered value product and then raising the price on subsequent products by adding extras, upsells, features, etc.
Without a value ladder, customer acquisition becomes more difficult. The value ladder enables you to offer a specifically designed low-entry valuable product to increase traffic and acquire new prospects while building trust at the same time.
A value ladder not only can be used in online businesses but can also be used in industries such as food service, retails, and automobiles, just to name a few.
Businesses that want to remain sustainable and effective must understand how their customers (and potential customers) think.
You need to provide value for every interaction you have with someone. And then, if they like that, they will naturally ascend up and want more value. By increasing value, you increase profit.
It’s essential to keep in mind that consumers don’t always purchase products simply because they need them. There are emotional and social factors involved too.
That’s where a value ladder is useful because it orders these rationals based on their relative urgency, which helps you reach different kinds of customers and increase your customer lifetime value.
If you want to know more about value ladders and how to apply them, order your FREE copy of Russell Brunson’s DotCom Secrets and join the One Funnel Away Challenge to learn how to build sales funnels that convert.
I hope this post answered your questions about value ladders. Let me know your thoughts in the comment section.
