A value ladder is something that you create to sell high-value products to your prospect. The concept is to offer a low-ticket product to qualify. Then, convert the prospects and slowly move them up the ladder to upsell high-ticket products. I learned the secret of Value Ladder from the free book Dotcom Secrets. You can also claim yours here.
Comparing when you are selling $1,000 and then selling a series of lower price point items and slowly increasing to $1000. What do you think is easier?
Let’s imagine this, you run ads for a product that costs $1,000 to people that may not know you. Do you think it is easy or hard to persuade them to make the purchase? Of course, they will need more reasons to justify the purchase decision.
Now, let’s look at another case. You run the same ads but sell something for $10. And after they make the purchase, you upsell to something like $100. At the end of the funnel, you show them the $1,000 product or subscription service that costs $100 per month.
Which process do you think will perform better?
Case Study – The Effect of Value Ladder
Case 1:
Direct your traffic to the sales page of the $1,000 product. You might get a 3-5% conversion rate provided your sales letter is very good and the target audience is good.
Case 2:
Direct your traffic to a landing page/sales page of a low-price point product, and move the visitors slowly up the value ladder. The conversion rate for each page might increase up to 20-30%. And the final conversion rate should be up to 5%.
You can see from the 2 cases above, the conversion might seem to be similar at the beginning. Now, look at the bigger picture. After making the first sales, for case 1, you only have 5% of the contacts in your email list. While for case 2, you are literally having 20-30% of the total traffic signed up to your email list. That\’s 5-6 times of contact list increase. This is the power of the sales funnel.
Why We Build Value Ladder
The reason we build the value ladder is to build trust and reputation. We break the decision into smaller sizes so our potential clients do not need to make a complicated purchase decision. All they need to do is to answer simple queries of Yes or No when they move up the value ladder. The increase in value for each step will not be very big, making it easier for them to say yes.
If you are doubtful about this technique, there was once a psychology experience done on this. When we break the decision into small decisions, we can guide someone to do what we want by asking them questions with simple answers of YES/NO. Never underestimate the power of small decisions.
How To Design Your Value Ladder
At the first step of the ladder, we always offer them something lower price point or even a free item to validate them and even to bribe them to get them into our list. Sometimes, I will offer a $1 product in this step. This is to ensure the audience will make a commitment to take out their credit card and make the payment. Although it only costs $1, the effort behind making the payment is different.
You can know this group of customers is willing to commit. Also, with this group of people, you can upsell them more items in the future. These will be your top valuable groups of potential customers you can convert into hot traffic.
Now, in the next step up your ladder, you can start offering them your core product. It can be multiple options with quantity break discounts. For example, you can have 3 options 1 unit, 3 units, and 6 units. The more they buy, the better the deal.
Now, after they make the purchase, no matter which one they select, you can offer them in the next step either the same product with a better deal or another product that they can use together with the product they just purchased. Normally the conversion rate will be around 30% for those who reach this step.
Then, if they take the offer, you can show them the thank you page and show your offer wall for them to buy other related products or subscribe to your subscription service.
And if they don’t take the offer, you can down-sell them to another product with a lower price value or another irresistible offer so they can make the purchase.
Sales Process Flow
Below is how the sale process looks like
This is how we normally build our sales process to bring in new customers and new sales to grow my business online. The concept of a value ladder works for all types of businesses, no matter what business you are in. To build the sales process, we always use a platform called ClickFunnels. We had created multiple sales processes with it and in most cases, a simple can be put together easily within just hours.
Best Tools for Building Sales Funnel
If you are unfamiliar with ClickFunnels, ClickFunnels is a sales funnel builder with many different functions. If you are just started, I would suggest using ClickFunnels as your funnel builder and using GetResponse for your autoresponder. Although ClickFunnels also offer email marketing features in the higher plan, GetResponse works best for my case. I prefer using dedicated platforms for the features.
If you looked clearly at both platforms, the platforms had grown to be very similar in terms of features. I had tried to build a sales funnel in my GetResponse account, but the simplicity and the easiness to build a sales funnel is nothing that came near the experience of ClickFunnels.
Instead of giving the conclusion here, I would suggest that you take the trial period for both platforms and test both platforms out to see which one suits you most.