Are you ready to take your creator business to the next level? Then it’s time to bring out the value ladder.
What is a value ladder, exactly?
Value ladder marketing is a strategy that guides customers through a series of increasingly valuable offerings. The idea is that each step of the ladder builds trust, demonstrates value, and maximizes revenue.
The marketing ladder helps you monetize your expertise effectively and is a crucial strategy for the success of your creator business.
Read on to learn more about how ladder marketing can build your business and maximize sales.
What is a value ladder?
In a nutshell, a value ladder is a marketing strategy designed to take customers on a journey from a lower-priced entry-level offer to a higher-priced premium product.
By applying the value ladder strategy to your creator business, you simultaneously provide content with more value to your customers while also gaining the opportunity to generate more leads, sell more digital products or services, and increase sales overall.
Think of each step of the value ladder as one of your offers. Each offer should increase in value and price as your customer ascends the ladder.
That means, the top of the ladder would have your highest-priced, highest-value offer — this could be anything from a mentorship program to a live webinar.
The bottom of the ladder should represent lower-ticket offers — like a free template or $10 mini-course — that also contribute to recurring revenue (aka passive income) for your creator business.
An example of a value ladder template could look something like this:
- Free product: A downloadable checklist or guide, like “10 Content Ideas for Beginners.”
- Low-cost product: a $10 mini-course on “How to Plan Your First Content Calendar”
- Mid-tier product: a $50 ebook or in-depth course like “30-Day Social Media Growth Masterclass”
- High-ticket offering: A $500 group coaching program on how to make content creation a career.
- Premium service: A $2,000 personalized 1:1 consulting package for brand strategy and monetization.
Long story short: The goal of a value ladder is to create a series of products or services that offer your customers progressively more value, each step building on the previous one.
5 Reasons why you need a value ladder for your creator business
- Appeal to different segments of your target audience
- Increase revenue
- Position yourself as an authority
- Upsell and cross-sell naturally
- Turn followers into buyers
First things first, one of the biggest advantages of value ladder marketing is that it requires you to be super clear and intentional about what types of products and services you offer your audience.
So, by creating a value ladder, you automatically gain a better understanding of the journey your customer goes through on their way to purchase a product or service, aka the good ol’ sales funnel.
At this point, if you’re thinking, “Wait a minute… sales funnel, what’s with all the corporate marketing jargon?”
Just remember that, the more you understand marketing strategies like value ladder marketing (and yes, that might include a sales funnel or two), the more you’ll treat your creator business
like a business, which ultimately means more success!
Business jargon aside, read on to learn a few of our favorite benefits of value ladder marketing.
1. Appeal to different segments of your target audience
One of the best things about a value ladder is that it provides you with the opportunity to create a series of product offerings that appeal to different segments of your target audience.
Why is this so important? Because some people might be more interested in — or only have the means for — your low-cost offers over your higher-priced products or services.
By offering products that align with different stages of your audience’s journey, you create opportunities to meet their evolving needs. This fosters loyalty and encourages repeat purchases.
But don’t put anyone in a corner — your entry-level customers might one day become high-value product customers.
When you create a value ladder correctly, you can serve both audiences — those ready to spend a little and those down to invest a lot.
2. Increase revenue
A well-designed value ladder opens the door to increased revenue because it allows you to offer products and services at a broad range of price points. Remember: The wider the spectrum of value you offer your audience, the more trust and loyalty you’ll receive among your audience.
Ladder marketing also allows you to cater to a broader audience, from your followers seeking more affordable entry-level options to those ready to invest in premium, high-ticket offerings.
For example, you might start with low-cost digital products like templates, guides, or mini-courses. These affordable options attract new customers, giving them the chance to engage with your content and experience your value.
As trust grows, they’re more likely to purchase mid-tier offerings like comprehensive courses, memberships, or one-on-one coaching and consulting services.
This diversified business model maximizes earning potential and builds stronger customer relationships. But to truly maximize the benefits of a marketing ladder, you need to work with a creator platform that supports scalability and growth.
Not only does The Leap have the AI tools you need to create digital products to offer as lead magnets or at low- and mid-tier price points, but its native calendar booking feature Book My Time allows you to sell high-ticket offers like 1:1 coaching and consulting sessions.
3. Position yourself as an authority
A value ladder isn’t just about making sales—it’s about showcasing your expertise at every level. Offering different products and services helps you position yourself as the go-to person in your niche.
Let’s say you start with an affordable digital product like a template or checklist. This entry-level offering gives your audience a taste of your knowledge in a low-risk way. If they like what they see, they’re more likely to trust you for bigger investments, like an in-depth course or coaching.
Each step of the value ladder builds on the last, giving you more chances to prove your expertise.
As your audience moves through your ladder, they’re not just buying products—they’re buying into you. With every success story or positive review, you solidify your reputation.
Keep climbing your value ladder and you might just see that people start turning to you for advice in your niche, and all of a sudden your name becomes synonymous with your expertise.
In a world where credibility is ever more important, a value ladder is a powerful tool to help you stand out, gain trust, and build a personal brand that people respect and want to support.
4. Upsell and cross-sell naturally
One of the biggest perks of a value ladder is how it helps you upsell and cross-sell without being pushy about it.
If you’re unsure what the difference is between the two sales strategies, let’s break down what the terms mean:
- Upselling is when you offer a more expensive or upgraded version of something a customer already wants.
- Cross-selling is when you suggest additional products that complement what they’ve already bought.
Because a value ladder is all about structuring tiered offers, each level represents an opportunity to naturally upsell and cross-sell digital products to your customers.
For example, if someone buys a low-cost ebook from you, you can later offer them a more expensive course that goes deeper into the topic. Or if they’ve purchased your course, you could recommend a one-on-one coaching session for personalized guidance.
Because you’ve already built trust through lower-cost items, these offers feel like a natural next step for your audience, not a hard sell.
The best part? These strategies help increase your revenue without feeling like you’re bombarding your followers with constant promotions.
Instead, you’re offering more value in ways that make sense to them. It’s a win-win!
5. Turn followers into buyers
Another big win with a value ladder is the ability to turn followers into paying customers. Think about it: you’ve already built a following on social media, and those followers are interested in what you have to say. But just being a follower isn’t enough to generate revenue.
That’s where your value ladder comes in.
By offering a mix of free content, low-cost products, and premium services, you create multiple touchpoints where your followers can dive deeper into your world—and eventually, buy.
It’s all about building trust and gradually leading them to the next step. Maybe they start with a free guide, then move on to a $10 template, and eventually, they’re signing up for your $200 1:1 coaching session.
This step-by-step process helps turn casual followers into dedicated buyers because you give them value at every stage. Plus, the more your audience interacts with your products, the more they’ll see you as a trusted authority and be willing to invest in higher-tier offers.
Ultimately, a value ladder is a smart, sustainable way to convert followers into loyal customers.
How to build a value ladder in 5 steps
- Step 1: Know your audience
- Step 2: Identify your offers
- Step 3: Create entry-level offers
- Step 4: Create mid-tier offers
- Step 5: Introduce high-value offers
From defining your core offering to creating a seamless progression of value, each step in the value ladder strategy plays a crucial role in engaging and satisfying your audience.
By understanding customer needs, crafting entry-level and high-value offers, and optimizing communication, you can create a value ladder that guides customers toward increased interest and commitment to your product or services. That means increased revenue for you!
When implementing your value ladder, keep in mind that you can’t offer the same lessons or the same material twice, otherwise, where’s the motivation to climb?
Seriously though, we’re not trying to get existential here. If each step of your ladder brings more value to your customer, the sky is truly the limit.
Read on to learn how to build a value ladder in five simple steps.
Step 1: Know your audience
Knowing your audience is essential to constructing a value ladder strategy for your creator business. And by knowing your audience, we mean understanding their unique needs, preferences, and pain points. By doing so, it enables you to craft a value ladder that resonates with your specific target audience.
Once you have a good grip on your target audience, you’ll want to tailor each rung of the ladder to address specific concerns and deliver targeted solutions.
This is a crucial component of value ladder marketing. That’s because if done correctly, it’ll only enhance the relevance of your offerings.
Ultimately, having a deep understanding of your audience will allow you to communicate more effectively.
It’s also what will turn your ladder from a generic structure of a metaphor into a personalized journey that fosters customer trust and loyalty throughout each tier of offerings.
Step 2: Identify your offers
Your offers should represent different products or services at different price points. Always keep in mind that each offer should be designed to help your customers achieve a specific goal or solve a specific problem.
Let’s say your creator business is centered on helping people learn film photography, a range of products and services you can offer might include:
- A free guide on film and camera types
- A mini-course on how to unlock your inner photographer
- A fully-fledged online course about photography
- A private mentorship program
The key here is to offer more value at each step of the ladder with the hopes that as your customers climb the ladder, they will only become more invested in your brand and more likely to purchase your higher-priced products.
Step 3: Create entry-level offers
Opt-in
Most value ladders begin with an opt-in, which is a low-barrier entry point where potential customers express their interest or commitment by willingly providing their email in exchange for something of value.
Growing an email list is also a super valuable approach for building an “owned” audience, outside of social media platforms where your following represents a “rented” audience.
Like that friend who wants to hang out one week and stops replying to your texts the next, social algorithms can be fickle.
That’s why it’s so important to build a direct relationship with your audience by giving them something valuable in return for their email address.
An opt-in can look like a sign-up form on your website or link-in-bio page. It can also be an opt-in freebie, like a free product or service offer.
Lead magnet
Like an opt-in, the lead magnet is another great value ladder marketing strategy for entry-level offers.
Once you’ve passed the opt-in stage of a value ladder, it’s time to send a follow-up email with a valuable offer. Before selling digital products, some creators offer a free digital product, as a lower-barrier entry point over a low-cost product or service.
A lead magnet can be anything from an ebook, mini-course, guide, tutorial, and more. Whatever mode of delivery you choose, creating your lead magnet should take minimal time to ensure its success.
The Leap is a free all-in-one creator store platform with an AI-powered digital product builder that can generate ideas and build lead magnets in just minutes. The Leap saves you time and money so you can focus on delivering value.
By offering your lead a free digital product, you’re encouraging leads to become customers by showing them a taste of what value you can bring to the table. This leads us to the next entry-level offer where your lead becomes a paying customer — the low-priced product.
To learn more about how to create a lead magnet, Sign up for The Leap Way mini-course series.
Low-priced product
Now you’re at the step in the ladder where you’ll start seeing some cash flow. At this point, maybe you’ve already attracted new customers with your lead magnet. Or, maybe your low-priced entry-level product is your first follow-up offer.
Either way, this step of the value ladder is where you focus on offering a product that’s designed to provide lifetime customer value while also offering an accessible price point.
A low-price product could be anything from a simple guide to a template or a mini-course. Remember that the products you offer at the lower end of the ladder will also contribute to a more reliable recurring income, aka passive income.
Since passive income represents any money earned with a small amount of effort, make sure you don’t spend too much time creating your low-priced products.
This is where intuitive tools that make your digital products easier and quicker to produce, like The Leap’s AI-powered digital product builder, come in handy.
Whatever type of product you decide to offer, just make sure you charge a small amount of money for it. At this stage, the idea is to build trust with your audience, while also gaining a reputation for offering valuable products.
Step 4: Create mid-tier offers
Once you’re at the mid-tier level of the ladder, you’ll start to see some serious dough rolling in.
This is where you’ll start selling products with even higher value and at a higher price.
A mid-tier priced product could be anything from an informative mini-course — simply offered at a higher-ticket price. Or, maybe you’re ready to offer a fully-fledged online course built on a scalable platform like Thinkific, which is designed to help creators easily create customized courses to monetize their expertise.
You should be thinking about this step of the ladder as a high-value product or service that is in between your most accessible and least accessible price points.
Step 5: Introduce high-value offers
Welcome to the top!
At this stage, you’ve already attracted new leads with an opt-in, offered a low-price product or service to give a taste of your value offering, and provided a mid-tier priced offer for the segment of your audience that wants to — and can afford to — go the extra mile.
Congratulations! Now you’ve reached the peak-priced premium offer of your creative business.
The top of the value ladder should represent your most valuable and highest-priced offer available.
Think one-on-one coaching, an intimate mentorship program, a live webinar, or an elaborate online course.
New to selling digital products? Get our free Digital Product Launch Checklist for tips to start on the right foot!
Value ladder examples
1. Juan Galán
Juan Galán, a seasoned marketer, transitioned from corporate roles to becoming a full-time Instagram creator and founder of IG Creator Academy. With over 10 years of marketing experience, he shares insights ranging from AI strategies for content creators to tips for crafting compelling IG captions.
Collaborating with The Leap, he created a free mini-course on planning digital products, emphasizing audience research and an MVP mindset.
Juan favors a free offer as a lead magnet. Alongside his free mini-course on The Leap, he offers many other entry-level digital products on his website such as an Instagram Growth Guide, free ChatGPT prompts, and a free “No BS Reels Guide for ‘Reel’ Success.” All these entry-level offers lead up to his high-value course and membership offers.
2. Laura Bitoiu
Laura Bitoiu, self-proclaimed “the only Instagram Reels expert,” is a standout content creator with a unique approach to Instagram Reels.
As a social media manager and consultant, Laura founded B Squared Social, a social media marketing agency specializing in Instagram Reels strategies. Leveraging her expertise, Laura provides educational content to her 114K Instagram audience, addressing the challenges of
Reels and offering tips on trends, ideas, and performance optimization.
Using The Leap’s AI-powered digital product builder, she created a comprehensive B Roll Library Guide, a valuable resource Laura offers for free as a lead magnet. This example showcases her strategic use of a value ladder marketing strategy to efficiently and effectively grow her email list.
Laura’s lead magnet guides potential customers to her higher-ticket value offers like, “The Reels Report,” her weekly subscription-based newsletter.
3. LaTisha Styles
LaTisha Styles (@latishastylestv) leveraged her expertise to make over $1M+, now she’s helping her followers do the same. As a branding and marketing consultant, writer, speaker, and founder of her own business, You’ve Got Clients, LaTisha helps online coaches increase their rates and profits by building effective marketing systems.
LaTisha’s strategic use of The Leap’s AI-powered tool culminated in a free mini-course, “Go Live to Get Clients,” which helped her enhance engagement among her audience and grow her newsletter list through a limited-time offer.
LaTisha’s free mini-course represents her entry-level offer. She also offers low-priced products like an annual goal planner for $55, or 14-day Manifestation Challenge for $22. Her mid-tiered offers include her 25K Digital Product Profit Blueprint, for $129.
LaTisha’s 1-on-1 Latte sessions are her version of one-on-one coaching and her highest value ladder offer, priced at $333 per session.
Climb the ladder with The Leap!
So you’ve been asking yourself for ages “What is a value ladder?” And now you know! That only means one thing: It’s time to climb.
Don’t worry, the ascent doesn’t have to be arduous. The Leap makes building a value ladder ridiculously easy.
Thanks to The Leap’s AI-powered digital product builder, you can create lead magnets and low- and mid-tier products — like mini-courses, guides, challenges, and tutorials — in record time. If you’re interested in selling high-ticket services like 1:1 consultations and coaching sessions, we have a tool for that too: Meet The Leap’s native calendar feature, Book My Time.
Want to experiment with upselling and cross-selling? No problem. With The Leap’s customizable all-in-one creator storefront, you can sell all your product offerings from one central place.
To optimize sales even further, check out The Leap’s Creator Analytics dashboard to better understand your store performance, product popularity, and overall marketing channel success. The Leap also has automated email marketing tools that work in the backend to complement your value ladder efforts by helping you convert leads into customers, fast.
The best part? The Leap is 100% free. Build the ultimate value ladder with The Leap. Try it for free today!
Create and sell digital products in minutes using The Leap!
FAQ
What is a value ladder?
A value ladder is a strategic progression of products or services, with each offering increasing value and price points to guide customers from entry-level to high-value offerings.
What are the benefits of having a value ladder for your online business?
A value ladder can enhance your online business as a creator by offering a structured pathway for customer progression. In short, it attracts a diverse audience with varying budgets, increases customer loyalty through a seamless customer journey of ascending value, and maximizes revenue potential.
How do I build a value ladder?
To build a value ladder, start with a core offering, then create progressively higher-value products or services. If you want to simplify the process, check out The Leap’s free AI-powered digital product builder, which makes it ridiculously simple to craft digital products as lead magnets or low- to mid-priced offerings to optimize your customer lifetime value.
Follow The Leap on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube for more monetization tips for creators. We also make a newsletter.
Further reading
- How To Build an Email List in 6 Easy Steps (+Free Mini-Course)
- 20 Ways To Grow Your Email List
- How To Sell Digital Products Online: A 6-Step Launch Checklist
- How To Make Passive Income Selling Digital Products
This article was originally published in November 2023, and updated in December 2024 with additional information.
