What is a product ladder? (And why you need one!)

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A big reason why people fail to make a really good income from digital products is because they fail to build a product ladder. But what exactly is a product ladder? And why do you need one?

One of the most striking statistics from the most recent Blogging Income Survey was the average RPM for bloggers who monetize mainly via digital products…

Bloggers who are mainly monetizing via digital products are earning OVER TEN TIMES as much as bloggers who are mainly monetizing via ads!

Average RPM based on main revenue stream X axis: Main revenue stream Y axis: Average RPM Ads $27.86 Affiliates $33.91 Sponsored Posts $50.20 Products $365.94 Services $117.75

But the truth is that $365.94 figure is just an average – not everyone who sells digital products achieves that level of success, and many people fail completely.

So what makes the difference?

The single product problem

One of the big reasons why people fail to make a really good income from digital products is because they only create one product.

If that product is a low ticket product, like an ebook, you need A LOT of sales every single month to make a decent income.

But if that product is a high ticket product, like a signature program, though you need far fewer sales to make a decent income, it’s really hard to sell ANY AT ALL because people just don’t trust you enough to part with that much money.

So how do you square this circle?

You need a product ladder!

What is a product ladder?

A product ladder is a series of products that takes your target audience step-by-step along a journey from just stumbling across your website, right up to the point where they trust you enough to buy your High Ticket Offer.

Here’s an example of what that might look like…

Free Product: A ‘lead magnet’ designed to turn casual website visitors into subscribers and give them a ‘quick win’.

Low Ticket Offer: A small product, like an ebook, that’s priced so low it doesn’t require much trust to get the sale.

Mid Price Offer: A slightly bigger, slightly more expensive product, like a mini course – this will give your customer bigger results and build more even more trust.

High Ticket Offer: This delivers the biggest results for your customers. However, it also has the biggest price tag. But because you’ve built up so much trust along the way, your customers will be willing to pay that price, because they know how much value they’ll get.

Why the product ladder works so well…

The hardest part of all of this is to get people to make the leap from non-customer to customer, which is why you price your Low Ticket Offer so attractively – to make it as friction-free as possible to make that leap. Once they’ve made that leap, it’s so much easier to sell them something more expensive.

If they give you a small amount of money and your product really exceeds their expectations and gives them a significant ‘win’, they will be much more likely to trust you with a larger amount of money.

It’s also easier for you. Creating a signature program, if you’ve never made a digital product before is a huge step… and a huge risk! If you get it wrong, that’s a lot of time and money you’ve wasted.

By starting small, with a Low Ticket Offer, it’s less daunting and much less of a risk for you. Better still, you can use the feedback you get from your Low Ticket Offer customers to help you understand your audience better and create BETTER higher ticket offers.

This makes the whole process much less risky, because you have a better understanding of what your audience truly wants (and is willing to pay for!) and proof that they actually are willing to buy from you.

AND, it makes success with your higher ticket products much more likely because you’ve gained that trust – and because it’s so much easier to sell to an existing customer, than a non-customer!

Need help building your product ladder?

Want to build your own product ladder, but unsure how to go about it or where to even start?

I have exactly what you need!

The Digital Product Success Academy

DPSA will take you step-by-step along the entire journey of building out your product ladder, from lead magnet to signature program.

The Digital Product Success Academy will also help with all the other things you need to do to build a thriving digital product based business, such as:

Market research
Creating products your audience are actually willing to pay for
Building high converting sales pages
Launching your products properly
Building an evergreen sales funnel
Doing digital product specific SEO
Growing your own personal authority
Harnessing the power of customer advocacy
Converting your traffic into red hot leads with high converting lead magnets and new subscriber nurture sequences

Basically, I’ve done all the hard work for you and come up with the perfect step-by-step plan to follow, so you can just follow my roadmap and focus on one thing at a time.

Plus, the DPSA has huge amounts of support, motivation and accountability BAKED IN and a supportive community of likeminded online business owners.

If this resonates with you and you’re ready to take your online business to the next level, click here to find out more!

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