Up until now, any “promotion” your customers have done has been passive. But in the promotion stage, your customers actively spread the word about your brands, products, and services. They tell stories, make recommendations, and share your offers because they truly believe in them.

Active promotion may be an affiliate or commission relationship—or just a free offer for sending some new customers your way. The point is, it’s a win-win for both of you.

One thing worth mentioning before we dive in; Happy customers don’t promote, SUCCESSFUL customers do. 

Our biggest question in the Promote stage is: How are you going to turn your BEST customers into your marketing partners? 

If you don’t have a referral program, an affiliate program, or a valued reseller program … who is willing to drive your message to the organization you need to build out these programs? This is word of mouth marketing, and it is very important so start thinking about how you want to build this. 

Look to your most successful customers, they’re going to be the people who actively promote for you. But then, let’s think about our customers who already have our prospects but are offering a different product or service. 

At DigitalMarketer we are a training and certification company, we are not a services based company. What that means is we don’t compete with agencies or consultants. This also means that there is an opportunity for us to work with agencies and consultants. 

When we realized this we decided to launch our Certified Partner Program, which you can learn more about at DigitalMarketer.Com/Partner. This program lets us work with the largest segments of our customer base, who have customers that we want but they’re providing a solution that we’re not providing. 

When we train our customers, they are able to use our company frameworks to work with their clients. If their clients want to learn to do their marketing themselves? We’re the first education company they see.

So who is that for you? Remember, it’s not the happy clients that refer, it’s the successful clients. If you want to create more promoters, make sure that you’re doing everything that you can as a marketer to ensure that you’re marketing great products so you can see great results. 

How can our example companies accomplish this?

For Hazel & Hems, they can add an ambassador program to grow their instagram following and increase credibility with viral posts. 

Ambassadors can earn affiliate commissions, additional boutique reward points, and get the chance to build a greater following by leveraging the Hazel & Hems brand.

For Cyrus & Clark, they can offer discounted rates to their existing clients if those clients are willing to refer them to their strategic partners. 

For construction companies, this could be a home builder recommending Cyrus & Clark services to the landscapers, real estate developers, and interior designers that they work with to serve their customers.

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Happy customers love to share their experience, but sometimes they need some encouragement to do so. The cool thing is, once they do, they become even more loyal to your brand.

So, at this stage of the Customer Value Journey, ask people to share their positive experience with your brand by writing a review or sharing a social media post.

Once you get to stage seven, the Customer Value Journey is going to get a whole lot easier for you. This stage is all about learning your customer’s experience, and building up your testimonial database. 

The most important part of this step is asking these four questions. 

What Was Your Life Like Before Finding Our Solutions? What Challenges Were You Facing That Caused You to Consider Us? 

These questions are great not only because it gives you some really good stories, but because it gives you some insight on how you can provide similar prospects with that AHA moment. Understanding the average day of your clients is important in reflecting on your Customer Value Journey, and helps you understand what really set you apart from your competitors.

What Key Features Had the Biggest and/or Fastest Impact?

Not only is this going to get you to really specific stories, you will understand the specific things you provided that gave the biggest impact. The answers to these questions will not only give you great insight and testimonials, it will provide you with ideas for new lead magnets. This part is a new Entry Point Offer goldmine! 

What Has Been the Impact or Results in Your Life or Business Since Using Our Product or Service? 

This is a fairly broad question, and that’s why we put it after the others. You will have already gotten all of the specifics out of the way with #1 & #2. But when you ask this question, this is where you get the most valuable stories. You can use this part as testimonials, as an order form, as a sales page, this part is testimonial gold. 

If You Were Asked to Justify this Purchase to Your Boss or a Friend, What Would You Say? 

This is our favorite question by far. If you had to go back in time and justify this purchase, what would you say? I promise you what we’re going to find is a lot of great ideas for the jobs that your product or service has done. You’ll get a lot of great ideas for your core message canvas. This question is about backfilling all of the assets that you may not have. Here you’re going directly to the customer who are already happy, and using their justifications to help you sell to new customers. 

Hopefully you now understand just how valuable the Advocate stage could be, as well as the key questions you need to ask to get your customers talking. Here’s how it works for our example companies.

When it comes to fashion we all love to show off our outfits. So a good example for Hazel & Hems would be to have customers write reviews for a discount code or points towards their next purchase. 

Better yet, follow up with the customers to ask them to share and tag themselves wearing the items in a social media post and providing them with something valuable as a reward.

For Cyrus & Clark Media, hopping on zoom meetings or a streaming service for live talks about them and their business could generate valuable awareness for them, and a live case study for the agency. They can use the questions Ryan provided during this lesson to conduct the interview.

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At this stage, your goal is to generate repeat buys and real profits. While your entry-point offer was designed for conversions, your ascension offers should be geared for profits—because if you’re serving your customers well, they’ll want to buy again and again.

Ascension offers may be simple upsells made after that initial purchase… bigger, better solutions… or “done for you” add-ons.

So now we must ask ourselves, what is our core flagship offer and how do we continue to deliver value after the first sale is made? What is the thing that we are selling? 

How we continue to deliver value after the first sale is really important, because having upsells and cross sales gives you the ability to sell to customers you already have. It will give you higher Average Customer values, which is going to give you higher margins. Which means you can spend more to acquire new customers. 

Why does this matter? It matters because of this universal law of marketing and customer acquisition, he or she who is able and willing to spend the most to acquire a customer wins.

Very often the business with the best product messaging very often is the business that can throw the most into customer acquisition. Now there are two ways to do that.

The first way is to just raise a lot of money. The problem is if you have a lot of money, that doesn’t last forever. At some point you need economics. 

The second way, and the most timeless and predictable approach, is to simply have the highest value customers of anyone in your market. If your customers are worth more to you than they are to your competitors, you can spend more to acquire them at the same margin. 

If a customer is worth twice as much to you than it is to your competitor, you can spend twice as much trying to acquire them to make the same margin. You can invest in your customer acquisition, because your customers are investing in your business. You can invest in your customer experiences, and when we invest more into the customer we build brands that have greater value. Meaning, people are more likely to choose you over someone else, which can actually lower acquisition costs. 

Happy customers refer others to us, which is called zero dollar customer acquisition, and generally just ensures you’re making a bigger impact. You can invest more in the customer experience and customer acquisition process if you don’t have high margins. 

If you deliver a preview experience, you can utilize revenue maximizers like up sells, cross sales, and bundles. These are things that would follow up the initial sale or are combined with the initial sale to increase the Average Customer Value.

The best example of an immediate upsell is the classic McDonalds, “would you like fries with that?” You got just a burger, do you also want fries with that? 

What distinguishes an upsell from other types of follow up offers is the upsell promise, the same end result for a bigger and better end result. 

What’s your desired result when you go to McDonalds? It’s not to eat healthy food, and it’s not even to eat a small amount of food. When you go to McDonalds your job is to have a tasty, greasy, predictable inexpensive meal. No one is going there because it’s healthy, you’re going there because you want to eat good. 

It’s predictable. It’s not going to break the bank for a hamburger, neither will adding fries or a Coke. It’s the same experience, but it’s BIGGER and BETTER. 

Amazon does this all of the time with their “Customers Who Bought This Also Bought …” But this one is algorithmic. The point of a cross sell is that it is relevant to the consumer, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be aligned with the original purchase. What you don’t want to do is start someone down one path and confuse them.

You can make this process easy with Bundles and Kits. With a bundle or a kit you’re essentially saying to someone, “you can buy just one piece, or you can get this bundle that does all of these other things for a little bit more. And it’s a higher value.”

The idea behind bundles and kits is that we are adding to the primary offer, not offering them something different. We’re simply promising to get them this desired result in higher definition. 

The Elements of High-Converting Revenue Maximizers (like our bundles and kits) are:

1. Speed

If you’re an e-Commerce business, selling a physical product, this can look like: offering free shipping for orders $X or more. We’re looking to get your customers the same desired result, but with less work for them.

2. Automation

If you’re a furniture business, and you want to add a Revenue Maximizer, this can look like: Right now for an extra $X our highly trained employees will come and put this together for you. 

3. Access 

People will pay for speed, they’ll pay for less work, but they will also pay for a look behind the curtain. Think about the people who pay for Backstage Passes. Your customers will pay for a VIP experience just so they can kind of see how everything works. 

Remember, the ascension stage doesn’t have to stop. Once you have a customer, you should do your best to make them a customer for life. You should continue serving them. Continue asking them, “what needs are we still not meeting” and seek to meet those needs. 

It is your job as a marketer to seek out to discover these needs, to bring these back to the product team, because that’s what’s going to enable you to fully maximize the average customer value. Which is going to enable you to have a whole lot more to spend to acquire those customers and make your job a whole lot easier. 

Now that you understand the importance of the ascend stage, let’s apply it to our examples.

Hazel & Hem could have free priority shipping over $150, a “Boutique Points” reward program with exclusive “double point” days to encourage spending, and an exclusive “Stylist Package” that includes a full outfit custom selected for the customer. 

Cyrus & Clark can retain current clients by offering an annual strategic plan, “Done for You” Marketing services that execute on the strategic plan, and the top tier would allow customers to be the exclusive company that Cyrus & Clark services in specific geographical territories.

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Buying generates warm fuzzies. It’s a scientific fact. The dopamine from a new purchase gets people excited—which is why the fifth stage of the Customer Journey is to build on that excitement.

How do you do that? By giving your new customer a memorable experience.

Consider offering a quick-start guide… bonus features that surprise and delight… quick wins… any content that makes your new customers happy.

What we talk a lot about in the Excite stage is “The AHA Moment.” The AHA Moment is when you’ve been talking to a prospect and something that you said made their eyes light up. 

If it’s a piece of software, there’s a moment in the demo when the value just rushes in and they go, “oh yeah, I know what it is” and that’s a huge deal. 

It’s critical that we discover what that aha moment is for your business, so that we can build marketing and follow up to engineer towards that moment. 

Defined by Ryan Deiss, the AHA moment is when the true core value clicks with a customer. Transforming your product from a “nice to have” into a “must have NOW.” The AHA Moment is a combination of relating to feelings and emotions. When you have wonder combined with understanding, you have the AHA. 

But the AHA moment is just a simple magic trick, people are amazed and impressed, but they’re not necessarily motivated to move forward. Next we need to answer the questions that people are asking, that’s how we get our client’s understanding. 

When Twitter first got started they found that before someone could begin to see the value of Twitter, they needed to follow 30 people. The brand was starting to take shape, there was a kind of viral loop taking place by looking at other people’s tweets. 

The subscribe stage was when they registered, set up the account, and started using. But what they realized is that if they couldn’t get someone to follow 30 people they would bail. So they engineered the follow up, getting people to follow 30 accounts, that’s where they had their AHA Moment. 

The best example of this by far is Tesla. If you have a Tesla, or have ridden in a Tesla, you know that these are very fast cars. Tesla owners will never forget the test drive.

If we go back to Tesla’s customer journey, first thing we know off the bat is that they have brand positioning perfected. A lot of their marketing is in fact word of mouth, where this is happening engagement happens. All people have to do is go online, sign up (the subscribe stage) and do a test drive (the convert stage). Then, during the test drive, the AHA Moment happens. 

This is how Ryan Deiss’ Tesla test drive went:

“I’ll tell you how it happened for me. So the test drive started out like any other test drive. You get the car sales person next to you, a little weird, you’re in a car you don’t fully understand and a total stranger is sitting next to you judging your bad driving. So we’re driving around, and I’m like okay this is pretty good. I pretty much made up my decision that I’m going to buy the car. 

So I’m like, alright great let’s head back. The salesman is like “okay, but before we can head back you have to do a launch.” I asked what you’re all thinking, what’s a launch? He said you’re about to find out. 

So he took me back around to this back street where there weren’t any other cars, and said “okay the coast is clear … I want you to come to a complete stop, and then I want you to floor it.” You’re not supposed to do that in a car … but apparently in this one you are. 

I felt what 0-60 in 1.9 seconds could feel like. It was incredible. When we were done the salesman said “pretty cool, huh? Kind of like having your own rollercoaster isn’t it?” Boom, the AHA moment. In that split second I experienced the AHA, this wasn’t just a car it was my very own rollercoaster.”

So for Tesla, the AHA Moment is “The Launch.” 

What is your Launch? What is your first 30 followers? 

Let’s build some excitement for our example companies.

When a customer purchases an item, Hazel & Hems follows up with an email that thanks them for their order. 

They then go the extra mile by informing the new customer about their rewards program, and shows them that they have earned 100 points towards future product purchases.

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The conversion stage is all about an entry-point offer.

In other words, we need the prospect to make a micro-commitment. The best way to do that is through a high-value, low-risk offer that lets them sample your wares without putting too much skin in the game.

Out of all of the stages, we truly believe that this one is the most critical. It’s also the one that marketers have the biggest difficulty with because it is by design a bit of a hybrid stage.

They’re not customers yet, but they’re not merely prospects. A lot of that ambiguity is why it works. We need a way to progress the relationship in a timely, appropriate, and sequential manner. 

How can we get our prospects to make a micro commitment that gives us the opportunity to deliver the aha moment? How do we get our prospects to meet us for coffee? 

The two methods of commitment that we as humans recognize is: Time and Money. The time on our calendars and the money in our wallets. 

Lets brainstorm some Entry Point Offers (what we call the deliverables at the convert stage, because this is the offer that you’re making at the entry point of the relationship.) We’re not looking to propose marriage on the first date we’re simply looking to meet for coffee, a micro commitment. 

The question we’re asking here is: What is something that your ideal prospect would only buy or register for if they had a very specific problem or challenge that you could solve? 

The most obvious answer here is giving a demonstration. If anyone registers for a demo then they recognize that they have a problem that you could potentially solve.

If you are a software company a demo is a great entry point offer. But let’s think about another way. What’s the kind of thing that if someone purchased you would know they were interested? 

For example, we once had ownership in one of the largest survival and preparedness communities on planet earth which also had an e-Commerce store. Our store sold all kinds of different items from water purifiers to fire starters and flashlights, and things like that. We found that not all of these products would necessarily suggest that someone was interested in survival and preparedness. 

For years our entry point offer was a very simple fire starter, a tool that could start fire even when wet. This entry point offer was very effective, but it wasn’t converting as high as we expected. Next up we tried a flashlight. 

Our flashlight offer exploded, sales went crazy, we sold out of these items. But no one who bought the flashlight was ascending into any of our other survival and preparedness offerings. What we found is that a flashlight is a very poor indicator that someone has a specific problem we can solve. The reality is that everyone would like a flashlight, regardless of their pains and problems, and doesn’t necessarily qualify them as a customer. 

We then went back to our firestarter. It didn’t sell as quickly as our flashlight, but it delivered a much higher quality of customer. Remember, only the people who have a specific problem or challenge that we can solve are the people interested in purchasing from us. 

What is your fire starter? What is the thing that only your ideal customer, if they saw it, would be interested in and everyone else would just pass it by? 

To do this for Hazel & Hem Boutique, you just need to offer a low-cost item to get them involved in the brand. In this instance, we’ll have them offer one of their most popular bracelets for only $10 if you’re a first time customer.

For Cyrus & Clark’s Media agency, once the trust has been established through the subscribe stage, it’s time to show your prospects what you can do. They’ll offer their $5,000 90-Day Strategic Plan for just $500. $500 may sound like a lot for an entry point offer, but it’s appropriate if the average target avatar is generating millions in sales. 

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When someone likes their experience with your brand, trust begins to build. Once that happens, it’s time to ask for a small commitment— gathering contact information and permission to connect.

There’s just one problem. Today, people are careful about giving out their email address. You have to offer something valuable that makes it worth their while. 

The question we ask ourselves at the Subscribe stage is, “What valuable chunk of content can we offer in exchange for a prospect’s contact information and permission to follow up with them?” 

Some things you might leverage to build your email list are

1. A Downloadable Report or a White Paper. 
2. A Tool Template Checklist 
3. A Downloadable PDF (one of our best converting lead magnets of all time is our Facebook Ad Swipe File, its just a list of all of the different Facebook ads we have run in the past.)
4. Quiz Surveys (like our “What Type of Marketer Are You?” quiz.)
5. Webinars and Consulting Sessions 
6. Discount and Coupon Codes (for e-Commerce)

If you look around you’ll see these all over the place. Mortgage companies use Mortgage Calculators, Scalable (our sister company) uses our “Seven Levels to Scale” which is our primary lead magnet. 

All of these can be used as a value to get somebody to give you their contact information. So what do you use? What is your lead?

How could Hazel & Hems or Cyrus & Clark apply the subscription stage to their business?

For Hazel & Hems Boutique, a great way to get customers to subscribe is to offer exclusive discounts, products, and promotions that require subscription. Another method may be to host a weekly giveaway of a small item that requires subscription to be on the list.

For Cyrus & Clark Media, subscription to an exclusive email list that contains “secret” marketing methods for the Construction industry, combined with a piece of gated content such as a downloable asset called “10 Mistakes That Prevent Your Construction Company Growth” could be effective tools for the Subscription Stage.

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