Ladder · B2C · strength training app
Make a separate ad and coach-led program for each type of lifter
Founder says it brings in users more likely to stick; no numbers
Workedpaid-socialpositioning-nicheonboarding
What they did
Defined granular personas, each served by a coach-led 'team' with its own workout style (e.g. Pilates-influenced at-home dumbbell training for women new to strength vs advanced gym-goers with full equipment). Each persona gets its own creative on social platforms. A pre-download quiz asks workouts per week, modalities, equipment and where they train, giving a real-time view of who is entering the funnel.
What happened
Speaking to the right persona before download brings users more likely to find long-term success; no figures.
- Stage
- growth
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · How to Use Segmentation to Maximize LTV — Greg Stewart, Ladder“Each one of those teams represents a unique persona, a unique workout style that we are speaking to directly in creative that's aimed at that particular audience.”
“we use the quiz, which we talked about in the last podcast, which collects a handful of questions to understand the fitness profile of a lead coming through, how many workouts they're doing, what modalities they like, what equipment they train with, where they want to work out.”
Related topics
Get tactics like this every Monday
New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
More from Ladder
All 21 Ladder tactics- Run a big yearly user survey and use AI to read the answers7,500+ responses in a year; led directly to the nutrition feature
- Let users log reps and weights, then suggest next weights and show their progress70-75% of users now log every workout; guest sees it correlate with retention
- Have coaches tell users to log their weights mid-workout, not in a help pageJournal use climbed to 70-75% of workouts; guest calls it 10x more effective than FAQs
- Send ad clicks to a web survey and flag likely payers to TikTok and InstagramWorking really well, host says, even with fuzzy web-to-install tracking
- Target serious runners with training plans that adapt after every runWon the race-training niche; later bought by Strava
- Read your five-star reviews to find the result users want, then target 3 workouts a weekBecame the goal the whole product is built around; no retention numbers given
More from this episode
- Ladder: Offer a 7-day free trial without asking for a credit cardUsers who finish one or two workouts convert at a very high rate
- Ladder: Aim every feature at getting new members to 3 workouts in week oneHitting it in week one makes month-one retention very likely
- Ladder: Nudge members to cheer on others so new trial users get lots of cheersCheers received correlated with workout completions and long-term retention
- Ladder: Test annual prices, lead the paywall with annual, and add annual-only featuresAnnual members now outnumber monthly; payback periods very tight
- Ladder: Pitch annual only to trial users who worked out; offer others a cheap first monthHelped make annual the majority plan; no split numbers
- Ladder: Offer non-converted trial users their first month for $5, then $29.99About half stay into month two at full price; consistent across cohorts
- Ladder: Run 6-week workout series and pitch discounts to past leads before each startsFounder says deals work best at these moments; no numbers