Nicole Lapin
Nicole Lapin, financial correspondent/news anchor, author, and entrepreneur, approached my former agency, Night Owls, to rebrand her outdated website and its convoluted content. Part of her rebrand was to produce and launch her upcoming eCourse, The Money School. The Money School, offer online tools and resources for customers seeking financial advice in an interactive and playful way for her target demographic.
Her new website would comprise of two parts—the public website and paid membership platform. The public website includes free resources (such as her financial dictionary, spending plan/budget sheet, and retirement calculator) and regularly added blog posts, categorized in three main topics—financial, career, and relationship advice. The paid membership platform that is only accessible to paid members, allows access to her eCourse, educational videos, guest lectures, and online quizzes (to assess learning score).
Tools
Memberium, Infusionsoft, Sketch, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, WordPress, Advanced Custom Fields (ACF)
Objectives
Although Lapin has been on national television for years teaching and consulting on financial and career advice, The Money School, was Lapin’s debut into the paid eCourse market. The objective of the place website and membership platform launch was to 1) increase the number of subscribers (both paying and non-paying) in order to 2) grow the brand awareness of Lapin’s rebrand and product.
Research Findings
Through stakeholder interviews and competitive analysis, several research findings (left) are listed below, alongside its corresponding design insight (right).
Competitive Analysis
Similar influencers to Lapin capture leads of interested customers through a series of email opt-in. They offer an incentive—usually immediate access to the first module, free promotional video, discount/promo code. Copywriting of call-to-action ensure "Instant" and "Free" access. The user gets to "test" the premium content, in return, the CRM software has captured their email address targeted marketing—with the goal to establish a relationship with the customer.
Solutions Overview
Tailored Communication
Infusionsoft allows for tags to be assigned (and unassigned) to the associated email address based on their interactions to monitor their level of intent/interest. Below is the client-side user flow that I created to illustrate where in the journey the leads are captured and how Lapin’s team should respond. Monitoring each subscriber’s behavior, Lapin’s team can nurture their potential customers with relevant information—no longer generic "Return to Your Cart" emails to someone who has already purchased.
For a product that revolves around personal and professional growth, development, and transformation, it’s vital that Lapin and her team maintain the trusting role mentorship. Once the subscriber’s intent can be monitored, emails can be targeted more appropriately.
Transparency of Content
As a new product in the market, the product’s efficacy and worth can be put into question. To maximize customer satisfaction, the contents of the eCourse was advertised as explicitly as possible—even previewing the portal itself.
As Obvious As Possible
There was no obvious indicator on the entire website that Lapin had newly launched an eCourse and was open for registration, let alone there were free training videos available. Slide-up/toggle-able banners were designed to inform visitors of The Money School, while minimizing annoyance, bounce rates, and friction.
Takeaways
This project involved strategy, design, and development of both the public website and the membership platform—with heavy reliance on Infusionsoft. As someone with no prior experience in any Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) software, understanding how the client would interact with their potential (and continued) subscribers was important for me to build the series of email opt-ins—banner, landing page, sales page. The client journey is just as important as the customer journey—they are both the user that I need to develop for.