From Market Insights to Financial Mastery with ET Learn

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Bootcamp

6 min readAug 22, 2023

Greetings fellow readers! As a Senior Product Designer at ET Markets, I’m thrilled to share a project that blended product & design innovation with financial education — introducing ET Learn.

About Me

I’m a Senior Product Designer at the Economic Times, and I’m really into creating practical products and understanding how businesses work. I’ve been working on lots of ideas for more than a year.

One of the first big things I did was to make the main product, ET Markets, even better. I added more features and improved how it feels for users, all while figuring out how to monetise it.

About ET Markets

ET Markets is like a hub in the Economic Times that’s all about money stuff. It’s where you can find news, data, and trends about money and markets. Whether you’re new to this money world or know your way around, ET Markets helps you understand what’s happening and make smart choices. I’ve been making it even better, so it’s easy for everyone to use and learn from.

It’s mission is to provide accessible and valuable insights to empower individuals in their financial journey.

During the course of this case study we will see how did we conceptualise ET Learn and later created it as a monetisation pillar for ET Markets.

Introduction

For the novice stepping into the realm of investments, the journey begins with ET Markets as a trusty companion. Imagine a curious individual, their ambitions aligned with venturing into the world of financial growth. Upon entering the portal, their eyes meet a tapestry of market insights, news, and data — a panorama of possibilities.

Journey of an average user on ET Markets

The key metrics underscore the success of subscription and advertising strategies in bolstering ET Markets’ monetisation initiatives.

Subscription Revenue Growth:

Introduction of subscriptions led to a 35% rise in premium sign-ups in six months.
Monthly subscription revenue increased by 20%, ensuring stable recurring income.

Advertising Revenue Enhancement:

Strategic ad placements boosted advertising revenue by 25%.
Premium content sections garnered a 50% surge in engagement, extending user sessions.

Problem Space

Research data unveiled a compelling trend: Users are eagerly embracing subscriptions for an enriched comprehension of stock markets.

The comprehensive learning framework has proven pivotal, prompting users to seek tailored investment strategies aligned with their individual investing preferences.

This insightful feedback emphasises the importance of providing a platform that caters to diverse investment styles, ensuring users can confidently navigate their unique paths within the complex landscape of financial markets.

Data from the primary and Secondary Research conducted

ICP for ET Learn: The Ideal Customer Profile captures the essence of a persona resembling the personality of someone deeply invested in the financial world and committed to continuous learning through platforms like ET Learn.

We wanted to improve two key business metrics through ET Learn:

User Engagement and Retention:

Metric: Increase in Average Time Spent on the Platform and Decrease in Churn Rate.
Rationale: Engaging users through valuable educational content from ET Learn can lead to longer sessions, increased interactions, and reduced churn rates. This metric signifies sustained user interest and loyalty, directly impacting the platform’s success.

2. Conversion Rate to Premium Services:

Metric: Improvement in the Percentage of Free Users Upgrading to Premium.
Rationale: Demonstrating the value of premium content through ET Learn can directly influence more users to opt for subscription-based offerings. This metric reflects the effectiveness of ET Learn in driving revenue generation and user commitment to advanced features.

Design process and challenges

I played a role in crafting the Markets design system using ET Learn. Every component of it needed lots of adjustments before fitting into the system. It was tough work, but the end result was worth it — we built a complete reusable component system that benefits the platform.
To design the cards for different categories such as: Live Courses and Webinars, I analysed products that effectively utilise design patterns such as tags and images. Although I also conducted a competitive analysis, there were no competitors with a similar feature for me to reference.
I made different versions of each flow and turned them into prototypes to see how well they worked. This helped me figure out which one worked best.

Home Screen: Once the user is onboarded the user gets to see multiple options and sections on the home screen such as:

Search and Filter
Popular Topics based on the category of investing
Upcoming Webinars
Value Preposition and Social Validation
Popular Live Classes
Exploration by categories
Upcoming Classes
Refer & Earn
Contact and Support

2. Anatomy of Cards: Since we have 2 different categories of inventory, we decided to have 2 different designs of cards, after multiple variations I was able to boil down my exploration the below two designs with their respective elements.

Webinar Cards: The style of image that these cards have necessarily were in Portrait orientation because these events were single speaker events and hence the design of the cards was so. Since we knew that the speakers did not have a cult so I added the designation of the speaker for quick decision making and to in still trust within a user.
Live Classes Cards: The style of image these cards had were in landscape orientation and also required to have multiple speakers with multiple days of event so the design was supposed to accomodate all possible use cases.

3. Search & Filter: While I wanted to give absolute control to the user for their choice of course discovery it was important for the product to have a Search and Filter option in the MVP itself where a user was enabled to find the classes of their wish immediately and later with data we could customise their feed even more precisely.

4. Course Detail Page: The Course Details Page holds a pivotal role within the ET Learn User Journey, serving as a linchpin for user engagement, education, and effective decision-making(conversion).

Figuring out the details the page would essentially have were:

Course Detail and Speaker
Takeaways
User’s Qualifications
Steps to Join
Expert Details with important metrics
Reviews & Ratings
FAQ’s

Impact and Influence on Business

Our newly designed feature ET Learn had a positive impact on the user experience as well as the revenue side of Business of ET Markets.

The potential business impact metrics that ET Learn would influence, along with realistic changes ET Markets expect:

Increase in Premium Subscription Adoption: ET Markets expect a 20–25% increase in premium subscription adoption within the first quarter after introducing ET Learn. This growth is achievable as users find added value in premium educational content and choose to upgrade for enhanced learning experiences.
Enhanced User Engagement and Retention: ET Learn targets a 15–20% increase in average session duration and a 10–12% reduction in churn rate over a six-month period. ET Learn’s engaging educational content contributes to longer user sessions and a greater sense of value, leading to improved retention.
Revenue Growth from Monetisation of Educational Content: We aim for a 30–35% increase in revenue from course enrollments within the first year of ET Learn’s implementation. By effectively pricing and promoting premium courses, ET Learn could drive higher participation and monetization of educational content.

You have reached the end!

From this journey, I’ve acquired the assurance to tackle any business challenge with inventive thinking and a deep understanding of the diverse factors involved in crafting an effective and user-friendly design that brings positive value to the business.