Storytelling ft. Terribly Tiny Tales

Vision and Mission

Vision: Traditional 9-5 jobs are losing their charm. People are opting for jobs that pay more, involve creativity & have scope for personal growth. 

TTT Academy aims to offer India’s best content learning courses -- to be a bridge between talent and industry. 

To enable young creators to Upskill. Monetize. Grow. 

Mission Statement: There are not enough storytellers in the world. But there is a growing need for people seeking connection through stories. To bridge the gap, and to disrupt the typical 9-5 job scenes, TTT Academy is here to teach you all about how to write/design that sells. 

Creators are not able to tell their stories well. The stories are not convincing enough.

Enter - TTT Academy to change the way people tell their stories by writing and design.

Ideal Users

Who are TTT Academy’s ideal users?

1. Wants to freelance writing as a part-time thing.

2. Wants to upskill to perform better in their current role

3. People wanting a career in Social Media Marketing, Content Writing, Creative Writing

4. Who wants to learn just for fun to create their presence on Social Media - aspire to be an influencer

5. A startup founder who wants to build a following to create their brand to help grow the company

6. Journalists, Marketers, Editors

The common theme around all the personas: wants to excel through storytelling

This ideal user can be more refined by understanding the demographics of the users coming on the platform, users who are buying the course, and their purpose for buying the course.

ACB and DCB

Actual Customer Behaviour (ACB):

They want to write online, but something’s keeping them from publishing online or forming a habit of writing. Lack confidence in their writing. Some of them could be:

They have limited knowledge: They might feel they lack the skills to write compelling content.

Career goals: They could be aiming to launch a freelance writing career, improve their writing for their current job, or build a strong online presence.

Struggle with content: They might be frustrated with writer's block, unclear on storytelling principles, or unsure how to tailor content to specific audiences.

They look for free resources first: They might try to learn the basics through free articles, blog posts, or YouTube videos before committing to a paid course.

Desired Customer Behaviour (DCB):

Recognizes knowledge gaps: Ideally, your target audience readily identifies their need for professional content writing skills.

Proactive approach: They actively seek out content writing courses instead of relying solely on free resources.

Investment mindset: They understand the value of a quality course and are willing to invest in their learning.

Course research: They thoroughly research different courses, comparing curriculum, instructors, and student outcomes.

Action-oriented: They readily take action by enrolling in the course and actively participate in the learning process.

Community engagement: They engage with the course community, ask questions, and participate in discussions.

Positive testimonials: After completing the course, they become satisfied customers who leave positive reviews and testimonials.

TTT Academy enables them to learn storytelling and upskill, monetize, and grow with their courses.

How? 

Set deadlines → continuous publishing of work online for all the assignments they do → continuous feedback loop so they learn and perform better in the next assignment → creation of portfolio so people can see their work → all these activities to help them build confidence → a career in their chosen field as the final outcome

And to make TTT academy as the go-to course to learn storytelling, every piece of content should help reiterate TTT’s mission. 

Here are some strategies to bridge the gap between how people typically behave and what you'd like them to do on the website:

1. Highlight knowledge gaps: Craft content that exposes potential customers' lack of writing skills and the negative consequences (missed conversions, low engagement etc.).

1. Showcase course benefits: Demonstrate how your course addresses their specific needs and career goals.

1. Offer free valuable content: Provide high-quality free resources like cheat sheets, templates, or introductory video lessons to establish trust and your expertise.

1. Address price concerns: Offer flexible payment options, scholarships, or early bird discounts to make the course more accessible.

1. Showcase social proof: Feature positive testimonials, student success stories, and case studies to build trust and credibility.

1. Build a community: Create a vibrant online community or forum where potential and existing students can network and ask questions.

#1 Metric: Engagement

1. Average Engagement Time is only 20s.

The average engagement time of the entire website is only 20 seconds from July 2023 to March 2024. According to this source, a good engagement time is 49 seconds.

Now, when dug deep, 

• The course “Writing That Sells Pro” has the most sessions and has an average engagement time of only 4 seconds. 

2. User Activity Over Time Declining:

User activity over time is declining. We used to average at ~6000 users for one day. Whereas now, we get ~2500 users for one day which is more than a 50% drop in user activity.

• User activity is defined as the number of people interacting with the website in a meaningful way. 

  
  
  
  
  
  

The number of people landing on the “Writing that Sells Pro” page is decreasing.

Stickiness between 1 July 2024 to 10 March 2024 is quite low.

How User Stickiness is Calculated: (DAU/MAU)*100.

The industry standard that denotes a healthy user stickiness number is more than 20%. 

Possible reasons: 

• There is a misalignment between what users expect and what they find on the page. There is no hook to attract and retain them to scroll further along the page

• A possible assumption of a low engagement time is also because of the “Register for the Test popup” that makes them exit the page without looking further. 

Engagement based on devices

The average engagement time for a Desktop user is 6m 29 s whereas for a mobile user, it is only 13 seconds

Conversions based on devices

More than 90% of the users coming on the Website are Mobile Users.

It is evident that because the engagement time on a Desktop is much higher compared to a Mobile and hence the initiate checkout %age of a Desktop is 5 times higher than that of a Mobile.

Click on this link to see this in real time.

What Can We Do to Solve This? 

We have to add value to the website to make the users engaged and build credibility so we can become the “Go-to Place” for anything related to Storytelling Through Writing and Design.

To achieve this, some proposed solutions could be: 

• Creating Hub YouTube Videos (Informational Videos that add value)

• Revamping the Website and Fixing the Architecture of the Website

• Introducing Blogs and Including Them on the Navigation

• Working on improving the Mobile version of the website. (Have a mobile-first approach).

MS Clarity data also says that many users tried to contact TTT Academy by using the Contact Us Link on the website’s footer. On desktop, the link opens a new tab and that’s it. And on mobile, the link takes the user to their default Email Platform (Gmail) and asks the user to write the mail. This is a sales friction that doesn’t let the user contact TTT Academy and the user exits the website without taking the desired action. 

To solve this, we can introduce a chatbot that readily answers all the doubts a user can have. And sends emails or tickets on behalf of the user to the TTT team. This will reduce a lot of friction in contacting the TTT team.

#2 Metric: Conversion

The drop-off %age between the users exploring the courses and initiating the checkout process is more than 98%.

Decoding the screenshot: 

When we move from the stage “Landing Page View” to “Initiate Checkout”, we notice that only 1.7% users have moved to Stage 2 “Initial Checkout”. And 98.3% of users drop off from the website without taking any action. 

To get a clearer view, here’s the table that shows the number of users at each stage: 

This means that 98.5% of people are dropping off right at the start of visiting TTT Academy’s website. Whereas, the Industry Standard Cart Abandonment Rate is 75.9% (as the picture below shows).

Difficulty in making the decision

As per the above screenshots, the event count per user for the event “Initiate Checkout Pro” is 3.73,

I.e. 2809 users triggered the event 10,440 times between 6 Jan and 9 Mar. The same metric is 2.54 between 1 July 2023 to 6 March 2024.This means that the users are finding it difficult to decide whether to buy the course or not and eventually drop it off.

All of these data point toward one thing: The website lacks resources that can help the users stay on the website, come back to the website, and consider TTT to learn writing.

So far, the website only pushes the user to convert by: 

1. showing constant pop-ups for taking the test to unlock rewards that are discounts that can help them login to the learn platform 

2. and buy the course by redeeming the discounts on the platform. 

Other than this, there is no other reason to come back to the TTT Academy Website if one is not ready to buy.

So, In Turn: 

1. We Need a Better Onboarding Experience on the Website

2. We Need a Strategy to Retain Our Users and Eventually Convert Them to Customers

How? 

• Retargeting ads

• Email Marketing

• Constant Value Add (For eg. Newsletters)

• Website Revamp to Add Credibility

• Fixing the Website’s Navigation

• YouTube Videos

• Blogs 

• Live Session

And a taste of the product before trial - like a freemium model where1.  When the user is logged in, then unlock 1st module and keep the other Modules locked.

2. A CV building program or steps to improve the CV.

3. A Portfolio Template

4. A good CV Template.

#3 Metric: Retention

The Retention percentage of User Activity by Cohort is as low as 1.3% on Week 2 for the same sample set of users. And by week 5, only 0.3% of users come back to the website. 

A gold cohort retention benchmark is 50% retention by week 4, according to Quora as the screenshot below shows:

How to retain customers? Adding constant value to the Learn platform will retain the customers.

For eg:- 

1. Peer Reviews: Since it's a writing/design course, the evaluation of a piece is subjective. Therefore, having multiple people reviewing and sharing feedback will allow the learners to learn fast and help in community building.

2. The customers should be able to directly share their work on social links which will help the learners and also help in brand building.

3. Streaks, Progress Bars, and Leaderboards are also some of the features that can improve the product and lead to higher retention.

4. Notifications to the users will bring the user back to the platform (For eg when someone reviewed their work or left a comment)

5. Expert Feedback Sessions

6. Personalised Job Portal and also unlocking the Job Portal when the customer completes “X” weeks.

Gamifying the learning process will help retain the customers.

#4 Metric: Acquisition

There is a correlation between Source Direct and Writing That Sells Pro, where both the numbers are decreasing.

The above screenshots show that the users coming from the Direct Source have been declining since Jan 2024, and at the same time, so have the users coming on the “Writing that Sells Pro” page.

There is a clear correlation between the Direct source of traffic and “Writing that sells Pro”.As the number of users coming via Direct sources decreases, the number of users coming on the website is also decreasing.Currently, the top traffic source is “Organic Social”.

The exact reason for this can only be understood by talking with the marketing team and understanding the internal processes and where they attribute to “Source Direct”.However, on the surface, it also points towards a decline in the users buying the “Writing that Sells Pro course”

The Current Flow from registering for the free test to enrolling for the course involves a lot of repetitive steps.

1 Nov to 10 March:

The %age of people registering for the test is quite low.

Solution: Improve Discoverability.

According to the screenshots above, the funnel from acquisition to registration for the test narrows down steeply with only a handful number of people registering for the test, and eventually even smaller number of people submit the test to access the rewards step. 

The current user flow of users taking the test: 

• Step 1:  Landing on the website

• Step 2:  Register for the Evaluation Popup appears

• Step 3:  The user Registers for the free test

• Step 4:  The user submits their details 

• Step 5:  The user is taken to the Evaluation Page

• Step 6:  Users take the test

• Step 7:  Users submit the test

• Step 8:  The result appears and a new CTA to access rewards.

• Step 9:  Users click on “Access Rewards” and they’re shown the screen that has the three discount coupons

• Step 10: When the user clicks on “Redeem Now” for the coupon, they’re asked to log in via OTP

• Step 11: The user then logs in using his phone number/email address

• Step 12: They are finally taken to the rewards page inside the login portal

There are 12 steps involved in the whole process which is a lot and full of friction.

Some Problems: 

1. The user may fill incorrect email address/phone number and not receive the OTP while trying to redeem the coupon. This will lead to drop-offs.

2. The user has to fill in their information to take the free test before they even go through the website which leads to poor leads.

3. The user is asked to fill in the same details 3 times which adds unnecessary friction in the process and eventually leads to people dropping off.

4. The test’s copy says that the test will help the user find the right course for them and the test’s rewards are discount coupons and not the right course they can choose. This creates an expectation mismatch.

Links to the recordings showing drop-offs and frustrations: 

• 1. https://clarity.microsoft.com/shared/recording/df566933-f506-475d-9a2d-6d3b1ec9d556

• 2. https://clarity.microsoft.com/shared/recording/ee5a3ec9-9a96-42fd-a07c-386c51f19037

To summarize the above recordings, it can be seen that as soon as the user lands on the course page. The popup to register for the test appears and the users are trying to close the popup.

However, the users teh are not able to close the popup because 

1. The cross button is not responding

2. Or the cross button is not properly visible. 

And hence, the users dropped off. 

Ideal Process:

1. The user should be asked for the information once and ideally before they take the test. This way, they’re verified and they don’t fill in incorrect details.

2. Change the copy “Take a free test” → Unlock discounts

Suggested copy for the test: Help us Help you pick the right course and unlock exciting discounts

CTA Button: Start Now

Popup: 

1. For Desktop: 

• should appear after 25 seconds and 

• when the user is moving their cursor near the exit button

• the cross button of the popup to be more visible

1. For Mobile: 

• the popup should disappear when someone clicks anywhere outside the popup

• the cross button of the popup to be more visible

Success Metric: 

1. The number of people registering for the test should go up

2. The number of people submitting the test should go up

3. The number of people redeeming the coupons should go up

4. People enrolling in the course via the coupons should go up

What type of questions should be asked in the evaluation test to help them pick the right course?

1. What according to you is the best way of storytelling?

1. Design

2. Writing

3. Both

2. Do you have any professional experience in Writing or Designing?

1. Yes, I have some in Writing

2. Yes, I have some in Designing

3. I have experience in both

4. None of the above.

… and more.

Idea For a Better Course Experience: 

One Way to Make Students Stay on the WebApp (Later Mobile App) is To Make Learning How to Write Fun. How? 1. Daily Challenges to Gamify the Learning Process and Create a Reward System

2. Given a piece of long text, say 100 words, and ask them to summarize it in less than 10 words.

3. Find a brand, tweet about it, Moment Marketing, etc.

4. Let people upvote it and let them rate it on the app’s feed. This way we are learning (functional), feeling excited and good about it (emotional), and getting recognition from our peers and the community (social).The most upvoted post will be shared on TTT’s Insta Channel. (Social recognition and also acquiring more users via social).

The Product-Led growth model for scaling.