Rude student requests + Dead courses

This is a two part question:

I have three Udemy courses. One quite successful, the other okay and a third crash course which is not doing well although it's on the same topic as the successful course.

1. Long story short, I shared 1000 free coupons in the crash course which is not getting any sales anyways. A couple of students sent me a direct message requesting free coupon codes to my other courses.

I don't know how to respond to that. Isn't that insanely rude?

I told one of the students that I am forbidden to share coupons directly (I contacted Udemy support about this) and he can get a coupon when I send one in a promotional e-mail. In addition I stated that I make a living from Udemy and I can only share paid coupons. I send the class a $9.99 coupon and no one used it.

Today I received another message from a student :

i don't have online payment method to buy your courses but i ask you if you can give me free coupon for this 2 courses
https://www.udemy.com/course/deep-dive-ios-16-swiftui-programming/

https://www.udemy.com/course/linear-algebra-problem-based/

Honestly I don't know who to respond to this rather rude request without losing it.

2. My second question is the following. What do you do with course that are "dead"? In other words courses that have completely vanished from the Udemy search and nobody signs up to them. As you can tell my new strategy is sending out free coupons on Facebook and reddit. They sign up for the "dead" course and then my plan is to send them an occasional promotional e-mail to try to get them to join the successful paid course. Any other recommended strategies for making the best from a course that has not been successful ?

Thanks !

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RonErez

As an aside. I wrote up a response and then asked ChatGPT to improve my response so that it be more respectful towards the student. I got an impressive message:

"

Hello,

Thank you for expressing interest in my courses. I appreciate your enthusiasm for learning. I understand your situation regarding online payment methods.

I will certainly look into the possibility of offering assistance. However, I need to inquire with Udemy regarding this matter, as my ability to provide free coupons is subject to their policies. It's important to mention that my livelihood is connected to Udemy, and I generally distribute coupons through official promotional channels.

I will reach out to Udemy's support to explore potential options. Please be aware that directly sharing coupons with students is against Udemy's rules, which I must respect to maintain a positive presence on the platform.

Thank you for your understanding, and I hope you enjoy the courses!

Best regards,
Ron"

MichaelPog

Look @RonErez
I totally hear you about how crappy it feels when someone is asking (or even demanding) you to work for free.
I've gotten some messages like that myself, and my response is always silence.

A student who's asking for a free course doesn't value your time at all and won't buy anything from you.

But you also need to realize that you devalued yourself and your content by providing those 1000 free coupons to a course.

From a student's perspective, why are you charging for another course if you gave that one for free?
Students don't understand the concepts of lead magnets or the fact that you are making a living off of this, and providing those free coupons is a way to get an audience and blah blah blah.

You gave them one thing for free they want more.
Don't obsess over it.
Ignore them and move on.
And don't give free coupons to random people.

RonErez

Thanks for the input. Indeed I also thought that giving out the course for free might have devalued the courses. Just experimenting since the course is turning no profit.

Like you said, perhaps I should just move on.