Newbie

I just submitted my 1st course. I offered it for free in hopes to attract new people. I plan to have several courses out ASAP. Any helpful tips for me being the "Udemy Newbie" that I am? :-)

Comments

  • Well, that doesn't make me too happy. lol. I was reading many comments from others, and I read in a few places that they said to offer my first class for free to gain more students. Too bad. But yes, lesson learned.

    I'm hoping to have my next course up and ready to go in the next week and a half. Thanks so much for your feed back.

    I do have a question, how do I know how much to offer a course for?

  • @CarrieFernandez
    ,

    Yeah, I'm sorry to be the harbinger of bad news, but instructors were probably discussing releasing their courses for free via coupons. If not, we need to find the source of the information you found a expunge it! All the discussions I'm involved in espouse skipping free courses and using free coupons instead.

    This is my $0.02 on course pricing:

    Price your courses at $199.99. You will never sell your course at $199.99. Instead, most of the time you'll sell your course on Udemy sell for $10.99-$12.99. When pricing coupons, make them $9.99, the least you can price a coupon code. You will still get approximately $9.70 per sale (97% of the sale for instructor coupon sales).

    If you price your course at $199.99 you will be the greatest marked down course when it ultimately sells for $9.99-$12.99. I make about $5.00 per sale on average across Udemy sales and my promotions.

    In summary:

    Organic Sale: Udemy 50%, You 50%

    Udemy Ad Sale: Udemy 75%, You 25%

    Instructor Pomotional Sale: Udemy 3%, You 97%

    Affiliate Sale: Udemy 50%, You 25%, Affiliate 25%

    The primary way to advertise your promotional coupons is via Udemy promotional announcements, that's why you don't want to risk losing them.

    Hope this helps. Keep asking questions if you still have questions.

    ---Brian

  • Wow, lots of great info. More than I've read anywhere else so far. So thank you. Much of this is a little confusing since I'm just getting started. I'm not new to teaching, just new to teaching on udemy. It has ALOT that I need to get organized with.

    So when I get my next course out and ready to go (hopefully within 2 weeks), I think I'll offer it for the $199.99? Which will ultimately sell for $9.99-$12.99?! And of course I will plan to do the Instructional promotional sale too. I'm assuming this is where I can sell my course via coupons to my own following?

    Since I offered my last course for free, I didn't have to go through the whole pricing page. I'm hoping when I do, that it will be more clear. I've read how other instructors accidentally let Udemy promote their courses, and they didn't opt in for the coupons so they missed out on that extra money when their own following purchased the course. I certainly don't want to do that.

    Again, thank you for your responses! Much appreciated!

  • Thank you for all the feed back. It's very helpful!

  • @CarrieFernandez
    ,

    I guess @LawrenceMMiller
    and I are destined to disaggree. But then that's healthy if you can interpret each argument and turn it into your personal promotion strategy.

    I recorded my first 10 Udemy courses in 10 weeks. I didn't take my time. They weren't the best courses that I was destined to produce, but they certainly started to make me money fast. And the more I produced the more I learned. Fast! I would counter that taking your time is one of the worst things you could do. Produce as many courses as you can as fast as you can to dominate each nitch you're after.

    @LawrenceMMiller
    and I agree that you need to plan your course creation based on your niche competitors. Course length and quantity will be driven by what you need to do to compete in your niche.

    As far as free courses, student enrollment numbers matter a lot! Students are much more likely to enroll in a course that has 1,000 students than one that has 2 or 3. Additionally, contrary to what other instructors might say, I've gotten good reviews from appreciative students that have enrolled in my course for free. If I were you, I would advertise a free coupon on BestBlackHatForum to get 1,000 students in a few days and hope that those enrollments turn into positive reviews. If not, review your student completion records for students who have completed your course but not left a review and send them a Udemy message asking for an honest review. I think you'll find that your course does much better with 1,000 students and some reviews.

    I thought that pricing would be the simplest issue: be the greatest marketed down course in your niche by initially being the most expensive. Length of your course is another issue that shouldn't be confused with this one. Again, be the greatest marketed down course in your niche: the simplest way to do this is price your course at $199.99.

    Though it adds to the confusion, having such a debate does show you multiple options to choose from in building your own course marketing strategy.

    Hope this helps,

    ---Brian

  • Well, thank you so much! I really have a lot to figure out. Thank you so much for your time.

  • @CarrieFernandez
    ,

    And I guess I disagree with @GregReverdiau
    as well.

    First, I'm impressed that @GregReverdiau
    seems to know the Udemy search result algorithm. Please publish it as soon as possible.

    In my own experience the Udemy search result algorithm changes often and your search results can vary (unless Udemy's experimenting) based on something as slight as how often you update your course.

    Alright, so I get a thousand students via BBHF, after I've had some promotional sales for the next course, instead of a handful via FB -- thanks for supporting the point that FB advertising is useless?

    Finally, I agree with monitoring your student completion records and sending encouraging messages to you students motivate them to keep going or to leave a review in the end. In fact, I originally posted the concept on the old FB group and have repeated it here many time. I'd just rather try to get my first few reviews from a pool of 1,000 rather than a handful.

    ---Brian

    Finally, have you ever tried giving away thousands of free coupons? Then how can you be so certain it's not the way to go?

  • GregReverdiau
    GregReverdiau Posts: 791 rolemodel rank

    @
    , I usually don't state things unless I have something to back it up, my area of expertise is based on that exact principle... With that said, it has been mentioned numerous times by Udemy staff that the algorithm favorises courses that have more student involvement. Are there more factors? You bet!

    Regarding handing out thousands of coupons for free, I have not, for several reasons. The main one is because I listen to people smarter and more successful than myself who have done it and do not recommend it. As far as results? My courses have an almost 1:3 ratio of reviews/student, a 4.76 instructor rating, and about .1% of my students are free students.

    As far as FB advertising, I ran some numbers and didn't think it was a good ROI so I would agree that it is not efficient.

  • @GregReverdiau
    ,

    We might just need to agree to disagree... after I've had the last word ;-)

    1) So you're saying that course enrollment numbers are not considered in the Udemy algorithm that determines search result order. Again, if you indeed have this knowledge, please share the Udemy algoritm with the rest of us ASAP!

    2) Please provide details on the Udemy experts that suggested you would be better able to get reviews from a handful of FB free students than you would from 1,000 BBHF free students. I'd like to have a word with them.

    ---Brian

  • GregReverdiau
    GregReverdiau Posts: 791 rolemodel rank

    You're twisting my words and you are obviously on an agenda, as it often seems you are on this forum. I will end this conversation, have a great day.

  • Ekta
    Ekta Posts: 33 trailblazer rank

    Hello Greg,

    I read this article now. I launched a free course and made it paid today.

    It is still showing free in udemy search. How much time should it take to go live?

    How to make a personalized coupon? Is it that you already have the audience on your FB pages? I don't have an audience right now... what I should do now, after making it a paid course. please share ur ideas.

    Regards,

    Ekta

  • Ekta
    Ekta Posts: 33 trailblazer rank

    @GregReverdiau
    the course has gone live. Please answer only this part...

    How to make a personalized coupon? Is it that you already have the audience on your FB pages? I don't have an audience right now... what I should do now, after making it a paid course. please share ur ideas.

    Thanks,

    Ekta

  • @Ekta
    , I too started with no audience. I posted a message on various Facebook pages that related to my topic and then contact each person individually to give them a personalized coupon. You can do that by going to the course dashboard and then click on coupons on the left menu. I use their first and last name all together to make the coupon, and have a quantity of 1. I hope this helps.

  • @CarrieFernandez
    Congratulations on your course! What I notice in your messages is that you have been reading information from somewhere which has led you to make decisions about your course and in this thread you are getting conflicting comments. My tip for you are first be very careful who's advice you are taking. I have been on the platform a number of years and Udemy has evolved considerably. Back in the day having lots of free students would work and with some topics it may still work. However in your topic area I don't think this is the right way for you to go. Your courses will take a while to establish on the Udemy platform so my first tip is to follow all the official advice that Udemy offer see this link https://teach.udemy.com/ . There really isn't a short cut to success for the vast majority of instructors. And now you have found this official forum you will be able to access the support from Udemy employees, the Udemy Community Champions and of course other instructors. I hope that helps. Good Luck

  • Abbie
    Abbie Posts: 3,191 traveler rank

    Hey @Pradeep469
    , we're very careful to keep the community free of any type of promotions. Please avoid sharing your coupons page as we'll need to remove the messages.