[Register Now ] Join us for an AMA with Udemy CMO, Genefa Murphy on Feb 6th

[RyanJaress]

Hey there instructors 👋

We are excited to invite all Udemy Instructors to an exclusive AMA (Ask Me Anything) session featuring our esteemed Chief Marketing Officer, Genefa Murphy. This event will be held on February 6th at 11:00 AM PT, offering a unique opportunity to delve into the intricacies of Udemy and its dynamic landscape.

Genefa’s Background:
Genefa Murphy has served as Udemy’s Chief Marketing Officer since July 2023. Before joining Udemy, Genefa most recently served as Chief Marketing Officer at Five9, a publicly traded provider of cloud contact center software helping the company to expand its market share and reach into International markets. Prior to Five9, she served in senior marketing roles, including Chief Marketing Officer at Micro Focus, a multi-billion-dollar software company, now part of OpenText and Hewlett Packard Enterprise where she spent 10 years in numerous consulting, product, marketing, and go-to-market positions. Murphy holds a Ph.D. in User Acceptance of New Technology and a Bachelor of Science with Honors in Business IT from Swansea University, Wales, UK.

Join us as we sit down with Genefa for an insightful discussion about Udemy's marketing strategies & platform. This session is not just a chance to listen but to engage directly with Genefa. Your curiosity and questions will fuel our dialogue, shedding light on Udemy's growth strategies and future prospects.

We encourage you to be an integral part of this conversation. Please feel free to submit your questions in advance in the comments section below. Priority will be given to these pre-submitted inquiries, ensuring your concerns are addressed at the forefront of our discussion.

Don't miss this chance to gain insider perspectives and contribute to a forward-thinking conversation about one of the leading platforms in online learning. We eagerly await your participation and are excited to see the questions you'll bring to the table.

We look forward to connecting with you virtually on February 6th at 11:00 am PT! Until then, please let us know if you have any follow-up questions!

Sign up for the webinar here!

We recognize that in trying to accommodate the time zones this time might not be the ideal time frame for some of you, however, a replay of the AMA will be available in the community later in the week.

*Please note that this event is being held in English.* 

[Niyazi Harmanbasi]

I'm looking forward to. Thanks in advance.

[Coach.Hector]

"Excellent, I would like to ask Genefa, what opportunities do you see in the Udemy marketing strategy and what is the plan to address them in 2024?"

[skillxpand]

What are some ways we can optimize course landing pages within Udemy to get better Udemy marketplace search results for new courses in 2024?

[MattLongfoot]

I am looking forward to learn from you.

Thanks

Matt

[ScottDuffy]

Registered

[RonErez]

Is there any way to increase the profit margin? For example on average I make $4 per sale and recently during the January sale I made on average $3 per sale. 

In addition what can I do about courses that have completely vanished from the search engine? Some of these courses are quite large and involve a lot of investment in time and energy but one sees little in return.

Creating coding exercises for courses is an extremely painful experience. It would be great if this could be simplified and improved.

I can create two promotions per month. Perhaps change it to three since my courses sell the most when I send out a promotion.

Reviews is a huge issue. For instance I had a student leave a bad review and when I contacted this student to try to help him it turned out that the student was no longer part of the course. Now a student who refunded a course is dead to me and should have no influence whatsoever on my course. As long as they are paying students I will do everything in my power to help them, however if they asked for a refund and left a bad review and hardly watched any of my lectures then as far as I'm concerned they've never been born and their reviews should be removed.

Thanks !

[amulia&8]

[RadwanDerba]

We all have the problem of only a tiny minority of students are finishing the course.

Can I make an option for the student to have a partial refund if he/she finished it in a certain deadline (win-win) situation ?

[FrankKane]

How do you reach new customers these days? Email and social media marketing seem less effective; what is taking their place?

Related: are funnels still a thing?

[beingOvee]

Looking forward to it!

[Sheriffdeen_Adeyemi]

How can Udemy ensure reviews left by students represent the course? How can a student covering less than 10% of a course be able to rate a course appropriately? I suggest rating a course should only be available to students with 40–50% course completion.

[shripad3013]

Hi Genefa Murfy, CMO, Udemy

Thanks for all the opportunities given by Udemy to develop our brand worldwide. However, this celebrity status is never matched due to the extremely low revenue at Udemy Platform. 

No complains so far, as we have learned to stay happy. And we do understand the business model of Udemy platform and the competitive market we are in post influx of YouTube. 

I would like to make on suggestion on new premium revenue stream for Udemy.

Can Udemy initiate a business stream communicating with the corporate training departments of various corporate, where we can broadcast corporate webinars at a premium pricing?

You can be selective with the industry veterans to begin with. But this would be win-win for instructors as well as Udemy. For example, I worked in Digital Banking for 20 Odd years and previously gave few webinars at companies such as Oracle, TCS. There are numerous such highly skilled industry professionals registered as Udemy.

Udemy can get the best advantage of entering into the higher margin segment business with this model and we get a value to the knowledge we impart.

Regards

[EL-HOUDAIGUI]

Thank you.

[RonCBetta]

I'm looking forward to this.  Thank you.

[LawrenceMMiller]

Question: Marketing to corporations (Udemy Business) and marketing to the general population of potential students are very different. The selling benefit statements to corporations obviously include return on investment, impact on employee retention, reduced training costs, etc. Packaging those benefits to a potential client, it seems to me, is an entirely different process than marketing to the general population.  Can you share how  you approaching this differentiation? 

Note: my first encounter with Udemy was enrolling in an acoustic blues guitar course. That led me to the idea of developing a course for a consulting client, then other courses, etc. I believe this is an example, even for business courses, why it is important to maximize enrollment in course such as music lessons, cooking, etc. etc. What are your plans for increase the market for these non-business courses?

[WilliamStewart]

Since every element of the Udemy funnel is optimized except for the actual purchase page, would you consider providing instructors with the ability to A/B test two versions of their landing pages?  And since this seems like such a natural feature that could significantly increase conversion to the benefit of both Udemy and instructors, if this is not considered a valuable feature, can you please let us know why not?

[OualidBOUTERBIAT]

Done ! Thank you very much. I'm looking forward to !

[KristinaBagrova]

Hello,

1. As already many mentioned, the refund system: can there be a time limit for refund or, for example, refund can be issued only if a student watched not more than 10% of the course?

2. Would be good to have a function of customised certificate. Most of the students ask for another certificate which is so time consuming and I even got a negative review because she didn't like the certificate issued by uDemy. 

Thank you

[DanMunteanu]

Will be there!

[emergentorder]

Hello Udemy Staff and Fellow Instructors!

Having been one of (maybe) 15 task team members the summer of 2014, 'test driving' the Presencing Institute's "u.lab" prior to its launch the following January (2015), we're pleased to be reconnecting as group participants in the u-school's, "Activating Prototypes for Systems Change" program with our "Conscious Cultural Evolution" course on Udemy!

In so much as my best efforts over the last seven years has posed an opportunity for me to 'ask you anything', I wonder if we might explore practical aspects of prototyping Conscious Cultural Evolution - Course 1 over an eight week period (mid-February thru mid-April) enlisting our four "core team" members as co-instructors for a small cohort of participating stakeholders?!? - Brian McConnell 

[Lincoln Margison]

Are we allowed to advertise using a service such as Google ads, pointing directly to our course page with our referral link? Are there any restrictions or rules to this? Thanks!

[RichardJohn807]

Hello,

My udemy course "How to Make Hanging Art Mobiles” is very hard to find in the udemy “search” field as well as listed in “categories”. Also it shares the name “Mobiles” (cell phones) so my course can’t be found if you simply search for “Mobile” or “Mobiles”.

May I please request that my course could be added to the >Lifestyle >Arts & Crafts Category section where it would fit in nicely with other courses of this kind. Please note that “art” mobiles are also considered to be sculptures so adding a new category for “sculpture” would be great!

Thank you,

Richard

[MarinaT]

Hi @Lincoln Margison,

Great question! Can you please reach out to our policy team at policy@udemy.com to learn more about our guidelines? Thank you! 

[MarinaT]

Hi @RichardJohn807, 

Thank you for your question! I completely understand that you want to enhance the discoverability of your course 😊.

While we can't modify your course topic/category here in the community, I recommend proposing the topic change to our support team.  Please click here and navigate to the “Contact Us” button on the right.

If you have any other questions, please let us know.

[CarlosPined580]

In light of the potentially high costs associated with bidding for tags on Google Ads, I'm seeking expert advice on whether utilizing Google Ads is a viable and effective strategy for promoting my course. Can you provide insights into the return on investment (ROI) one can expect from Google Ads for course advertising? Additionally, is it advisable to use Google Ads primarily for increased visibility, even if the immediate ROI might be lower?

[CarlosPined580]

I've recently launched a course on Udemy, and I'm curious about when the course is likely to gain more visibility in Udemy's algorithm and consequently experience increased sales. Could you provide insights on the threshold of reviews or any other key factors that typically contribute to a course becoming more noticeable and successful on Udemy?

[SalehEzzEdi086]

Thank you in advance

[Lincoln Margison]

Is it possible to schedule precisely when a course will be released? When posting my first course, I submitted it, and then it was just a case of waiting for it to be approved - then it was live.

It would be useful if we either could be told the exact time/day, or we could choose our own time for it to go live. Because the course could launch during the night unbeknownst to us, and get noticed before we have announced it on our own socials & so on. And we can't schedule it to get a lot of immediate views/sales if we can't time the release.

Just wondering if there are any options here, or if this may become an option in the future.

Thanks!

[JordanNiiAm714]

Are there are any options here, or if this may become an option in the future?

[PhilEbiner]

Looking forward to this. My questions are...

Genefa, when introduced briefly, at a previous backstage event mentioned increasing the average sales price. This seems to be a goal that Udemy has attempted to tackle for almost 10 years at this point. So I'm curious what specific ideas/strategies Genefa has for this.

I see a lot more video advertisements and sponsored content from other online learning platforms (on YouTube, Instagram, etc). Does Udemy have a plan to ramp up this kind of marketing? Or have they found it not to be worthwhile. 

[SivakamiS2017]

Hey @MarinaT hope a recording will be posted soon, I could not attend.