One Year as Udemy Instructor - Hits and Misses

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One Year as Udemy Instructor - Hits and Misses

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Back in May 2019, I uploaded my first course on Udemy. The course was a fairly niche one so I did not really have much of an expectation. I even considered making the course free but changed that to a nominal price tag to get only serious students. I had been an early adopter of MOOCs and have immensely benefitted from the great educational content (some on Udemy as well) available to students all over the world. Creating a course on Udemy was my way to contribute back to this ecosystem. One year later, I am pleasently surprized at how quickly sales scale on Udemy which provides a viable income stream.

 

I have seen some posts by instructors who have earned millions on Udemy. While I am nowhere close to their success, I am quite satisfied with how things are progressing. Based on my experience so far, I have compiled a list of pointers which some new instructors may find useful. 

 

1) Try to create a crisp promo video which showcases the end product of your course. Nothing speaks better to the prospective students than a working prototype which they can look forward to building by the end of your course.

 

2) Don't take bad reviews personally. Try to improve your content based on the (reasonable) feedback received. If you have good content then your rating will be fine over time. As a new instructor, the pinch of any rating less than 3.5 star gotta hurt but there is no point losing sleep over it. Work on things which are in your control.

 

3) As a new instructor, take Q&A seriously and keep the engagement high. You will be surprized how much you will get to learn by addressing the questions. Some questions may be frivolous or answered previously under the same topic. However, rather than ignoring the question or reprimanding the student, try to explain how the student could have sought to find the answer herself (most students take it very positively).

 

4) Some students are always going to be difficult. You need to decide how much engagement is appropriate. At the end of the day, this is not a private tuition platform. Never yield to overt or subtle blackmail (do this or I will leave a bad review). Thankfully very few students do this.

 

5) Some instructors may disagree with me, but I would posptpone creating a second course until your first course has reached a critical mass. The marginal return on any effort invested on your first course is going to be much higher than on a new course. I created the second course only after 10 months and 8000 students. the course was created based on the demand from my existing students and the sales have been healthy since launch.

 

6) Monitor your "course engagement" stats very closely. I consider this the single most important leading indicator of how your course is going to perform. If the engagement is dipping try to get to the root cause asap.

 

7) Although both my courses have been included in the Udemy for Business catalogue, I sit on the fence regarding UFB's utility. This is because I am not a big fan of minutes views based revenue model and exclusivity clause. However, UFB inclusion does increase your enrolled student count significantly which helps with your brand.

 

The world today is markedly different from what it was a year ago and the pandemic has fundamentally changed lives and business models. I see very bullish times for EdTech in the foreseeable future and Udemy being the undisputed leader is expected to benefit the most. As instructors we can expect significantly increased footfall and a bigger reach. All in all, it has been a roller coster year and I look forward to creating more educational content on Udemy's platform. 

 

Thanks and Regards,

Mayank

 

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Thanks Rajesh and glad you found this useful. I had published it mid May 2019 and I got around 40 enrollements in May. June was 190 and July was 238. I did not do any promotion other than agreeing to all Udemy promotions.

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Hey @rasu84  we're glad to read it's gone well for you on Udemy! Thank you for sharing, I'm sure this will help newcomers with their journey!

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Hi Mayank,

As a newcommer to Udemy, I find the share very useful, thanks for that. As you have mentioned that you it took you 10 months to enroll 8000 students, which again to me is a good number, I would like to know about the performance, during the first couple of months, and the steps taken by you, to get higher enrolments. 

 

Regards,

Rajesh

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Thanks Rajesh and glad you found this useful. I had published it mid May 2019 and I got around 40 enrollements in May. June was 190 and July was 238. I did not do any promotion other than agreeing to all Udemy promotions.

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Thanks for your reply! I'm sure this will inspire many!!

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HI,

Can you please me guide me how to make an attractive Promo video?
Which software did u used?
Thanks

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Hi @TaabishKhalani,

 

I do it on my Mac, using a software called iMovie which comes with the Mac. I learnt how to create animations on iMovie, using keynote, through Youtube. It is very simple. I shoot my video on a green background, using my Panasonic hd camera, and then add the background suitable to the course ! And most importantly, I learnt how to create the promo videos, through the free tutorial provided by Udemy ! Initially, I spent a lot of time on learning how to create a good video, also, through the free tutorials provided by Udemy ! And then, I created my first test video and submitted it. I got five star rating from the experts of Udemy, which encouraged me to take my journey further !

 

Take it one step at a time. My first promo wasn't that great, but I learnt from my mistakes and improved upon them later. I still have a long way to go, before I can produce some excellent promos.  

 

I hope this helps !

 

Regards,

Rajesh C. R.

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thanks for such information

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Thanks a lot for this information. Can you please share the link for free tutorial provided by Udemy related to promo video. 🙂 Smiley Happy

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Hi Mayank,

 

A very nicely written feedback which is defnitely a very good guideline to be followed by new instructors like me now.

 

I have just started recording my fist tutorial and was wanting to know if the tutorial has all to be a video of the training of software in actual use or can be through presentations in PPT and PDF Files.

 

Thanks again for your superb informatic post

 

Stay Safe and Stay Strong

 

Girish Ananthan

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Hi Girish,

PPT and PDF modes are perfectly fine modes of delivery. It is used by many instructors and I use it as well. 

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Hi rasu!

 

Thanks for sharing!

I'm not a fan of the UFB either, that's why I've just disabled the permit for udemy to include my courses. Now that I read your statement that UFB inclusion gets more students enrolled I'm wondering if I made a mistake. Are you sure that enrollments are higher due to UFB inclusion? If so, how much? I don't want to lose my bestseller badge now because of the exclusion....

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Hi @AndreasKow 

 

My courses were onboarded on UFB in May and since then the proportion of UFB students has ranged from 25% to 40%.

 

My UFB revenue has also seen m-o-m increase and it now accounts for slightly more than 10% of my monthly revenue.

 

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thanks for the fast reply @rasu84! so that means the extra enrollments come from the UFB itself but it doesn't mean that udemy promotes the course less to "normal" students if I do not join the UFB, right?

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I don't think Udemy promotes less to non UFB students. The two are separate channels.

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Hi @rasu84 

 

Congrats on your great journey on Udemy. I have just one question on UFB. When you were onboarded on UFB, do you remember how many enrollments you had for that course. Just want to check generally when courses are getting onboarded into UFB. Also do they select course wise or once Instructor onboarded all his courses will be shown in UFB.

 

Regards

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Nice article and your best experience.

Thanks

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Great Post!

 

Interesting to know that you are successful here without providing free courses. I am so eager to know how did you do that. Because what I have observed so far as a beginner is that if you won't provide your course for free, you won't be able to get reviews and ratings. Which means your course most probably won't be one of the top three courses and hardly anyone would consider buying it.

 

For example I published a course two weeks back and in the search results it was appearing at 14th position. Which is the reason why only 8 students have visited the landing page so far. So most of the creators here at Udemy distribute free coupons to their courses so that they can build social proof and improve course's position on the search page.

 

So I would love to know what was your course's position on the search page when you first published it. And how can one go about achieving what you have achieved without providing free coupons or courses?

 

Thanks!

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