Hi all,
To help promote my courses I create instructor coupons. I have a coupon code which is the same for all of my courses. This is more to make it easy for me to remember than anything else, and it makes it much easier if I encounter someone and we get talking and they say they may consider checking out my courses, I can just say ‘if you use this coupon you can get any of my courses for this price’. Whenever I create a new course I always create that coupon code first. I set the number of coupons to 1,000,000 because I know I am very unlikely to ever reach that limit, and if I ever do then that is a good problem to have.
If I am doing a specific promotion then I want to track whether it has led to any students, so for example, if I decide I want to do a promotion on Facebook then I will create a code for that promotion. I don’t normally put a time limit on my coupon codes unless that was part of the promotion I was doing, in which case I normally put a time limit one day more than the promotion to account for time zones or I don’t put a time limit, I just turn the code off a day after the end of the promotion. This allows me to use that same code for future promotions.
I also create specific coupon codes if I am doing a promotion with an organisation, for example, if a company is going to share my course(s) for continued professional development, then I will have a price and coupon just for that company so that I can see how many people signup from them.
I almost never create free promotional coupons, if I do it is because someone is going to take a course and talk about it on their blog, website, podcast, etc, and so I make them a coupon to give them free access. Occasionally I may create more free coupons, for example, if I teach a live course and as part of that course I will be giving the students free access to the online course or if I would like to offer a friend free access to a course.
I send promotional coupons out to current students, cross-promoting my courses (I make sure all of my courses are related). I also share coupons on my blog in blog posts and on a dedicated course page, and on my Facebook page and when relevant, in the description of YouTube videos and sometimes in Twitter posts - especially if I am sharing about a new course.
How do you use instructor coupons?
I do pretty much the same as you do, Dan. The only difference is that I create a different coupon for each YouTube video I create (it has a version of the video name in the code). That way I can see which video are more popular and bring the students over. I have one specific code I share on Facebook groups when I see people asking about which course to use for such and such.
If I hand out free coupons, they are always personalized with the person's name.
Last thing, for all the promo codes, I usually don't set expiration dates, just in case someone find it late. I wonder if you still get credit for people who get to Udemy on an expired instructor coupon?
I use one coupon code per course in all areas of advertising, whether it be as an promo announcement or social media, blogs etc. I create one coupon code when it's launched, don't put an end date on it and add 1000000 coupons so that it will never run out!
I've never got into creating new ones for particular avenues for tracking etc, I simply get the link and but it through bit.ly to shorten it and then use that.
Author:
@Hypnodan
