Marketing is not an event, it is a process that extends over a long period of time. Get started now!   None of these are an instant path to instructor success.  But, they are things that work if you are serious about building an online business on Udemy.   When you are planning your first course, shoot your best shot! Your first course will establish your brand and a bad hastily created course is not the way to get started. Your first course should be on a topic in which you have genuine expertise. Take your time to make sure this is a high-quality course. I am now working on my sixteenth course and I am taking three months to develop it. Take your time. Get it right. BE an expert in your topic. Read, study, and demonstrate state of the art knowledge in your field. If you aren’t this… nothing else is likely to work. Some people fake knowledge in a topic in which they have no experience and it quickly becomes obvious. It results in failure. Be sure that your course landing page communicates your expertise… “Why should I listen to you?” And, be sure that your course landing page communicates the “benefits” of your course, not merely the “features” of your course. Customers buy benefits, not features! The features describe the topics covered. The benefits answer the “so-what?” question. How will this change my life? Remember that most of your future students will be on Udemy searching for something. That “something” are key words that they will put into the search bar. Think carefully about the key words your future students may be search for and be sure they are in your title and/or your subtitle. This is how students will find you. Your promo video is what catches students after they land on your page. Spend ten times the amount of time perfecting your promo video as you do on any other lecture. State the benefits of your course, your qualifications, and invite them to join you. These are more important than outlining all the topics (features) of your course. Also, remember that buying decisions are not simply “rational” decisions; they are emotional decisions, and that is about how you make them feel! Smile! The viewer is asking him/herself, “do I really want to spend hours with this person?” Be your own “brand manager” and build your brand. Brands are built over time by building trust in your marketplace. Brand value is created by being trustworthy, creating consistent value for your customers, over time. The most successful instructors are focused on “marketing”, not just “selling.” Know the difference. Identify Facebook and LinkedIn groups related to your subject matter. Join them. Participate in discussion. Demonstrate expertise by publishing a blog/website with your biography, articles you have written, a page for your courses, and regular blog posts that are educational, value-adding posts. Google the names of some of the more successful instructors and you will find their personal websites. Then, share these blog posts or articles with all relevant groups on LinkedIn or FB. Your LinkedIn page should have articles by you, on your area of expertise. Prove that you are a “thought leader” in your field. Build your own email list by capturing visitors to your website. I use Sumo, but there are other WordPress plugins to do this… oh, use WordPress for your blog. You don’t have to be a web development expert to create a WordPress website. Your Udemy students will become your own mail list in that you can send both educational and promo announcements. As you build the number of students there is a multiplying effect when you share what you write. After your first course, plan to develop additional courses in your area of expertise. The more courses you have the easier it is to launch a new course by marketing to your current students. Obviously, do a great job of developing your on-camera presence and your courses. Engage in continuous improvement. Alexa Fischer’s Confidence on Camera course is excellent for improving your on-camera presentation skills. Develop a YouTube channel where you can upload the introductory lecture(s) to your courses and include a link, with a discount coupon, to your Udemy course. Develop a Facebook discussion page for your students and to publish articles (the same ones as on your blog page and LinkedIn page. Watch Scott Duffy’s course on Udemy SEO Marketing. It is a consensus of experienced instructors that paid Facebook ads do not work. Do not give away of free courses or thousands of free coupons. Those who take these coupons are not likely to go through the course and are likely to leave poor reviews. Give away a few free coupons to those on your personal FB page, those who know you, and may go through the course and may give a good review. This is something to do only at the first launch of a course. Do not even think about purchasing reviews!!! They are now spotted and removed by Udemy’s Trust and Safety group. Have patience… you are building a business and like starting any business, it is not a get rich quick thing. It takes patience and persistence. Udemy is not a path to quick riches and it is not “passive income.” The above is only my advice, but they are informed by the experience of many other successful instructors,   Author:  @LawrenceMMiller    View the full discussion here. 

This is a question many instructors or soon-to-be instructors ask themselves at some point, and the answer might not be very obvious.   As many experienced instructors would probably tell you, a course might never be complete.  If you want your course to stay relevant, you will need to keep improving it over time, but I will focus mostly on the second part of the question here.   The decision of when to publish can have big consequences:  If you publish too soon, when the course and/or you are not really “ready”, you might risk wasting the opportunity that having a just-published course represents.   The first 90 days of your course are very important.   If your course is well received by the market and you do your part to promote it correctly, it will start getting students and reviews, and eventually earning some badges that would make it more appealing to potential students.  Also, the Udemy system will probably give your course a boost in searches and would make it more discoverable, which would, in turn, bring you more students, starting a virtuous cycle that could put your course on the path to success.   If, on the other hand, you publish a course of poor quality, with noticeable errors or missing content, it might get some students, but also some bad reviews, and that could be the beginning of the end for a new course from a new instructor, not because it is not possible to bring it back to life, but because most people will probably feel frustrated and will lose interest in devoting more time to something that appears to be a total failure.   But publishing too late is also dangerous.   If you keep repeating or re-doing things because you find very small mistakes or are never satisfied with what you have created, you might end up never actually publishing your course.  Also, if you delay it too much, someone else might get ahead of you, publishing a course that covers the same topic, in a very similar manner, thus, taking advantage of an opportunity that could have been yours.   So, in light of this, here are some ideas of the things I would make sure to have covered before hitting the publish button (in no specific order).  Nothing more, and nothing less.   Your course content already covers all the main topics a student would need to learn to feel that they received value and that the course allows them to feel proficient on the topic, even if you still have some additional non-crucial content you would like to add. You have a promo video, which was specifically created for that purpose, so that the system doesn’t need to set your first lecture as the promo. You have a good course image ready (unless you plan to ask Udemy to create it for you). You have carefully selected the lessons you will allow for free preview. You have your bonus lesson ready. You have uploaded all of the videos to the Udemy platform and have previewed (watched completely) all of them as a student, to make sure that everything works fine in all of the lessons, including the availability of resources and similar things. You have reviewed and optimized your course landing page, to make sure it is appealing to potential students (but doesn’t mention anything that is not currently covered), and it includes the necessary keywords for it to be correctly searchable. If you plan to enable captions from the beginning, you already have them ready, or at least have set some time apart to review and correct the ones the system will automatically generate. You have the text for your automated messages ready, if you plan to use that feature. You have at least a basic plan for your marketing. You have completed the Instructor Identity Verification Process (only needed when publishing your first course). Is there something else you would add?  Or maybe, there is something you would remove from this list?   Author:  @CarlosDeLeon    See the full discussion here.

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Hi guys, I thought it could be interesting to have one post with a list of all the usefull sources for instructors, like music, graphics and software.... I started with what I usually use and with what is free. I hope you can add some more sources to the list so it can become very usefull for everyone in the comunity. If you want me to add something write it in an answer to this post and I'll gladly add it to the list.   THE LIST: Free Pictures and Videos: - PIXABAY: https://pixabay.com - PEXELS: https://pexels.com - FREEPIk: https://www.freepik.com - FLATICON: https://www.flaticon.com - UNSPLASH: https://unsplash.com - NEWOLDSTOCK: https://nos.twnsnd.co - VIDEEZY: https://www.videezy.com/ - VECTEEZY: https://www.vecteezy.com/ (Vectors) - THENOUNPROJECT: https://thenounproject.com/ (Icons)   Free Music and Audio Fx: - INCOMPETECH: https://incompetech.com - YOUTUBE AUDIOLIBRARY: https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/music - FREESOUND: https://freesound.org/   Free Video Capture and Video Editor Softwares: - IMOVIE (Mac only): https://www.apple.com/imovie/ - QUICKTIME (Mac only): https://support.apple.com/it_IT/downloads/quicktime - OBS STUDIO: https://obsproject.com/ - LIGHTWORKS: https://www.lwks.com/ - OPENSHOT: https://www.openshot.org/ - SHOTCUT: https://shotcut.org/ - HITFILM EXPRESS: https://fxhome.com/hitfilm-express - VSDC (Windows only): http://www.videosoftdev.com/ - DAVINCI RESOLVE: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/ - SCREENCASTOMATIC: https://screencast-o-matic.com/   Free Photo Manipulation / Editing Softwares: - GIMP: https://www.gimp.org/ - CANVA: https://www.canva.com/ - INKSCAPE: https://inkscape.org/   Free Power Point Templates: -SLIDESCARNIVAL: https://www.slidescarnival.com   Udemy Specific Resources: - Official Udemy courses on how to create Udemy courses: https://www.udemy.com/user/udemymanager - Instructor revenue share: https://support.udemy.com/hc/en-us/articles/229605008-Instructor-Revenue-Share - Verification process: https://support.udemy.com/hc/en-us/articles/229234067-Instructor-Identity-Verification-Process - Educational Announcements guidelines_ https://support.udemy.com/hc/en-us/articles/229605828-Educational-Announcements-Rules-and-Guidelines - Promotional Emails guidelines: https://support.udemy.com/hc/en-us/articles/229605908-Promotional-Emails-Rules-and-Guidelines - Bonus Lecture guidelines: https://support.udemy.com/hc/en-us/articles/229232847-Bonus-Lecture-Rules-and-Guidelines   Author: @MassimilianoAlf 

If there's one thing that's important for a first-time course creator, I think it's in choosing the right topic to teach. So, here's a dump of my own thoughts on how to approach this. The biggest decision you can make when launching a new course is what topic you’re going to teach. If you choose the wrong topic, it doesn’t matter how good your course is. Teaching a topic that’s not in demand, or teaching that topic poorly, will ultimately be a waste of your time. This is the one thing that is absolutely essential to figure out.   Ideally, you want to find a topic that you love and have a real interest in. That will help keep you motivated through the long process of creating a quality course in it, and make it easier to maintain your energy and enthusiasm while you’re recording the course. When you’re teaching something that excites you, that excitement becomes contagious to your students. And that alone can set your course apart, and increase the impact it has on the people who watch it.   Think about the great teachers you had in your life – they’re the ones who inspired passion in you for a given topic, and I bet they did that by demonstrating their own passion for it. If there’s one guy who changed my life, it was my math teacher in high school, Mr. Foresta. He somehow made calculus fun, because he had fun with it himself while teaching it. Be like Mr. Foresta. Be a teacher who inspires, by teaching something you love.   Passion alone isn’t enough, however. You have to know what you’re talking about, and your potential students need to trust that you are an expert in what’s being taught. Udemy does not vet its instructors in any way, nor are our courses accredited in any way.   The onus is on the student to decide whether or not you’re going to teach them accurate and complete information, and not just making stuff up. You have to be able to establish yourself as an authority in your topic before students will trust you enough to teach them on it. Perhaps you can convey that authority through your professional experience, through higher degrees you’ve attained from college, or by running a successful business related to the topic you’re teaching. But you can’t just go read a book and declare yourself an expert on something, and expect students to hand you money to learn from you.   You need to have some sort of real experience in the field you are teaching. Not only does it give students confidence when enrolling in your course, that experience also gives you confidence while you’re teaching.   Students will sense your uncertainty if you’re teaching something you don’t really know about, and that only leads to fewer sales and poor reviews.   The most important circle in this Venn diagram is “what students need.” You already know what topics interest you, and what you’re an authority on. But Udemy’s students couldn’t care less about your personal interests. They are looking for specific skills that they need, often to improve their career, make more money, or solve some real pressing problem they are facing. Too many instructors focus on the intersection of “what you love” and “what you’re an authority on” and produce a course in that, in the name of “following their passion.” But if your passion is underwater basket-weaving, well, good for you – but you’re not going to find anyone willing to pay even $10 on Udemy to learn underwater basket-weaving. They can learn things like that for free on YouTube, and since learning to weave baskets underwater isn’t going to make money for them or further their careers, they’re not going to come to Udemy actively searching for courses on that topic to spend their money on.   If you’re looking for financial success on Udemy or to have any significant reach, you need to teach things that solve a real pain point for students on the Udemy platform. Things that are so painful that they are going to actively search for that topic on Udemy, and spend their money to learn about it. For example, I teach topics related to machine learning, big data, and artificial intelligence. There are a lot of people who know their technical careers can’t move forward without understanding these emerging fields, and they’re fearful for their livelihood if they don’t learn them. What I’m selling is some confidence in emerging technology topics that will enable people to keep pushing their own technical careers forward. It is an absolute no-brainer to spend $10 for that. Will the value of what you are teaching result in such a massive return for the student that they’ll be willing to part with their money to learn it? If not, then you’re not teaching the right topic.   “Need” also implies that there aren’t already a bunch of awesome courses in your topic that fulfill that need. Demand for a topic is only half of the equation; you also need to make sure you can produce a course that’s substantially better than the courses that already exist for that topic, if there are any. If your competing courses already fulfill the needs these students have, what can you offer that’s better? Fortunately, you don’t have to guess what pain points Udemy students are struggling to solve – Udemy provides the Marketplace Insights tool so you can gather real data on the demand and competition for a topic you are considering. But that's a topic for another post.   Author: @FrankKane      Frank, Great advice, as always! I agree with your venn diagram above. If you aren't an expert in something, don't teach it (no matter how much demand there is for that course).    Also, check the demand before jumping in. If you create the 513th Python course, you aren't going to be successful. You need to carve out your niche, and then dominate it.   The days where someone could make a HTML5, JavaScript, Python, Swift, or Java course and hit publish to start making money are long gone. Those topics are saturated and have too much competition. Unless you bring something new and unique to those topics (or have a large audience already off Udemy), you are going to struggle there.    Find the intersection Frank is talking about. Don't make the "Beginner's guide to X" course. Target the intermediate or advanced level students where there is less competition. These are the things you can do to give yourself a better chance of success.   Jason Dion  

When you first start out, you are going to make a ton of mistakes when filming your course. Before filming the entire course, film a few lectures and go back to watch them. There is nothing worse than filming an entire course to find out the audio was muffled, or the video was blurry!   When you first are getting started, remember that audio is much more important than video. After all, if a student can’t hear you or understand you, they will quickly stop watching. Video is much more forgiving than audio, so it is important to invest in a good microphone. There are numerous good quality microphones you can get for under $100 USD, like the ATR2100, the Blue Yeti, or the SmartLav+. When I started on Udemy, I used the SmartLav+ for about 18 months. It records very good audio, and I never got complaints from students for my audio quality.   Next, you need to figure out how to record your video. If you are doing a talking head style format (which I highly recommend), you need a smartphone or webcam to get started. The Logitech c930 is less than $70 USD and films in 1080p HD. This is the camera I used for my first 18 months on Udemy, as well. It provides a great picture for talking heads.   To record your screen, you need some form of screen capture software. For Mac, you can always use the built-in QuickTime software. For Windows, OBS is a good free option, but a little complicated to configure.   You will not be perfect and make Hollywood quality blockbusters when filming your first course. Remember, your first course is always going to be your worst course. Just try to improve each and every course.   Also, when filming your first course, pick a topic that is reasonable for you to complete in a relatively short period of time. Don’t try to make a 20-hour Python programming course on your first attempt. Instead, pick something in the 90-minute range. Make it a project-based course. Something that you can finish in 1-2 months.   For most people, it will take 15-30 hours of writing, filming, and editing to create a 90-minute course. It is a lot of work, but it is worth it if you can do it right.   Now, will the equipment above be all that you use forever? Well, I certainly hope not. This will get you started. Hopefully, you then start earning some money and can reinvest back into your new business of online teaching. My current setup includes a set of LED lights ($800), a prosumer model HD video camera ($1200), a really nice lavelier mic ($400), a teleprompter system for my camera ($500), and a really nice desktop computer to do all our editing on ($4200). Did I need all that to get started?   No! But over time we added a piece here and there, and now our quality of our new courses i son par with the professional production companies here on Udemy and beyond. That makes it easier for students to decide to buy our courses when compared against the "pros".   I hope this helps you get started out there, Jason Dion   Author: @JasonDion 

A common question from new instructor is: "Should I invest in a decent microphone. Or, a decent camera when getting started?"   The answer is actually quite simple. Which do you consider to be the most effective way of delivering your course content?   Or, "Is audio quality more important than video quality?"   When we ask the question like this, then the answer has to be Microphone first, fancy camera second. Now don't get me wrong,  a lot of the successful courses I have watched are stunning to look at. The graphics were crisp. The transitions are elegant. And  boy, that stock photography must have cost a fortune!   But above all, the audio was clear. NO echo and No muffled sound and they are well articulated. Plus, minimal distractions like music etc.   I often watch courses that need me to follow along as I learn. This  means that I am not actually looking at the video 100% of the time. Instead, I am listening. Trying things on my own. And following the instructions through sound.   Think about someone showing you, how to do something in the physical world. They are most likely talking you through the process as they show you. The visuals in this case are the results that occur as a result of the instructors actions. Not the instructors face on a screen, right? When it is your turn to 'have a go', a good instructor will still be talking you through the process. By hearing, doing and evaluating your results, you learn.   Audio plays an important part in conveying information. It should be easy to think about your lectures like a podcast. Imagine that you are trying to help someone achieve a goal over the phone! Be explicit in your instructions. Be clear and concise with your directions. Be empathetic and understanding of the challenges your audience are likely facing. Talk like every word matters and treat the visuals like supporting materials.   Your audience will be more likely to forgive a blurry image if your audio is good quality. Invest time into the visuals, after you have the audio nailed. And be sure to do your best to remove any ambient sounds in your environment.   You can even try recording your audio separately as a voice-over. If possible in a controlled setting. This approach allows you to work on your video during the day and the audio at night. Especially useful if you are short on time and can only dedicate small timeslots.   My final piece of advice is to get 'up close and personal'. With the aid of a pop filter you can get very close to your mic without the audio capturing every little breath. By being closer to your mic, you can lower the gain and reduce nearly all background noise. Now, granted this can be hard when you 'have' to be on camera, but in that scenario, you should use a good quality lapel-mic.   Do you agree? What do you think first-time instructors should invest in: audio or video? Leave your thoughts and comments below.   Warm regards, Rob.     Author:   @Robin_Slee      100% agree. Over time I've even been using less and less video in my courses - at least for my students, they want to see code, not me.   Also bear in mind more and more students are watching our courses on tiny screens on their mobile devices. Clear audio is required for a successful course. Fancy video should only be attempted once you've got audio nailed, and there are plenty of successful courses out there with minimal talking head videos. And don't start messing with green screens until you've got clear audio first. - Frank Kane

Hey instructors! "Personal brand" has been a pretty hot topic in the marketing world these last couple of years, especially with the boom of social media where everyday people are developing their own brands and becoming influencers.   Do you think it's important to have a personal brand as an online instructor?    Though I have been struglling with this. Not konwing how to do it. I think it's very important to have a personal brand and even a respectbale website.   I think that the Branding part is very important for anyone that has an activity online, people can recognize your product, they know where to find you (website, Fb, etc.) and this brings you more sales and more success. But I also think that for someone that is just starting this activity it is not so important for now... I think he should concentrate more on building a solid course catalog and a base of at least 1000 paying students, after that he can start spending time for branding his image and his work.     I think that you are your brand and your 'brand' improves as you produce high quality courses.   When your name becomes known as a good, or even great instructor people will start looking out for your name in the emails that come from Udemy announcments.   Quality 1st, 2nd and 3rd = Personal Brand   I think having a personal brand is important and helps with marketing. Having a brand specifically as an online instructor can’t really be achieved unless you have created good quality courses which people like and which you can build a brand as an online instructor around. Building a brand around being an expert and knowledgeable in your topics is very important and can be done from as soon as you have the opportunity to start building your reputation online. It can be done by interacting in forums, groups and on courses, through being interviewed on podcasts, writing guest articles and blogs, creating YouTube videos, etc. By being helpful and demonstrating your knowledge and being consistent in how you do this, all helps with creating a personal brand. By having the same pictures, consistent social media and website names etc, people instantly recognise that guest blog post was by you, you are who that podcaster is interviewing, that Twitter post or Facebook post is yours, those forum posts are yours etc, even before you say (or they read) a word.   It may be that you work on your reputation first, but at some point you will want to flesh out the brand to include consistent logos, images, colour palette, username, the way you word things or say things etc so that you are instantly recognisable just from the profile images to videos you have shared and so that people easily know how to find you and can easily remember your business name or tagline etc to Google you or search for you on YouTube or any other platform.   @MassimilianoAlf, yeah I think you hit on a key point. Branding is really important so people recognize your product and what you have to offer. But I think it's also true that it's more important to concentrate on creating a good base and good courses before spending a lot of time on branding.   Totally @GrahamNicholls! I think an instructor's brand could be that they have high quality courses, amont other things. I think it's also possible to have a brand that may not equate to quality. Some things examples that come to mind are Wish which has a reputation for selling super cheap things with questionable quality and some restaurants that might be dirty but have delicious food (or even vice versa, really pretty space but medicore food).   Really great tips on how to build a personal brand @Hypnodan! There are a lot of different factors that folks can leverage and really make their own.   I think its very important atleast for me.  I want to create an impression in the minds of students that I am a source of knowledge and be a "go-to " person when they want to learn something.    I feel ingraining this in the students mind is very important for long term success.   Once that trust is built then those who have been influenced will become a marketing channel indirectly through "word of mouth" and that is much more effective than ads or any other type marketing.   These are my thoughts on the subject.