Super excited to have finally reached this one. 100,000 in sales on Udemy and here is some of what I learned on the way. ( Thos took 3 years by the way! )   1. Consistent output is key. Either updating existing courses or making new courses. ( I have 12 courses now. ) 2. Appreciate bad reviews. What!? Yep, I said it. Those are the ones that will lead you to better course creation if you listen! ( of course I mean the constructive ones. ) 3. Learn to promote your content. Don’t wait for Udemy to do all the work. You can notice that over time I got better at selling my own courses. I started to get less organic sales so I began to share more videos on YouTube, engage with my audience on social media, and create more blog posts. I now bring in 30% of my own sales. 4. Build your audience off Udemy! The real power is in your following and they love interacting with their favorite instructor so give them ways to do that. For me it is pretty easy since I teach art. I comment on their art and give any insights I can. Create helpful free content for your target student as well as a clear line of sight to your course content. 5. Help as many people succeed as you can. Do this and you will find success along the way! 6. Don’t wait for perfection!  It isn’t even a real thing in my world.  I am an imperfect being and I share that in my content.  Besides, I would never get anything done if I thought otherwise.   I hope this helps and I am here if you have any questions! 🙂   -Robert (@Robert_Marzullo) 

MILESTONE! 🏆 I know it is not much to some of you big instructors out there, but I achieved a 5-figure number this month! Last Nov I came within a few dollars or reaching 5-figures but it feels good to reach it on an "off summer month" and not on a high sale month. This on top of the nice chunk of change I get from other sources/platforms monthly, teaching online is surpassing any prior expectations I had for income. A few tips of how I got here: ✔️The first 12 months was spent getting my income to $1,000 a month with only 12 months after that spent getting it to $10,000. You will notice how it speeds up quite a bit once you get past that $1,000 monthly marker. Same goes for building your net worth. That first $100,000 is a beast, with future subsequent $100,000 milestones being easier and quicker to reach.   ✔️You will notice that this month comprised of 20 percent instructor promotions. It can be higher, but it rarely has gotten that high and I think that helps a great deal in boosting you further past your prior numbers. I sent two promo e-mails this month along with a new course launch.  ✔️Speaking of course launches I *try* to do one each month. That means most of the month I am focused on course production and editing with one hour a day for student engagement. ✔️This was built on zero prior audience. It took that first 12 months to build a small audience to then build a bigger one in the next 12 months afterwards to achieve this type of income. 2 and a half years in total to get here, not really an overnight success but one where it was worth the years of effort. ✔️I do not have a huge youtube following, instagram following or anything else for that matter. This has largely been built using the Udemy platform and a student facebook groups and a page. I have spent too much time with little return on social networks like youtube/instagram. If it ain't working after several months of posting GREAT content then focus your efforts on building new courses instead. ✔️I have focused more on producing new courses and less on boosting and editing older ones. BUT Every 4 courses I take a month off and focus on upgrading prior courses with new content/lessons. ✔️I have had a larger focus lately on creating additional "bonus content" or "downloadable resources" for my classes to add a more rich experience. Students love being able to study things "offline" and some have a hard time streaming in their countries and really prefer this mode of learning, coupled with videos. My first few classes did not include many downloadable extra learning items. It is a student preference I had to learn over time. ✔️I have been focusing a lot on student support. One hour of each day is spend helping students with feedback. I have slowly (and it has taken over a year) to build a 5,000-member facebook group that contains just paying students. Paying students convert very well when you send them new course coupons. It is also a place where you can earn your 5 star reviews without asking by being helpful. ✔️Reviews are a HUGE deal in ranking. Any negative review (3 stars or under) with a comment is addressed immediately, not matter how crazy that review sounds. I never write a review off as "ridiculous" or "unfair" unless they use bad language. There is some truth in all reviews, no matter how unfair it sounds. I address all items, it if is a problem with sound, it gets addressed THAT DAY. ✔️I have a Black Friday plan in place. I am producing a course I think would have the greatest student demand (based on a poll on my student facebook group). I plan to launch in early October to get ranked high enough for Nov sales. ✔️Speaking of black friday I am boosting my biggest money making class. I have one super large course that is selling over $3,000-$4,000 per month. You bet I pay very close attention to that course. I recently upgraded the audio on 5 lessons and totally replaced 4 of them. I am adding new downloadable worksheets to lessons and I hope to remove lessons I think are unnecessary. All this will keep my rating boosted (in theory!). There is a point when upgrading a successful class is more profitable than creating a new one. Make sure you know when that point is. Usually, when a current course is still outselling your new additional courses. Anyways, just felt like sharing this milestone but also sharing a few tips as well! I hope you found some of this useful in your own teaching journeys!    Author: @LindsayMarsh    @LawrenceMMiller: Congratulations! You have done a great job of building a business on Udemy and it is obvious that you have worked very hard at it. You also did a great job explaining how you got there, which I am sure will be helpful to many.    

Hey guys! Filip Kordanovski here. I'm very much enjoying this new community and what a better way to start than with some valuable tips I've learned through my relatively short, but amazing, Udemy career. 1. Be consistent with communicating with your students. Send out promotional announcements whenever you have something new to sell or upcoming course release. Send out educational announcements with related course content, at least once per month and provide even more value to your existing students. 2. Gather your exsisting students within a community group. I prefer Facebook Groups, Discord chatrooms or anything other, really. Let this be a hub for your existing students and connect with them. Students like when they are receiving attention from their instructor and 1-on-1 communication with them may be crucial for that student to enroll in your new course! 3. Respond to private messages, reviews, Q&A questions and assignments. Student engagement is by far the most important thing you can achieve as an instructor. Engaged students are likely going to enjoy your upcoming courses based on how you treated them in your previous ones! 4. Research what your existing students are interested in, besides your course topic. This is important because you get to know what your audience would like to learn next and what a better way to surprise them than with creating a course they are simply dying to watch! Udemy provides in-depth statistics of this matter. 5. Quality over quantity Always focus on delivering high quality content, catchy visuals, crystal clear audio and always improve on your delivery. Don't rush to create course that is not perfectly made or even not finished completely. If you want any specific tips about the things I mentioned in this tip, feel free to ask away! 6. Quality courses equals high selling price Don't set your courses at 20$! A carefuly crafted course is worth way more than that. Always aim for the 100$+ price mark, so when Udemy has a sale, the student will be excited to see that the course they want to purcahse is 90% off! 7. Learn from the big guys Always research your competition before creating a course on a particular topic. I'd say, research about 10 competitor courses in your niche, and start listing out things that their courses are missing and make sure to include them into your courses! This is the best tip I can give you to win on Udemy. 8. Free coupons is a risky move! Most students who enroll in your premium course for free are not interested in your topic as a person who would pay for your course. Be cautious with this, since this may lead to low review ratings, overflooding your course with inactive students and thus resulting in incorrect statistics like engagement, analytics and more. I'd say just give 10-15 free coupons to close friends and let them criticize your course!   9. Bite sized lectures are the way to go! Don't make your lectures long videos that the student may feel overwhelmed by watching! Let them grasp a concept in a short video and make them feel like they've learned at least something throughout that short lecture! They are also more likely to watch a shorter lecture, thus, increasing your engagement! 10. Never stop learning I've been an instructor for 2.5 years but I'm still learning new things daily. Always research delivery techniques, learn from more successful instructors than you, visit this community hub at least 1 hour per day and learn and contribute! It will return ten times higher in your journey to become the best instructor you can be. Don't forget that you're changing lives of students daily throughout your courses. You help them land their dream job, get an internship or simply learn a new skill! Feel free to talk and share your ideas on how to improve on any field! Let's make this thread the ultimate go-to for any newcomer and seasoned instructor! You're awesome, keep rocking! Filip Kordanovski  

Today was the day when I paid off our mortgage. We're now completely debt-free! I left the 9-to-5 back in 2016 to dedicate myself completely to what used to be my side-gigs: writing books, developing software, and creating courses. It turned out that it was one of my best decisions ever that has changed my life in so many ways! Thank you all who've inspired and motivated me over the years. May the force be with you! 😉   

Question We all know Udemy can change lives financially and there is a lot of focus on a number of students and income.  What isn't discussed often is how Udemy provides is a platform to get a "name" in the world and become better known in your field.  Adding "best selling instructor" or "taught 50,000 students worldwide" can open up some doors outside of Udemy.   I have been on a handful of podcasts, have done speaking engagements, and even have a book deal from a publisher who found me on Udemy, her first e-mail called me an "expert" in my field. I have been asked to create specific courses for a large mental health organization, write for websites with five million+ monthly visitors, and many more that keep me motivated to keep creating courses and engaging with students.    What opportunities has Udemy given you?   Answers I received an inquiry if I offer live training to one of the biggest auditor firm in Japan. (I do Udemy as side hustle and in Japan, side hustling is becoming popular, but this is not something you openly want to brag) I don't do live, so I turned it down. Even so, I felt good to receive such an offer.   Other than providing me an opportunity for a second career, and helping me discover that I immensely enjoy creating online Courses ... none at all 😁 Frankly, not many people here have heard of Udemy ... and my Corporate Career earned me a lot more fame and fortune ! But those are not big priorities for me in my second career.  I earn OK, definitely not as much as what I made during my Corporate Career, but I enjoy the flexibility, and the opportunity to learn and do totally new things at 50 !   A university student came to my LinkedIn profile asking me if I could provide promotional coupons of my courses for students of Chemical Engineering    The opportunity to be with my children during the summer holidays. I can’t think of a better opportunity.  

My husband and I built a local music school that has been running for over 10 years now, and we've been spending every hour and dollar into growing it. As I'm sure you can imagine, we've been hit really hard with multiple lockdowns and have had to close. Though this gave me the time to really work on my dream of publishing a course, and a book. Prototypes and creating my layout Creating resources and doing voice-overs Shooting the Course I spent lockdown creating my Udemy course, and now with the time to set up and shoot videos, I was able to get it done the way I wanted. My Music Course has just launched a few days ago, and I'm really happy with how it looks on Udemy.   Although it has been hard to see the school doors close in a physical sense, we are moving everything online, and Udemy will be a big part in that.   It's been a while, but I feel optimistic about the future, and growing my student base, not just in my local area, but across the globe. Maybe lockdown has been an opportunity for other Udemy members too?

Hi    I am happy to share I have completed, my first month as Udemy Instructor and have reached 5000 paid student milestone as well with enrolments from 59 countries.   Really thankful to Udemy for creating this wonderful platform & changing lives of millions of students, and thousands of instructors.  The insights and analytics dashboards are great, and shows how students are progressing in a course. Here are few things that helped me to reach milestone without spending on paid advts. - Build a active community of people on LinkedIn - Keep sharing valuable learning content - Host free LIVE Sessions/ Workshops on youtube - and Yes, bring your A Game in making a course  Once again Thank you Udemy & Instructor Community!

    When I created and published my first course 2 years ago on Udemy, I expected my market to be fairly limited and sales to be lukewarm. If someone told me that in a couple of years I would be sitting at $100k earnings (much higher number in terms of sales) I would have referred that person to a psychiatrist. Thanks Udemy for providing this excellent platform and helping instructors like me build their brands and a viable income stream.   My sales started slow (first few months) but they scaled really nicely post the Black Friday and Year End sales in 2019. The UFB was a welcome addition but the pandemic really hit the ball out of the park. The sales have slowed since then but they are still at acceptable level and I trust the think tank at Udemy to take the right decisions. I have a demanding full time job (which I plan on keeping) and therefore I rely completely on Udemy for marketing and promotions and so far they have done a darn good job at it.    Note to new instructors. 1) Creating and supporting courses is a lot of hard work and it should not be thought of as a passive income stream. 2) Take the reviews and feedbacks positively. It will help you become a better instructor. Always remember that your average student has likely purchased the course from the Rockstar instructors as well and you can't blame them for comparing your courses with theirs. 3) Actively supporting the course (answering questions, incorporating suggestions) wins you a lot of goodwill and helps with your brand. Very important for new instructors. 4) Keep upgrading your older courses. I cringe at some of my earlier videos as my inexperience comes across quite clearly. Also the obsolescence rate keeps increasing and I need to update lectures which may have used tools/packages which are not supported anymore.  

Thought I would share a milestone that is exciting for me. I just passed 300,000 lifetime students on Udemy! It's truly incredible. When I published my first course from my small desk next to my bed in my apartment, I never imagined even approaching such a number.   I took a several year hiatus from producing new content, but this milestone coincides with work I'm doing currently to finish my first new course in 6 years! I'm so excited to release something new.   Here's a few lessons I've learned:   Don't worry so much about how many others are teaching the topic you want to teach. That just shows that a topic is popular. What matters is the quality of your content. Make the course that you wish you would have had on that topic. There's likely others out there like you. Don't fret so much about pricing on Udemy. Focus on building an audience, as that's where the real success lies. Don't be afraid to share a portion of your content for free on YouTube or elsewhere. Be confident in your content, and use it to convince potential students to buy the full course. While you should file takedown requests, don't lose your mind worrying about pirating. Most people who download pirated content wouldn't have paid for it anyway. And some people just might appreciate your content enough that they decide to pay for it afterwards and now you've gained audience (that's happened to me many times). Don't worry about how much each individual student is paying for a course. Think of each new student as audience growth for your next course. Teach what you know and love: it will come out in the course, and you'll have greater enjoyment in the long-term support of the course, such as answering student questions.   Happy course production! My new sound tent for recording my new courses. A far cry from where I started!    

Today we bought our dream house, and it might be one of the greatest moments in my life. Some people will think: "What? Did you buy a house with money from online courses? You must be joking!"   But that's exactly what we did. And it's all thanks to our students and, of course, Udemy.   Udemy has been an excellent platform for me to share my knowledge with others and make an income at the same time. It's allowed me to reach people from all over the world and help them learn new skills and improve their lives.   I want to say a big thank you to Udemy. Your platform has allowed me to achieve my goals and dreams, and I'm really grateful for that.   So thanks, Udemy, for creating such a great opportunity for my family and me. We're looking forward to using our new home as a base to continue making an impact in the world.  Best, Karoly  

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are just around the corner. Next month, hundreds of thousands of students will be shopping for courses. To set you up for success, we have some tips to make your content even more compelling.   Refresh your course Students can see the last time a course was updated or even filter search results by newest to oldest. Adding fresh, relevant information can put your content at an advantage. It also helps reassure students that what they’ll be learning is as up-to-date as possible.   Add helpful extras Everyone loves a good deal  — especially for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Adding practice activities is a great way to increase the value of your course. If you haven’t already, try including one or more of the following:    Quizzes Practice tests Assignments Coding exercises Downloadable resources

Hi folks! In response to a recent discussion that was posted by @Bella about Udemy instructors who host a support group for the students (on Facebook or some other platform) here’s a few tips on how to build a reasonably sustainable online community.   In case you’re interested, my qualifications are a 65,000+ member FB group, a 1500+ member subscription community, and a Discord channel with 12,000+ members … oh, and 550,000 students just on Udemy alone.   Please let me declare here that I'm definitely no expert, but here are a few of the most important lessons I've learned along the way so far:   Tip 1. Posting Consistency.   Keep on investing and contributing value even if no one responds (especially in the early days).   Tip 2. Experimentation.   Try new things, don't fret about making errors and never stagnate. Different people will engage with different types of content.   Tip 3. Humility.   Healthy communities are built on a foundation of shared purpose and unity. False expertise, fake positivity, enthusiasm and ‘guru’ culture will never sustain.   Tip 4. Transparency.   Just be honest, be who you are, and don't try to be a guru. Remain entirely genuine and take ownership of the times you screw up and make mistakes. (I once messed up BIGSTYLE on a FB live and lost 5000+ members overnight!)   Tip 5. Health.   Within your group, remain focused on what's good, accurate, healthy, and what will empower other people the most. NEVER allows your group members to determine the purpose or tone of the group - you’ll see quality and standards take a nosedive VERY quickly, which will undermine your reputation and credibility.   As with all people group, learning communities need influential leaders who are motivated more by purpose than by profits.   And lastly, if the leadership isn’t strong, the community won't be either. I hope this post lands someplace useful for you!   Cheers, Kain

Question We are starting the week with a community poll about student groups & communities. Do you run a group or community for your students outside of Udemy? If so, we’d love to know more about your group in the comments below!  Answers My company (Dion Training) runs two student support groups. Our primary one is on Facebook and our secondary is on Discord.   Our students love the support groups, especially if you make them useful. We have ours filled with daily posts from us (practice questions, quotes, tips and tricks), and also have built a 25k plus member group, so there is always someone posting about something!   Plus, since it is on Facebook, it is a great way to engage with students outside of the Udemy platform and course, and it drives students back to Udemy for new courses all the time, too!   Thanks! Jason Dion Dion Training Solutions   Yes- I run 2 groups associated with 2 different courses- a Tarot one and a angels and guides one- I love being able to have that connection with my students outside of the Q and a Board and its a great way for them to practice what they learn in the course with each other in a safe and supportive environment.  I also love doing monthly facebook lives for them where I answer 5 questions that were asked on the Q and A board that month- its a great way to bring them together and give them the opportunity to ask me anything they like about the course live.    I too run a Facebook group student community for several of my Udemy courses and my own online school, as well as anybody on Facebook who is interested in joining, currently with 3k members.   Like Jason said, Facebook is a great way engage with prospective students outside of Udemy, as well as to build your brand.   Discord is certainly very interesting.   I have about 4K members in the Facebook group... The most interesting conversations are when students present their actual work related issues and discuss or ask how these should be resolved using Lean Six Sigma and Project Management tools (my niche). I proactively share my inputs. The engagement is awesome. The most engaging conversations are on the following topics: Actual work-related issues that they want to resolve using process improvement tools Seeking answers to tough questions asked by their interviewers Asking course related Qs and seeking answers from old group members/me Asking statistical software related Qs (which is taught in the course work) I make a point to introduce new members to the group each Monday. I regularly: Add polls that refresh their knowledge on various topics (I have seen polls have the highest engagement). Add FREE content that I share on my YouTube Channel Share articles that I find on Quora/Medium or other sites for my niche High level of engagement builds trust with group members and a sense of association. Students also get back with their needs and requirements of courses on new topics. It is definitely worth the 10 minutes I spend daily in the group.   I am also highly active on LinkedIn, but don't have another group on that platform. Some students prefer to use LinkedIn as against Facebook. So, I use the platform to let students connect with me and ask questions.   Our Discord is new and still small, not even to 2k yet. But people see pretty engaged so far!   Yes, I run a Facebook group for my students. I have 8 moderators who have taken the majority of my courses to help run the group. It is not exclusive to my students - answer the questions and you can enter - this is a great tool to sell to 'outsiders' who may have an interest in Shamanism but who do not know about Udemy. I run Facebook live sessions on an irregular basis - they are all well attended. Students feel very grateful to have an 'extra bit of me'   I run an academy at academy.numericalinsights.com with courses, a community and downloadable templates.   Hi @Bella, I have two groups a free udemy Facebook group which is for Udemy students only and that community is now over 6,000 and I have my own personal community. Facebook really helps to launch courses. I do two lives a week in my own community and again that helps drive Udemy sales, whilst providing an environment conducive to my teachings and learning.    I don't have any group, but I am considering to create one. My questions: - Is it really beneficial to put in that time? - Would one group be enough for all of my courses, or would you need a group for each course?     Facebook & Discord as many instructors doing here. I generally use them as complimentary support groups. I actually do Q&A inside of Udemy in order to keep things strict. However sometimes they want to help each other and get instantaneous answers to their questions by visiting Discord and Facebook, that is helpful.   Also what i observed that it is not easy to let students know about job opportunities or internship opportunities. Since i have a huge student base many people ask me for that and i try to relay this message to the students. I do not receive any kind of money or compensation for this but it helps companies and it helps students. It also helps me because students feel more committed since i provide some additional value to them rather than only the content of the course. So i generally try to let them know about job opportunities etc via my Discord or Facebook groups. View the full discussion here

YouTube is best way to get the word out. It free and everyone use it! 1. Start a channel featuring your own brand (if you haven't done it already) 2. Create and post new videos once or twice a week. (make sure you are sharing values - not promotions) 3. Place link(s) on the video description to direct interested viewers to your Udemy course. Make sure to add one of your discount coupon to the link. 4. Organize your channels in categories 5. Invite your Udemy students (and YouTube viewers) so subscribe to your channel. 6. Share your videos on Reddit, Facebook, Twitter... 7. Have fun with it!     Agree with all of this and use most of this myself.  I also use videos that are good quality but for some reason, I choose not to put in my course (I re-shoot videos 6 times.)  Maybe it's a bit longer and re-do it for Udemy.  Those videos, as well as some polished ones, go on my YouTube.  I also make sure the videos are something people will search for.  I teach mental health topics, so I will make a video and be sure to title it as a specific skill and also check to see what videos are out there on a specific topic first.  If I see 3 videos that are 5 years old and have 20k views each I will make a video on that topic!  If I see 1000 videos on a topic, all new and with 10 views each, I will not.   I have not done this in a while, but I use to sell webinars on topics (or do free ones, some of which were easy weekly Q&A) and record them to post later on.  Those were very successful in the initial sale, also selling the recording and gaining students.   Thanks for this, Luca. I'm new to Udemy and scrolling through the suggested articles regarding marketing and your post gave me an idea that I could immediately implement on my YouTube channel. So thank you for that! 😃  

Many people, especially young instructors, ask how much can they earn on the course, why the courses do not explode and that sort of questions.    During my first mentoring session with Scott Harris (as an award for Journey to Black Friday Challenge), he mentioned a lot of building the audience.    Since February is not a perfect month of organic sales, also for the launch of a new course, I decided to put the extra effort and develop my audience more.   This is a long term strategy, but let me share the action samples that gave me the growth in February. Actually, you can observe, how my activities influence the sales:      I want to share with you Guys, what way i have chosen, what was going on and how did I found the response:   1. I spent a week trying to figure out improving the quality of my youtube live sessions using DSLR.  Invested in HDMI grabber (BTW. thanks Jason Dion for the model recommendation).  A week later, after around 100 attempts, finally, the quality of the live stream was as I wanted,   2. Decided to focus on my youtube audience more (my channel is a small expert corner, I upload new episodes 2-3 times per week), encouraged to join my new facebook group by contests, tools, and challenges.  Then I introduced live stream weekly program and also topic months (Feb was only for aerial photography, March is for begginers with a few experts tips, etc). That is a long term strategy to establish a membership site eventually...   3. So what are the first impressions:    - longer youtube sessions, especially live weekly programs give me great effects, this is an easy way to interact, classify the audience and build a more involved community and that is what we need for our courses. Even if a number of views is not massive, the watch time grows. I put a lot of effort to encourage, interact with the audience, notify them and also organize challenges, inform of specific facts,    - there is also a magical, thin line to not overwhelm the audience, but to create the interest,     - I found also that topic months are great for both sides. During February I created the course of aerial photography, but in the meantime, based on the same recording sessions & footage, I created several Youtube episodes. Each of youtube episodes refers to the course but gives the value as well. Each of them involves the audience and calls to act (eg. challenges with small awards),   - my total youtube visits nr was 25,5 K with 100 K minutes watched, each of the episodes includes a small reference to the online courses, but what is more important, the sales ratio develops slowly.    As an effect the new course launch goes nice, it is NEW and HOT, my promotions gave me decent effects,  also decided to increase the price of my coupons from 9,99 to 11,99 USD.  Hope you will find inspiration and answer how to sell more.   Thanks for Scott Harris, Caroline  Walthall, and Jason Dion for an advice.    Sincerely,    Rafal     

Question Guys i have a question about FB, i'm not much of a FB user, i only started using it to have some sort of online presence for Udemy. Right now i don't have a large follower base that's interested in my courses, so the only FB marketing i can do is to post in groups. I try to follow all the rules, be as active as i can, not only be there to promote the course and try to not spam.   So the question is: How often do you post with coupons (free or discounted) in FB groups? Once a day per group? Once a week? Right now i'm posting discounted coupons for all my course about once every two days mostly in coupons groups, and that helps with the sales, but sometimes i see that my post starts to show too much in the group page and i fear that people think i'm spamming and kick me out.   Answers Hi there,    To share my too cents...    I created my own Facebook group around 6 months ago and post regularly with education content, the group is now 3.5k members, hot a tipping point and growing by 100+ members a week. I was doing this for a while before even thinking of Udemy, but now that I have my first Udemy course, I have gotten quite a bit of support from it. It is a careful balance between posting and talking about the course and spamming.   My feeling as a promoter on Facebook is passive selling works best, discuss the course and have a discussion as opposed to telling people tk buy this course... as people are very adapt to spotting and ignoring a sales post.    Kind Regards,  Toan   I have a facebook group, think 1 1/2 years old, closing in on 10k members now.  95-98% is helpful content, 2-5% is me selling stuff.    My students are my best marketing tool, they pass certifications, like my teaching style and recommend me to friends and others in groups and forums.    I post content to my group 1-2 times daily (95% auto posted from my blog), students post 1-5 posts daily. I welcome all my group members, I share my knowledge freely, and recommend study resources that are good, not just my own.    I do the same on other groups, but the first 2-4 months I am in groups I post 0% promotional stuff, I help, I answer questions, I support.  After a few months I approach the admins and ask if they are OK with me every so often post my courses/coupons, so far everyone has said yes because I proved myself first. Here the split is also 95/5.    If you join a Facebook group that has a focus on Udemy coupons then just ask the owner/admin how often you can post coupons. For a group like that they usually don't mind very frequent posting of coupons. For a group that doesn't focus on coupons only, make sure you have the permission of the group owner before posting any coupons, even free ones.   A sudden post directing traffic away from the group can be considered spam.  Thor gave good advice above when he stated that you should do a lot of helpful commenting and being a part of a group (when it's not your own group) before even asking to post coupons. It's just polite and shows you have an interest in the group and not just their pocketbooks (which feels like spam again).  I have several groups on FB, my largest one is almost 90K. I don't allow spam in my group (most groups don't) and if someone's first post is directing traffic somewhere else, they get blocked from the group. I do allow some advertising posts but they have to ask permission first.   I do post my own promotions in the group about 2 - 3 times a month. Sometimes less. I balance that with posts that are educational and informative, besides answering endless questions.  So balance what you're doing by being polite, engaging in the groups and be careful not to spam.      I don't post coupons very often, maybe every couple of months or so.   I noticed that most group members are only looking for free stuff.   I neither have time to do this more often nor do I see the benefit of it (same for contributing to groups).  

Social media sites such as Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn can be wonderful ways to expand your digital footprint and hopefully grow your online business. However, the trap is that if we’re not prudent they can also take a tremendous amount of time. Instead of trying to use them all, choose one or two that seem popular with your student base, for example send out a google form and ask them, they may check Instagram 15 times per day, but only look at Facebook a few times per week - ask how MUCH TIME they spend on them - they may only spend a total of seven minutes on Insta and two hours on FB. This helps makes an informed decision where your time goes to establish your brand. When you do post, remember that you’re representing your fledgling business. You could add some personal pics to be more relatable, but generally, it’s better to share your expertise than your holiday snaps.   Creating blog posts that get traction is also a wonderful way to show people you really are an expert in the field you instruct in. Plus don’t forget other creative ideas of what else you can offer. Are you an expert at creating infographics? Perhaps e-books are a passion of yours? How many podcast interviews have you or could you give - who can you approach to interview you? What about dynamic YouTube or Instagram TV videos? more online resources that are a mix of free and paid content.   How have you expanded? Do you have any tips to share?     Hi @SharonRamel,   I mainly use LinkedIn and Twitter for promoting my blog posts, courses, etc.   I have a blog that gets a few thousand page views every month but what I observed, is that people who visit my blog, rarely click on links for my paid products such as courses and software.   It is like, they all come for the free stuff and never interested in any of my paid products. This is somewhat discouraging...        The way I see it, it is really difficult to sell online. The competition is huge and for people that are just starting out, it is even more difficult. Even in marketplaces like Udemy where someone might say it should be a little bit easier to sell courses, because students come with the intention to buy, again it is way too difficult.    I assume what is needed is hard work and a lot of patience!      Thanks, @SharonRamel, for me I am creating a Udemy funnel to move people beyond awareness into a purchase, then advocates and finally what I call tribal leaders.   I have now created my path and using predominantly YouTube and Facebook to build a social presence of snackable content with a call to destination which is my site.    I offer a free course if they sign up to by email and then they go on a four email nurturing campaign over 10 days with help and guidance along the way and with the final push being back to my site and my £9.99 coupons. This is starting to provide me with valuable data and sales, plus I can engage and find out what other courses people want.   I recently undertook a survey monkey with my social media supporter base and the findings have really helped me design and formulate my new studio, content and ultimately my next course based on the problems and issue they face.   It is a lot of work to get the digital ecosystem in place but I am sure that with the ease and quality of the Udemy platform I can solve problems, provide value and scale, three key components to being successful online. Maybe there is a course on this subject xxxx Julian   Just a bit of an update, the udemy free course Call To Action on the site has now had over 120 people sign up with 61 people joining the udemy course.   It will be interesting over the next 14 days to see if they convert to my udmey group and to the final email of the 5 which is to purchase other courses with a discount code.   Really pleased so far and I hope my other social media is providing a valuable funnel to Udemy.   Keep beleiving. x Author: @SharonRamel 

Question Is it more effective to create a promo video on youtube and create an AdWords campaign, or are facebook boosts a better bang for the buck?   Answers I personally get a few sales from putting a link to a coupon in my description on YouTube and it keeps a slow stream coming in each month.  If you have a free course, nothing faster than facebook although it's not the most effective student list.  Either way, I think facebook works out more expensive than YouTube if you're paying for advertisement, as they also own Instagram and on adwords you could just have ads running on youtube rather than the entire network.  Which makes the target audience more relevant.  Every category is different though and if would largly depend on promo videos etc so for each case I'd suggest, running a small ad campaign and keeping an eye on the results.   Youtube works as it is based on videos... Facebook doesn't work at all... don't waste your money there... better to spend money to push a video on Youtube... once it has some views it keeps getting new views... so your money for the initial push keep giving you results in time...   Hi Luke. In my experience, and from reading about the experiences of other instructors over the years, is that paid ads that sell Udemy courses are a waste of money. The cost of making a sale through paid ads will be more than the $10-$15 that you make on a Udemy sale.   Instead, use coupon codes in the description of a YouTube video, or use paid ads to drive traffic to your own site, so you can collect emails in return for some kind of freebie, then market your Udemy courses to people on your email list.   As a marketer, here’s the best answer: Test both. The ultimate marketing is when you bring the right message to the right people at the right time. You can’t know that for your specific topic until you test. Everyone else will have wildly differing opinions and experiences because their topic, right people, right message, right time may be different from yours. So test both and see what happens for your own situation. Having said that, it’s also important to know that running paid ads to a Udemy course is often not profitable because of how little you receive per enrollee. The basic math of it is that you should be receiving more than your ads cost. Well, it can be really difficult (if not impossible) to run ads at effectively less than $2.50 - $5.00 per enrollment. It is actually more likely that it will cost you $10 - $20 in ads / clicks to get one enrollment and that’s if you’re good. The reason is that you’re dealing with “cold traffic” or people who don’t yet know you, don’t know if they trust you and don’t know if they like you yet. (“Know, like and trust” must be there before people do business with you) So, if you’re going to be doing any kind of paid advertising, I’d recommend a strategy that doesn’t immediately go for the enrollment but instead puts them into a follow up sequence (email or chat bot) to build up the trust first.   Based on my own experience on udemy, I would suggest upload 20% of your course on your own YouTube channel and optimize it for organic reach to your potential students.   This will be much better strategy to drive paid enrolments to your udemy courses.   I second Youtube promo vids. Personally I've not seen much action from FB ads, although GoogleAds can be excellent if you're diligent with very specific keyword targeting for your niche.  But overall, we've had great success with sales from weekly youtube videos which for our company are half educational and half marketing as a means of bringing even more value to my users.    I am embarassed to say that I have spent thousands of dollars buying ads on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Google AdWords over the past 3 years and it has been an awful investment. I realized that the power of selling courses on Udemy is that they are our sales distribution channel...they are a marketing machine and I am grateful to be a part of this community. Please don't spend money buying ads as I promise that you will lose a lot of money doing so, like I have. If you figure it out, please let me know as I would love to learn from your all.   My long term customer acquisition strategy is YouTube; I create a video every day on YouTube and I am starting to slowly see students buying courses on YouTube. The great thing about YouTube is that it's the only gold rush in history that costs you next to nothing to create the product and you have access to bilions of consumers.    Thanks : )   I’ve had mixed experiences on FB. Loss, break even, and double my money. Fine tuning demographics, easy to access purchase/landing page, and cool vid or image helps tons. Sadly, if I put boobs in the image, it’s guaranteed to double the views/reach.    Making the promo video in a way that you cover what is this video about & Instresting things about your course in first 5 seconds and then start explaining so that your ad is not skipped and interested people may click on the ad video and Join I prefer YouTube ads as well as will also do Facebook ads, both have it's own benefits   I have tested Google AdWords, Facebook Ads and LinkedIn Ads. I will get into details below but in conclusion, if you are capable of creating some free content in Youtube, go down that route rather than paid advertisement. Produce free content in Youtube and direct your viewers to your course. Details below;   First of all, online education platforms will be able to beat your bidding in all platforms in terms of cost. So, you will have to pay almost the twice as these big platforms do. Just to explain what I mean online education platforms, Udemy is also one of them but of course we love Udemy 🙂 The main reason is because they have re-marketing capability (with the help of scale) and they buy traffic in bulk which reduces the price.    Even if I will not use paid adverts at all, Google AdWords was the best among these. Facebook Ads didn't create much traffic, almost none. My personal Facebook post created more traffic 🙂    LinkedIn Ads are way too expensive for a course that you will earn £10 from. If you can sell your course for £100, then Linked Ads will work the best among these, but if not, you can forget it. The click cost of LinkedIn was 4 times more than Google AdWords.    I haven't tried Youtube Video Ads which might perform better.  

There have been many discussions in the community about using social media to promote courses and it seems like everyone has their own strategy.   So we’d love to know: Which social media site do you find the most effective in promoting your courses?    GREAT QUESTION!!  My course is less than 2 months old, so I'm FAR from an expert in this area, and really looking forward to hearing from others, but here's what I've found so far:  Facebook and Reddit have been great.   BUT, you have to do your homework.  The two main challenges are 1) Will the group accept some type of self-promotion? and 2) Is this group really my target audience? My course is a beginner course on the Go programming language.  One mistake I made is accidentally posting to a Facebook group for advanced developers.  Some of those sales were refunded and a few others resulted in not so great reviews.  My course clearly says it's for beginners, but the Facebook group members assumed I had done my homework, and rated me accordingly. So, those (Facebook and Reddit) are my 2 favs so far.  I would say participate for several weeks before promoting yourself, do your homework, follow their rules, and sales can be significant.   While I want to answer your question, I really can't. Udemy only allows us 3 coupons per month, where prior I could target specific social media channels or campaigns, now it is just everything in one bucket, we have no clue. I use FB group (1 w/18k members) and pages (2 w/2-4k likes), LinkedIn (7k connections), Discord (4k members), email list (12k), YouTube, Twitter.  As mentioned as instructors we have no idea where is most effective, we might guess but the coupon system makes it impossible to actually track.     I use Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Pinterest, Linkedin & Quora. I create videos and publish them on Youtube. I am a writer, so I post all types of content and the description of my courses. I have not seen many responses from most of them apart from Linkedin, Quora & Facebook. So I wondered whether Udemy has any unique methods to promote the courses of their instructors. Further, I have a website I post to social media daily that includes the Udemy course intro as well.   It is very difficult for me to answer. I actually generate the three days unlimited redemption coupon and share in different Facebook groups, WhatsApp groups, and my broadcast list. Unfortunately, there is no feature to track which source gives the most students.   @Bella - thank so much for this great question Bella- so for me I use YouTube Facebook and Insta- but I agree with Thor above with only 3 coupons to share a month there is no way to track this- or even know if your Facebook page is driving sales or your Facebook group- so really its not ever going to be accurate - whereas under the old system I was easily able to understand the effectiveness of a youtube video driving traffic compared to a facebook live or even answering a question on facebook with a link to the course for those who are interested in the topic- or on our bio in instagram- so if they could give more coupon options so we know where our efforts are making the most impact that would be super helpful when driving traffic on social media! thanks! Love Sal    I use these social media platforms to promote our course among our students and target new students to research out  my course Facebook  LinkedIn and some others but mostly that  above social media sites    I use Twitter, instagram and youtube but the most powerful is my own website    I thought Quora was a joke..... I could tell from miles away that the questions were weird and artificial, the whole thing felt like Robot Land. As for Reddit.....never bothered with, never will, I think I only had a look once and got out of there as fast as I could. Personally I think it's a bit like the sewers of social media. At least on FB one gets to see real names.....for the most part. I am not going to be anywhere at any costs, just to sell my courses, and I will not deal with anyone just to sell more. To me the internet is not much different than the physical world....I would not go anywhere I don't like.....I have been doing my stuff for almost 30 years and I know I am real good at it, and I will not cheapen myself being where I don't belong, and with people I have nothing in common with. I apply online the same things I apply in the real world, it makes no difference to me. But that's just me, again I am certainly not in a position to make recommendations about how to sell more. Recommendations which to me seem, for the most part, to be almost always easier to suggest than to follow. It seems to me that it is very hard to be successful, online or offline. Chance and luck have a lot do with it, which is why we get to see people who have better skills and talents, doing worse than others who aren't anywhere as good. Another big part is played depending if you do things on your own, or if you team up with others. For a team is obviously more influential than a single person, for the reason that a team has perforce more skills and talents (more people). A single person, even very talented, can only go so far on his own.  

Udemy Promotional Announcements are by far the most effective tool I use to promote my own courses. A promo announcement for a new course is many, many orders of magnitude more effective in driving sales than posting about it on social media, YouTube, blogging, etc. At least for me. Of course you need an existing audience to send them to first, which is why it’s so important to have more than one course.   Coupon links in bonus lectures would probably come in second place, followed by YouTube (sample videos posted to our channel with a link to the Udemy course in the description). Other social media and mailing lists are barely a drop in the bucket, despite steady efforts put into them.   Now, I know some other instructors have been much more successful in using social & mailing lists than I have - I’d love to hear tips from them. What's been most effective for you?   I'd have to agree with you @FrankKane that the promotional announcements are the most productive in terms of sales.  My next closest is sales from my FB student group and to be honest, after that, I have very little sales from other avenues. General social media posts and Youtube videos may get a couple of takers but the number is small.   I'm looking forward to hearing tips from others as well.   Hi @FrankKane ! In my case, for now, I make more sales for my promotions. I call this a factor of simultaneity, I mean that I could not unify in a single channel the effectiveness of my marketing. But if I should mention which channel is the one that receives the most sales, it is for my web page (also because I centralize a lot of traffic by that means). In the marketing courses that I dictate, I just mentioned that it is important to exploit all the free media that exist today, to automate all the tasks that are most possible since we will not always have the time to attend them and that is fundamental, to respond to all the that they write to us consulting about our courses (asi also I generate the means of communication so that they can arrive at me of direct form). The means by which I make more sales are as I said my website and youtube (I do not have many subscribers). In fact I must mention that 10 months ago that I started in udemy, without having a community, or YouTube channel or social networks with my personal brand, and now I am lucky to have almost 13 thousand students. I do not say egocentric, but as an example that you can start from 0 and reach good goals (I'm proud of my achievements and so is the effort I do, you have to work every day (Saturdays and Sundays inclusive) . In summary, for me, all channels are important (but if they are free as social networks are used today, this is called digital presence). If you leave your fingerprint on the internet everywhere, sooner or later whoever looks for a subject that you dictate in your courses, will find you, and if you have a well-made homepage and an incredible promotional video, you will surely buy your course with your coupon   "In summary, for me, all channels are important (but if they are free as social networks are used today, this is called digital presence). If you leave your fingerprint on the internet everywhere, sooner or later whoever looks for a subject that you dictate in your courses, will find you, and if you have a well-made homepage and an incredible promotional video, you will surely buy your course with your coupon"  Thanks. Very good.   I also believe that leaving a digital presence is incredibly valuable. Connecting with the groups of people who could most benefit from my courses is what I'm finding to be most useful - I work with grief in clients so connecting to different grieving groups (that represent my own journey) is most useful. Thanks for sharing your experiences and tips here too. Although I've made courses for a while, I'm only now looking at digital marketing! Be well everyone!   Great achievement, but how did you manage to enrol 13000 students in less than a year? Did you give away a lot of free coupons?  I would love to know.   Some good advice here. Congratulations. One question. You have your website. I also have a website. How do you get traffic, the right kind of traffic to your website? I am just getting a trickle in spite of promoting it on my mailing list and social media. Any advice and suggestions will be gratefully received.