In 2014 - my first Black Friday - I had never heard of it before - caught me by a pleasant surprise. For some bizarre reason, my courses just started selling. Then I didn't know NOW I do.   It isn't just Black Friday - it is much bigger than that.   This is big so take advantage of these sales, you’ll be creating and distributing promotional material for more than Thanksgiving.  Your campaign work spans approximately three months. My thoughts: Pre-Holiday Campaign: Starting in September get your new course tuned up and ready to release. I like to release in October BEFORE the Black Friday madness of nearly every instructor waiting for their courses to be approved to go in November. October, you’ll start running campaigns to push your new course hard - lots of written reviews. Posting to all your usual social media outlets to get the course moving.  Leading up to Black Friday. Start playing around with promotional styles. Refine the look and messages you want to push. Pre- Black Friday – During this period in November, you might like to send out your own promo - well clear of BF.  Think about your course images/ landing pages and how you can maximise sales to everyone who will drop by and spend a few seconds looking at what you have to offer.   Black Friday – Udemy basically to all the promotional work revealing your courses to the world. What can you do to maximise this?  Maybe add some extra downloads. Students love free material. Think about using scarcity, use your Course Landing Page to suggest the free material is ONLY available during the BF  & CM Sale.  From my website and social media I direct people to my Udemy profile page and or individual courses - I use a mix to distribute all over social media. There is no point competing with Udemy during these big sales - work with them! Cyber Monday – On Cyber Monday, use different images to push your courses. Focus  - even though it was originally a tech kinda day I have always done well on CM.  Post-Black Friday Campaign – Now that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are over, you’ll want to make sure you are on top of your educational announcements - make the most of the new influx of students to let them know who you are and how best to begin their courses with you - any tips, info that is relevant. I am no marketing expert. I follow the threads of all the great marketers here on Udemy. Thus I need to prepare in advance so I am not caught dithering!  ps, I am dithering now avoiding creating my new course... bye for now... hope this helps all the new instructors...   Author: @SharonRamel 

Firstly I am happy to have my courses on the Udemy Marketplace. In my 3 years of creating course materials I have learned the following points and  I hope it can help new and aspiring creators to make better courses from the get-go so here goes.   1. Always keep the student in mind and try and simplify the material   2. If you are using a screencast video, generally engagement will be low as viewers may get bored, alternate between screencast and stock video. Or just bite the bullet and record with the camera on. I have found students completion rates are much higher for courses that have video recording. It took me almost 8 months to brave the camera but it was worth it. The courses where I face the camera reached best-seller must faster and have a higher enrolment rate.   3. Ensure you use stock videos and pictures which are either free for commercial use or ones you have purchased. A great source for free images and video is pixabay and Pexels .    4.For simple animations and intro-videos you can use softwares that add extra professional look. It's easy to use and saved me tons of money than hiring a video editor to do intro videos and animations. You can get started for as low as a dollar.    5. For presentations and templates use canva. It can help save a lot of time making slides and worksheets. You can get started for free and then upgrade according to your requirement. Nowadays you can even use canva's presenter option to record your presentations.   6. Try and bring your own story and personality to the surface to engage better with the students. Including examples of own life, experiences helps build student rapport.   7. Don't wait for your course to be perfect to publish it. Start with what you have and work on getting your course out there. You can always improve based on student feedback and update your course   8.Always keep a hard disk and back up your videos to ensure that you don't lose them or they get corrupted    9. Investing in a ring light and a microphone can help the quality of your audio/video and the sooner you do it the better and more time you will save editing. The blue yeti is a good microphone to get started with .   10. Success may not happen overnight so don't be discouraged. It takes a little while for students to find your course and enroll. Having a good promo video can help.    So these are the top 10 learnings I can share with any new instructor. Hope they help you in your journey of course creation,   Wishing you a Merry Christmas and A Happy Prosperous New Year!   Author: Jasmine Bayer (@JasmineBayer)

Editing takes the biggest bulk of most instructor’s time. Some instructors are lucky to have video editors who can work with them/for them, but not all of us are so lucky! I do one hundred percent of my own editing and finding ways to streamline that process can save me the most time. First of all, I create a theme or template video for my course I am working on. This theme will have a standard look for a lower third, banners or an intro screen. These graphics look consistent or have a branded theme. I start each lesson with this template, so I already have the first few seconds set up in my editing software, same for the outro, music and fonts. This saves me a ton of time as I do not have to set it up each time, I start a new lesson as there can sometimes be 60+ lectures. I also film in one day. I can film up to four hours of screen recording content in one afternoon. This way I can record it all and save the editing for one session. This also helps to cut down on editing time and streamline my process, so I am not going from filming to editing too often and shifting gears too frequently. I also plan ahead. I open up a google doc with my course outline and I write out the title of each lesson. If I need to write a script ahead of time, I will do all this at once. There is a theme here of sitting down to do one task before moving onto another. As instructors we can get excited about teaching that sometimes we rush to film before we really planned out the outline to our course, and “play it by ear”. I found that to be more time consuming in the end as I had to go back and refilm things I have said because I decided to change up the course after filming the first few lessons.   What are some things that you've done to create a course in less time?   Author: @LindsayMarsh      @Artemakis: I also find it more efficient to first record all lectures/screencasts, and then start the editing process.   In my first course, after recording each lecture, I would edit it and only then I would proceed with the next one. It was a nightmare! 🙂    Then I switched to record all-first, and then edit them, which works much better for me.    @GregReverdiau: Personally, I too like to record one chapter in one day. I try to keep the editing to later in the day, the morning is my prime time to record while I'm fresh. Plus, editing in the afternoon means I can export the videos while I sleep, and since I export directly to a Dropbox folder, they are also synched by the morning, which means I only have to add them with the bulk uploader.  A few tips that have saved me a ton of time:  - I use FCPX and there is a way to save some of the edits and apply them later. For example, color correction, where my body is located on the final video, the size of the screen that I'm showing, my fake background, my keyer, etc... is all saved for each of the angles I have. It makes it super easy to do the entire setup before I start editing. I'm sure other software have the ability to do the same. It also helps with keeping everything consistent.  - In FCPX, there is a Multicam option available. This allows me to set up an unlimited number of "angles" that I can easily switch between when editing. I simply click on 1,2,3 or 4 on my keyboard when I want to switch to one of the angles. They are all synched in and all I have to do once it's setup is to play my course and cut between all the angles.  - I play my course at 2x the speed when I edit. I can still hear everything I say and catch the bloopers, and it really saves down on the time!  I hope this helps someone!      @SatyaAnandaDhar: I do basically the same. I've also switched from more expensive and complex video editors to camtasia 9 to speed up the editing process. What wears the most is the time lost waiting for rendering! Breakes the work flow! I always record the course and then I'll edit at the end. Sometimes I add one class or another when I see the material ready, for polishing What works for me is to create a video file with the introduction ando other for the "background"  parts like text, images, quots etc.   @LindsayMarsh,   I just wanted to add that I do screencast and PowerPoint based presentation courses and I've found that a lot of my time can be sucked up producing PowerPoint slides -- especially if I go for high production value with lots of animation.   Want to speed up your video production to the max?  Do pure screencast software demonstrations.  I can record as much as 1 hour per day using this method.   If I start messing around with PowerPoint slides, or of late talking head and green screen, the minutes start spinning like Clark Griswald's electricity meter when he had all the lights on in "Christmas Vactation".  You get my point -- at least you do if you're a John Hughes fan ;-).   ---Brian   @Anonymous Great tip! This is exactly what I do. I do not even mess with PowerPoint and do all of my text and instruction right in screenflow (the mac video editing software I use). It is great because there is just one program I am juggling. I record my screencasts there but also edit video there as well, streamlining the process. It also adds a much more professional touch to my courses as my text is almost always, animated and structured.    If you are using Camtasia, you can render all of your Camatasia projects in bulk.  What I'll typically do is record all my lessons, mistakes and all. I'll then edit them all. Once edited, I'll open Camtasia, select all of my lesson projects, and bulk process them - sometimes letting it run after I go to bed.  When I wake up (or get back from food shopping, or return from the gym, etc), all of my lessons are ready for upload.   @kalimaAcademy: Hello, I use a " debut "program from a company " nch "  that is easy to use and the payment is $ 49 for one time. For montage, I use Filmora. Around my house there is noise, so I only shoot early in the morning for two hours, and then I do the montage and for noise removal I use the Audacity program, which is free. It is better to record several videos at once, because you will shorten the time to set the device and lighting, and then devote yourself to editing. The other command was prepared using PowerPoint, a simple introduction and I use it as an introduction before the videos and arranged all the things in one folder, and so I find everything I want in one time.  

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.   

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. 

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     

After almost full 5 years of Udemy experience, I reached USD 250K today! I owe this success to inspiring instructors who always go before us and show us what are possible. Special thanks to @LindsayMarsh  and @PhilEbiner  who showed me basic strategy to be successful in Udemy. That is just keep making courses. I learned to be good contributor to Udemy community from @ScottDuffy. Helping others and serving community themselves are rewarding. @LawrenceMMiller always gives wisdom and insight.  For those who have just started Udemy journey, I want to share one secret to be successful in Udemy. That is, there is no such secret. All you need to know is shared in this Udemy community. BY learning Udemy courses by yourselves, you can learn how successful Udemy instructors teach and how they structure their courses. Stop chasing "best way", "short cut" nor "Only_successful instructors_know_things". Because there are no such things.  I am merely a high school graduate and no degree in higher education. I was raised by single mom. Most of Japanese companies denied my resume because of my academic background. I am a husband and a father of 3 daughters. I still work for 9 to 5 job. Meaning I am just a normal guy. But one thing I did was I kept making courses. After 59 months of Udemy career, I have published 48 courses and still continue. Those who feel that your revenue grow very slow, I know how you feel. But, once you get momentum, things go really quickly. I calculate how much months I needed to earn every USD 50K; 1st 50K 38 months 2nd 50K another 7 months 3rd 50K another 6 months 4th 50K another 4 months 5th 50K another 4 months. As you see, to earn first 50K, it took me 3 years. But another 50K was easy, just 7 month. 5 times faster than 1st 50K. It is because during the 3 years, you cumulate skills and you cumulate courses, students and reviews. Another 50K , you can use these. I know by observing come-and-go in communities (it used to be Facebook, and now this official community) for 5 years, that not many are patient. So stick to it and just keep moving on, you are already special here!   Best regards Shigeru Masukawa from Tokyo, Japan    

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 

I see a lot of people asking, "Why didn’t my course succeed on Udemy?"   Honestly, though, this question often comes too late for us to help them because they have already filmed and published a course. They have spent countless hours and effort to build this course, and they are discouraged because it didn't get a bunch of students buying it up in the first week.     So, with that in mind, here are my four tips for increasing your chances of success onUdemy based on my experience. It is a long read, but worth your time and consideration before you start filming.   (Following all of these tips will NOT guarantee success, but they will certainly put you in a much higher chance of finding success here on Udemy. Remember, Udemy is a crowded place these days with 100k courses from 50k instructors...how will you stand out and succeed?)   Please please please, follow these tips in order. After all, if you don’t get Tip 1 right, the rest of this post doesn’t even matter...   (1) Proper category selection.    This is probably the number one mistake of new instructors on Udemy. People think, “Hey, I know Java and the top Java course makes like $90k a month. I want some of that sweet sweet Java $$, so let me throw together a 3 hour course on it, publish it, and I am going to be instantly rich!”   What they don’t realize is topics like Java, Web Development, iOS Developer and Python are highly competitive topics with 500-1000 courses already released and in the marketplace on each of them. This means you are likely to get buried in the noise (sheer volume of available courses) and no one will be able to find your course. This equates to low or no sales.   Instead, you really need to find a topic that isn’t overcrowded and make a name for yourself there. The topics I have had the most success with (translation: the one with courses making large amounts of money if we measure success by revenue) is categories with less than 10-20 courses in them. Once you find a category like this that you are knowledgeable and can teach, we can then move on to step 2...   (2) Make a better course than what is out there.    Once I find a category, I actually watch the top 1-5 courses for that category (at least their free preview videos). I analyze their course and ask myself, “Self, if I were to make a course on this particular topic, could I do it better than this instructor?”   My first breakout hit for a course was in a topic with only 10-15 courses in it. The #1 course made around $3000/month, and when I watched the previews for that course I was bored. The videography was ok, the audio was ok, but the presentation was outright BORING. I knew I could create a better course than that instructor, so I built one. Within 3 months, my course became #1 for that category and has been my top selling course ever since. (Oddly enough, the top course revenue went up significantly as a result to, moving to 2x the previous top revenue because now there was a better option for students to buy, which in turned increased conversations for this topic area across the Udemy platform.   Now, the hard part here is that there are some categories I found that “looked” like a good opportunity (high demand from students and low number of courses), but the leading course was already very good. For some of these topics, I opted to ignore these categories because I didn’t think I could take the top spots from the existing courses. Could I make a great course? Sure. Could I make one significantly better than the existing leader? Probably not.   When you look at these existing courses, you have to be truly realistic in your approach. I have considered making a Python course before. Python is one of the most searched terms on Udemy and may be the single best selling topic on the platform, BUT the top courses are already REALLY REALLY good. I mean, Jose's Python course is top notch. Could I make a really good course, too? Sure, but there are already so many good courses (and literally hundreds of Python courses on Udemy already), I would likely get buried in the noise, so I don't make Python courses.   Let's take for example, a topic like ITIL 4 Foundation (my #1 course). If you look at the Insights tool for you would think this is clearly a topic you should make a course for. Low number of courses and high demand. But, you would be wrong...   Why? Because the top course is my course. It has great visuals, an energetic and well liked instructor, and exceptional video quality. The course is a complete study solution, where I give the student all the videos needed to pass the exam, quizzes, 2 practice exams, and a downloadable study guide. I give students so much value for their money, it would be hard to displace me from this top spot, because there isn't much you can do to give more value than I already have.    Now, if you are a brand new course creator, it is going to be hard for you to steal students from me. In fact, 9 out of 10 people who search the word ITIL on Udemy end up buying one of my courses. When I have spoken with Udemy has told me, “You clearly dominate this topic.”   But even beyond me thinking my course is the best,  (and students agreeing), you have another challenge in entering this particular topic. This topic is regulated by Axelos, owners of the ITIL brand. If you publish a course there without their authorization and approval, they will have Udemy remove your course under copyright infringement. So again, not a topic you want to join unless you jump through the very time consuming and expensive process of becoming “authorized” by Axelos to teach ITIL. (The same holds true for the CEH certificatoin for those in the IT space who want to teach hacking.)   (3) Make courses people actually want/need.    This may sound stupid, but do people want/need your course? If you are making a course on Underwater Basket Weaving, will anyone want or need it? Is there a big enough audience to support it?   I personally make most of my courses on IT certifications because it gives me a natural audience who is searching for courses to pass these exams. People go to Udemy everyday to search for “CompTIA Project+” or “AWS Associate”.    When you are starting out, people will find your course because of your topic. This is why finding a topic with less than 20 courses is so crucial, because it virtually guarantees you will be one page 1 of the search for that term. Over time, as you become more known and liked by student, then they start searching for you and you can break my 10-20 courses in a topic recommendation.    For example, many of my student search “jason dion python” or “Jason dion Java” because they want to learn those topics AND they want to learn them from me. (They won't find one, because I don't have those courses, but they keep searching.)   Going back to our Java discussion at the beginning of this thread, I now have a big enough following that I could launch a Java course and do pretty well. I won’t knock out the top guy, but I could probably make a few thousand $ a month with one because enough students know me and would buy a course in that topic from me at this point. But if I was where I was 2-3 years ago, forget it. That same course (regardless of how good I made it) would earn me maybe $100/month if I was lucky, and I would be on page 5, 10, or 15 of the search results. It would be very hard for students to find it and discover me.    (4) Happy students.    The last strategy I use is that I put my students first. I give them a complete course, a full study solution, in their Udemy course. I answer their questions. I support them in our FB group, etc.    These students are my biggest marketing effort. Just go into any CompTIA Facebook group and ask what you should study if you are going to take the CompTIA Security+ exam. I bet within the first 5 comments you get at least 3 of them saying “Jason Dion’s course on Udemy”.    This is marketing for me. Now, I don't get 97% because they didn’t use one of my coupon links (I am not the one marketing in these groups), but these recommendations are all over Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, and LinkedIn, an they are all driving warm traffic back to my website and Udemy’s looking for my courses.    You have to be patience with this strategy though. It doesn’t happen overnight. These students took my course, passed their exam, and now they share the good news of "Jason's courses" with others because my courses worked for them. For that to happen, it takes 3-6 months from their first purchase, so you have to be patience. But, once the flow of recommendations starts to flow (you’ve primed the pump), it becomes a snowball effect.   Bottom Line:   I am not saying to go create courses in areas you are not an expert in. Please don't read it that way. I am not trying to make you a mercenary for hire. But, I do want you to consider all the things you COULD teach before deciding on a particular category. Your BEST thing, the thing you are the biggest expert in, may not be your best choice on Udemy because the market is too crowded in that topic.   For example, I have a friend who has been teaching Web Developement (HTML and JavaScript) for a few decades. He is an excellent teacher, and makes outstanding courses, but that is a tough topic to succeed in. Should he go teach a cooking class instead if that has high demand and less competition? Well, maybe...   This particular person is skilled in many things. He has been an online instructor probably longer than anyone else I know. He knows how to do some amazing things in Adobe Photoshop, Premiere, and Audition. He knows how to program computers. He knows how to run a profitable business. He knows management and human resources from running his companies. He knows educational design and learning management systems. You get the idea...this guy knows a lot of things. I just listed 6-10 different topics he could teach, teach well, and with expertise.    Most of us are like this. I look at my own background, and I have 20+ IT Certifications across cyber security, IT service management, and project management. I also can play guitar, run a business, manage people, do videography, and numerous other things that I could  teach.   So, when I started making courses on Udemy, I looked at various topics. My third course (which became my best seller) was on ITIL. It is something I had done at my job for over 10 years. It wasn't the thing I was most passionate or excited about, but it was a high demand area with a low number of courses. Yes, I have expertise in it, and I am certified in it, so I decided to make a course on it....and it paid off (big time).    That is my point here, because I could have created another Web Development course, or Java course, or Python courses, but I didn't. Even though I am knowledgeable about those things, I knew I would be fighting an uphill battle teaching them. For example, I used to own my own web development company. I have been a web programmer since the late 90s. I definitely could create a "Complete Guide to Web Development" course if I wanted to. The same with Java or Python, I program in both of those languages, but it doesn't mean they will provide me the best return on my time investment by creating courses on them. Some things may be good topics, but they may not be good FOR YOU.    Now, when I say things like this, I often get the objection, "But Jason, the only thing I know is Python", or Java, or Web Development. To that I say, "Well, nothing says you have to be on Udemy." Yes, I know this is a Udemy platform I am writing this on, but remember, no one is forcing you to use Udemy. Udemy is awesome, but if you are going to spend 50-200 hours building a course and get ZERO traction because you are hidden in a sea of other courses, then maybe you need to find your own path...or be prepared to market the heck out of the course yourself on Udemy.    Either is fine, but remember, if you are making the next Web Dev, Java, or Python course, you better have a plan for how you are going to be found and how you will stick out among 500+ other courses on that topic. If you think you will just click "Publish" and students will flock to your courses in these highly competitive topics, you are going to be sadly disappointed, I promise you.    I hope this helps some of you out there as you embark on your Udemy journey, Jason Dion   Author: @JasonDion 

Hi There, I'm Denise and I have been on Udemy for a few years. I have 10 courses. I thought I'd share some of my thoughts about NOT being the most successful of Udemy instructors. I think when you first come to Udemy it can be easy to give up before you have even got going with creating your course. Or you create your course and it isn't successful at all and you feel deflated. It's comparisonitis!!!  Comparing yourself to other people. Some course creators just nail their course and their niche and are immensely successful from the word go. I want you all to know that there is room for everyone to get some success and over time you can be more successful. It just takes more time and perseverance for some / many people. Don't give up. Learn. For me I overcome my technical shortcomings just by learning bit by bit. It was an enormous mountain to climb.I am still learning. I have become more successful and Udemy does reap rewards as long as you keep at it Sometimes it is important to keep in your mind that there are course creators who earn nothing but also there are course creators who earn a fortune. However there are a lot more who earn somewhere inbetween and that is ok and can pay your bills or help you earn extra money if you have lost your job, you need more money, you need to work flexibly because of family commitments, you have been ill or you are retired.   Just keep the end in mind and your reason, your why for create online learning  Kind Regards   Author: @DeniseFletcher 

Gregg talks about the past, present & future of Udemy and also answers some of your questions. In case you missed it you can catch up below!  

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

  Sorry for my month-long hiatus! After vacation and the release of my latest masterclass I am able to finally focus on the community and on my students.  I just released a new course and with each course release comes a new promo video you have to produce. I wanted to walk through tips and tricks on how to build a strong, compelling promo video as it can be the deciding factor for your course to be chosen over others.    First of all, a promo video should never be too short or too long. How do we determine this? My rule of thumb is the longer the course, the longer you can push your total promo video length. 2 minutes is a sweet spot but for a class that exceeds 5 hours, it is very challenging to truly condense all aspects of your course in that short amount of time, so expanding it by an additional minute to 3 minutes is usually a good length. There are times where I need to reach closer to 4 min (like my latest course, still in review) simply because I had a lot of extra downloadable resources, I really wanted to explain in more detail than my usual courses and those are a BIG selling point.  Shorter 2-hour courses should have a shorter promo, perhaps that one and half min mark or less.   Should I start with introducing myself?   Not always. For some, talking about yourself toward the end may work better and putting your course topic and content first tends to grab people’s attention. Of course, if you’re a therapist or in coaching, things may have to shift more toward your introduction. I usually like to keep this super brief and toward the middle/end. How do you handle music? Music is so important in peaking one’s interest in promo videos as music can give viewers an emotional response can be utilized to sell your course. I find keeping the background music lower during moments when you are talking is best, making sure the music never overwhelms your spoken words. A trick I use in my promo videos is to pick multiple songs, perhaps two. I like to start out with a high energy song, and then move into a softer background track for the middle portion and exit with a quick 10 second music clip to end it on a high note. When picking your music think about the emotional response it gives, how can you best use this to sell your course? Is the music too overwhelming? Post it on community forums to get that sort of feedback.   What do I talk about and in what order? The overall structure I use for my promo videos are as follows: Course Topic and Overview: Two sentences that sum up the entire course, your thesis statement basically. The software used or the topics should be mentioned.   Who this class is for? Mention briefly who this class is best suited for. Best to do this early to go ahead and weed out students that the course would not be a good match for. Why I should take this class? Mention the benefits of learning this software or industry. Can it move you higher in your career, satisfy life goals?   What am I going to be doing? When it comes to this section, I am always showing final finished course work (and also showing me in the process of creating it in short high-speed clips). In my field of graphic design, this is a bit easier to do. I show them the final created pieces early, so they know right away what they are going to be able to produce by the end of the course.   What comes with the course? Is there anything that comes with the course outside of just video content? Talk about your downloadable resources, extra community groups, quizzes, worksheets etc. It is best to bring all of these “extras” up right before you bring up your final pitch! The final pitch and call to action: HUGE one here. Always end your promo with a question or call to action statement. “see you in lesson one”, “Let’s start your new career now” etc. Make this very short and sweet and add that pop of music to add an additional emotional overtone. Try not to end your promo video with a soft statement.    Quick tips: Make sure to keep each section brief. If you have 8 sections to your course, only spend 15 seconds or so on each section. You can go into more detail about your course in a course guide our course introduction later on. This is video is meant to sell your courses, not be your course outline. Make sure you craft this video for marketing not for small details. Your most important course aspects should be highlighted here.   Be very visual. Trying to make your promo more polished than any other video in your course. You should spend at least 4x the amount of total editing time for your promo over other lectures.    Make your intro impactful. Studying your competitors’ intro can help you find a way to make yours more memorable and enjoyable.   Just a few tips from someone who has created over 74 promo videos in the last 2 and half years. I do believe my intro videos have helped my course sales dramatically.    Example of my latest intro, a little longer than I usually shoot for, but wanted to accent all the extra freebies the students get and the student Facebook group.    Author: @LindsayMarsh 

Udemy Senior Product Marketing Manager, Katie Bent presented an hour-long webinar "Making the Most of your Instructor Experience" and we've got the replay for you below!   In this hour-long webinar Katie goes over:   The 4 P's of being an online instructor How to make the most of Marketplace Insights The importance of the first 15 minutes of your course How to optimize your course landing page

This post might come off sounding a bit self-centered and egotistical. Apologies in advance if it comes off that way. My intention tonight was to reflect on my 7+ years as a Udemy instructor.  I thought I would share them.   As always, if any of these spark questions or interest, feel free to ask about them in the comments below.   1. I don’t read my reviews. Stranger’s opinions about me are not important. I do, however, have someone to read them and respond.    I once heard Seth Godin say something similar at Udemy Live. I care about the opinions of people I trust and respect, not Internet strangers.   2. If one person says something bad about me or my course, I don’t believe them. They’re having a bad day. I forget about what they said. Everyone has a right to their opinion. But I also have the right to ignore it.   You have to have thick skin to survive in an Internet Marketplace. Or a Facebook Group. I really don't let what people say to me affect me. That's on them.    3. If multiple people say something bad about me or my course, ok maybe there’s something that can be improved. So I improve it. And then I forget about what they said. My lack of memory for inconsequential things is my greatest strength.   At some point, there's a quorum. If a few people say something needs to be improved, OK, I improve it. But I still don't let their harsh judgements affect me. It's fixed! Moving on!   4. I don’t read emails, private messages, social media messages, or answer phone calls unless I want to hear from that person. I currently have 26.999 unread emails and I’m perfectly fine with it.    I view being hard to reach as a strength.    5. I am not perfect. I can always be better.    6. I am not a perfectionist. I don’t believe there is such a thing as a perfectionist actually. There are just people making excuses for why something isn’t done.   7. Great is the enemy of good.   A book I have not read. But it makes sense. If you spend too much time trying to be perfect or trying to reach greatness, your competition will have passed you 6 times.   8. Practice makes you better. Create one video, and it’s at-best “ok”. Create 100 videos, and you get better. Create 1000 and you get better. Do it again, and again, and again.   Practice, practice, practice. What we do is a skill. You can't beat me with your first course. I've been doing this for years. Work harder. Practice harder.    9. Not every course I have made has been a success.   You don't see the failures. Shhh....   10. I watch my own courses frequently enough. I’ll just sit and watch 1-2 hours of each of my courses every few months. And that spurs ideas for making them better.   How many instructors watch their own courses one or two times per year? I bet it's less than 1%.   11. I don’t give away all my best secrets to public Internet forums.   Author: @ScottDuffy 

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.  

Hi,   To create our training courses, the use of the correct microphone is critical. When I began my journey on Udemy, I invested in the Blue Snowball USB Microphone. It is outstanding and works superb even today after six years of its regular use. I use it to record audio lectures.   With that said, as I progressed and started using a DSLR camera, I required another microphone that could connect to the camera. So, I purchased the Rode Video Mic Pro+. Its a compact directional shotgun microphone with an outstanding sound quality.   Some details of both these microphones are as below:   Blue Snowball iCE USB Mic for Recording and Streaming on PC and Mac, Cardioid Condenser Capsule (Price ~$40 on Amazon)       Rode VideoMic Pro+ Compact Directional On-Camera Shotgun Condenser Microphone (Price ~$265 on Amazon)     Which microphone do you use to record your video lectures? Share your thoughts.   Author: @Rahul Iyer    @FrankKane: I'm a Shure SM7B guy, paired with a "CloudLifter" box to boost its signal, and a "Blue Icicle" device to convert it to USB. It's more expensive than the other options listed so far, but not crazy-expensive like the professional-grade Neumann microphones. It's a dynamic mic so it's not too sensitive to noise, and it sounds really rich.   @StanVangild204: I use the Blue Yeti Nano on a boom arm.  Nothing fancy, but I'm happy with the sound quality, it's affordable, and super easy to set up and use. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DTTGZ7M/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1       @LawrenceMMiller: The mic you use is partly determined by how you shoot. I stand in front of a green screen and my camera is back abut 20 feet on a tripod. I use a wireless mic. I went through three different cheaper brands and finally decided to spend the $500 on a genuinely pro quality Sony transmitter and receiver. This has worked very well plugged into my Nikon z6ii camera.  https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1484178-REG/sony_uwp_d21_14_uwp_d21_camera_mount_wireless_omni.html   View the full discussion and comments here. 

What process and tools do you use to create a new course from scratch? Particularly for courses that are mostly either talking heads or slideshows with a voiceover (rather than courses that are mostly screencasts of software being used).   Do you, for example, sit down and script the entire course before recording your talking heads/slideshows. Rather than using a script, do you use bullet points to cover everything?   Is there a tool that you use to help you with the course planning and scripting process. Does anyone use Scrivener for example, or something similar. The few times I've looked at Scrivener, it looks pretty confusing.   I've been using Microsoft OneNote and I find this has been quite good, but maybe there's something more intuitive. My process varies, dependent of course on the kind of course I'm creating. I generally create slide-based lessons, so the text on the slide determines what I'm going to talk about, so detailed scripts can be unecessary, but when doing talking heads I script every word. I think planning a course has been one of my weaker areas in the past as I tend to start creating content before the planning process has been finished.     @GrahamNicholls: I don’t script anything, I sit with pad and pen (yes I’m old fashioned), I mindmap the subject and then do a lecture list. Then, when I’m ready, set up and record.   simple yet effective      @DeniseFletcher: Hi @CharlesCorn  Mostly the courses I create are from things I've delivered in person but none the less in trying to improve content I go through the same process as what I do when I create a course from scratch.  1. I buy an A4 hard backed book to jot notes in. Each course has it's own book. 2. I create a summary structure of the course on one page as a mind map which then becomes a linear structure which then I set up in Udemy ( I find that seeing the course visually on Udemy helps). 3. Then for each part of the landing page - objectives, ideal student, course description I create a one page minde map 4. I do the same with each section / lecture 5. I research lecture content where I see gaps 6. I go to a coffee shop / pub and sit in a quiet corner to start thinking about visuals and scripts so I have no distractions. 7. I then create each lecture as a powerpoint presentation and use the Trainer Notes view to write bullet points / script 8. I explore / create draft additional resources 9. I record the lectures one by one and add to Udemy 10. I finalise additional resources lecture by lecture and add them to Udemy 11. I then revisit the landing page and tighten up 12. Press the magic button and plan out marketing / promo   So my note books become full of mind maps and drafts and powerpoint helps me to polish it all.  I should add I am a terrible procrastinator and I faff a lot - one of the reasons for making myself go out to a coffee shop with no laptop and just the notebook.  I hope that helps Best Wishes Denise   @Chris_Haroun: Charles here are 2 videos on how I create the content for a course from scratch (the first video below shows how I come up with and script/organize the content and the second video below shows how I place the content in my teleprompter set-up...I used 2 videos with lower resolutions as you can't upload more than 500MB per file here); thanks:        Please let me know if you have any questions, Chris   @GregReverdiau: Personally, I use an Excel spreadsheet to create my strawman of all the areas I want to cover, then I divide it into logical categories. Then when I create my slides, they contain the bullet point ideas of what's important and I expand on each of those in front of the camera. Sometimes (most of the time) I show the bullets to the students, but sometimes it's just for me to stay on track. I never script, I tried for my promo videos and I'm horrible at it. I'm much better with just an idea that I can expand on. With that said, everyone is different so whatever works for you and makes you comfortable in front of the camera.    Author: @CharlesCorn 

    Hi,  I'm Phil Ebiner. I'm a long-time Udemy instructor - been here since 2012. And I'm excited to be a part of this community. Please feel free to ask me any questions!   Since 2012, I've made over $1.5 million from Udemy. And I don't say that to brag, but to show you what a normal guy like me can do... someone who started like many of you without an audience, experience teaching, experience selling, email list, website... nothing.   It has taken a lot of hard work and time to do this, but I believe you can achieve your goals if you have the right mindset and put in the right amount of effort!   I love Udemy, and hope to help you out on this amazing platform! Cheers, Phil   Question   Hi Phil, very inspiring, what kind of courses you are doing  I just joined Udemy I am an Artist and art instructor for many years I want to start a cours but don’t know how . can you guide me to start  how many hours should a cours be is it like continued courses , should a cours or a project be finished in one course and continue doing another project ? Thank you    Answer I teach creative skills like photography, photo editing, video editing, motion graphics.    Great question about how long a course should be. I always say that they should be 'as long as it takes to teach the topic.' I wouldn't focus on just simply trying to reach a certain length of course... just focus on teaching a topic in an efficient and easy-to-digest manner. You don't want to drag on and on about a topic.  On the flip side, I've seen longer courses do better on Udemy. So adding additional topics/content, and making the course comprehensive enough to be 5+ hours is generally my rule of thumb.   In terms of finishing the course - do it! Just get the course done and launched!   View the full thread: Ask Me Anything - Phil Ebiner, long-time instructor - Udemy Instructor Community

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.