Hi guys, I just wanted to share with all of you my thought about bonus lecture... I took the time to make a bonus lecture for all my courses and put there all my coupons code and it is really paying off... Every day I'm having some student using a coupon to enroll in one or more of my courses... I'm writing this post as I also notices that many of the courses I'm enrolled in as a student don't have a bonus lecture or if they have there are not all the coupons for their courses... That's really a big waste!   I have not used that heaviliy in all my course, I have tried in a couple only - I was not impressed by the outcome. My courses are long and students need weeks, months to finish it... so getting to a bonus lecture takes a very long time and we cannot advertise it.   However, do it fully or do not do that at all 🙂 So... hard to judge.   It is on my list to do next month - add a bonus lecture with a coupon.   Will share my views when I finish it 🙂   I think Bonus Lectures and Course Promo are the most under-utilized features on Udemy courses. They are a great way to get more students for sure!  For those wondering what can and can't go into the Bonus Lecture, be sure to check these Udemy guidelines.    We have one bonus lecture and accompanying files that link to all our other courses with coupon codes. We use the same one on every course so it doesn't take much time to add. We have a separate summary/congratulations message for students as they complete a course, that is unique to that course. We find a pretty decent amount of sales from the bonus lecture. It is one of our many sales tactics that only takes an extra 30 seconds or so to add to a new course. This month, for example, the code we use in the bonus lecture is our second highest promotional code-the top one being our new launch code for the course that was released this week.   Completely agree, I have a short "Now what" video where I suggest next steps for the student, then I talk about my other courses, the books and tests they should use. Less than 2 minutes. Then I have a text lecture where I have links to my own classes, books and all the other resources I mentioned.  My highest coupon this month, it is normally in the top 2, that and my promotional announcements. (unless I launch a new course then that would be #1).  Author:  @MassimilianoAlf 

You do not need to spend a lot of money to get started. Here I share a few tips to help you.   This short video was filmed using my four-year-old iPhone and its microphone. The green screen cost me $15aud for the material. I have an orange ring light - the only light I used for this from Amazon. The image at the end was free from Pixabay. It was edited in Screenflow which cost $149 - there is cheaper editing software out there. Most of all practice loving the camera and allow your love and knowledge to shine through.   Author: @SharonRamel 

We often discuss whether sales are going up or down and we discuss a lot of factors over which we have no control, such as Udemy’s advertising, the pandemic, etc. But we do not often discuss how our own work product determines the rate of sales. So, I thought it would be worth making a list of instructor’s “controllable” factors that will determine the rate of sales of a course.   Let’s do a survey. Assume you are launching a new course, so it has no current students and no ratings to begin with. Let’s not discuss inclusion in UFB because that will come later. What will impact its initial sales?   Please reply by stating the numbers of those you think are most impactful in order of important… #1, 2, etc. Pick your top five factors in order. Or, add to the list if you like. If you suggest an additional factor, I will add it to the list in this message so others can rate it.   Topic title (with key words) Subtitle Written course description. Category in which the course falls Quality of the promo video – video technical quality Quality of promo – explanation of content and benefits Quality of the promo – personality/style of the instructor Quality of other sample videos Instructor’s bio/resume/CV Instructor’s prior ratings and courses List price of the course Length of the course (longer) Length of the course (shorter) Number of competing courses Rating of competing courses Instructor’s marketing efforts – YouTube Instructor’s marketing efforts – mail list Instructor’s marketing efforts – website Instructor’s paid ads (Facebook, etc.)   Author: @LawrenceMMiller    @Mufaddal: Here is my top 5 in descending order of their impact to sales Irrespective of Udemy or self hosted site    1, Category and level of interest in market  for the course or topics 2. Level of awareness about the instructor and courses - Reach - Mailing list, youtube, Linkedin etc  3. Instructor bio- Trust is huge factor. Once students trust to be an authority or someone worth listening to and learn they will keep on buying. 4. Ratings and Reviews  5. Competition    @Marious: Here is my list: 11, 1, 12, 9, 4 For me it is all about advertising the course and targeting it.   If targeted by Udemy, I will get a lot of sales... Udemy is really good at targeting people with ads. It is much harder for individual instructors... It is enough to look at Black Friday (not a year ago, but 3-4 years ago...) - crazy results! I do not want to panic (yet), I want to wait till the next big promotion from Udemy but my current results show huge drops despite my efforts in publishing new courses. I want to wait till the next big sale by Udemy to see if this trend keeps going    So from things I can control it is all about the price and showing that students own this course forever and can rely on me (I think it would be a good option to be added - active support from an instructor). So in a way it is about advertising Udemy as a great platform, showing the benefits, and saying there is a cool course that I actively support.   From marketing tools, Facebook worked for me a few years ago but no crazy results...   I think owning is a key factor here - I have heard a lot of comments from students from Udemy and outside of Udemy saying that they like to own a course, it feels better than 'renting' it for 2 months - they feel some kind of a connection. I get that and like it. On the other hand a lot of people enjoy UfB, I used to make a lot of money of it (not the case anymore and I have no control over it, unfortunately - 50% drop for me).   Also, try a number of things and see what works for you. Try new titles, new projects, and new ideas.    Thanks Lawrence for an interesting topic!   @Rahul Iyer: Hi @LawrenceMMiller ,    This is an excellent list. In my opinion, all the factors you've listed are important. Not one  can be singled out. The best part is if we control these factors (which are rightly in our total control), Udemy does it's part very well. Some may not agree to my statement. But if it is an in-demand topic and all these factors are taken care off, we are making it easier for Udemy to market our courses. Thanks again!    Regards,  Rahul  

Hello fellow instructors,  I think that recording studio setup is one of the most difficult subjects to get your head around. Microphones, audio interfaces, lights and sound all seem to be important. However the amount of technical details and hard decision on priorities are making studio setup quite overwhelming.    I've gone through a long journey of building home studio from $500 to $10k setup, made many mistakes along the way, bought few pieces of equipment that I almost never used, and some other pieces that I can't imagine my work without.  I decided to record a short video and describe the priorities and options for your home studio. Check it out! How to set up home recording studio If you're curious, here's the list of my equipment that I use for recording. Notice that videography is my hobby, so I also shoot some short films, interviews and occasionally corporate promotional videos, so this equipment set is a bit of an overkill for Udemy Microphones: Neumann TLM-102 (voice-overs) Sennheiser ME-2 (lavalier mic for talking to a camera) Radio transmitter/receiver set for mics Sennheiser G3 Audio Interface Focusrite Clarett 2Pre (thunderbolt version) Field recorders Zoom H6 Zoom H1 Cameras Canon C100 MK-II Canon Legria HF G-25 (cam B) Lenses Canon EF 24-105mm f/4l IS II USM Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8l IS USM Lights LEDGO 2x 1200 Bi-colour Lighting Kit Monitors (headphones) Audio Technica AT-M70x   @Khushboo98: Is this complete set up is necessary..? Can't we use our smartphone to record and create our course..?   @GregReverdiau: There is no requirement for equipment and you could record your course with only a smart phone. However, the microphone on your smartphone is not going to give you great results compared to even some of these cheaper microphones on this list. Remember that students will give you some slack for lower video quality but you will get bad reviews if your audio is bad...    @JeffSharman592: I would like to add my experiences in course creation right from the beginning. My first course was trial and error. I made some talking heads video using a Canon camera on a tripod. The sound quality was terrible. I then did the same thing using a Samsung Smart phone on a tripod. Much better than the camera. I use a Dell laptop with built-in webcam and Mic. Originally on quite an old laptop. It was OK but the sound quality needed improvement. I purchased a separate Mic which improved it a lot.  It is always necessary to have some good audio and video editing software. There are some free ones around, but I opted for NCH Videopad, Wavepad and Debut Video Capture. All excellent and not that expensive. Very user friendly and effective.  I now have a new Dell laptop and I still use the built in Mic and Webcam. Excellent quality and after editing, noise is virtually non-existent. I don't use a separate Mic anymore or Webcam for my recordings. I have made a recording booth to cut down echo and outside ambient noise. Cheap and easy. A plastic box covered in a thick multi-layered blanket. Works beautifully.  It is nice to know that you don't have to spend a fortune to obtain good results. Author: @Juriy 

Has anyone experimented with using article-based bonus lectures vs. video-based?   If you're trying to drive students to your website or other courses, I wonder if an article format would be more effective. In a video lecture, students would have to find your links in the attachments to the lecture, or type them in by hand after seeing them on-screen. But in an article, you can put the links you want them to click on right in front of them.   But, an article misses the personal connection a video can bring.   If you've tried both, how did they compare in terms of results?   I’ve not tried both but it is a very interesting idea from the point of view of engagement. All of my bonus lectures are in article format at the moment as I think that clicks would come easier than typing it in...... but would be an interesting experiment!   I can confirm that yes you can create an article bonus video. I use article lectures for my bonus videos where I link out to my other courses and it works moderately well.   Hi @FrankKane I have tried both - the video was a spectacular failure, I love the personal connection however I rarely had people purchasing my other courses from it. Once I switched to using the article version it changed immediately - this brings in a healthy swag of sales week in and week out.   I use a video lecture, and point out how they can get the coupons from the downloadable PDFs in that lecture (They are attached as resources). I get about 30% of my own coupons from my bonus lecture, and my own coupons are about 15% of my sales (so bonus lecture is ~5% of total sales).   I saw a significant increase in sales from my bonus lecture when I added video.   I am also sending students to my website for additional resources, but not sure how many from the bonus lecture. Author: @FrankKane 

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

See what instructors are using to edit videos!   My workflow is based aroud Adobe apps. Premiere Pro is a main "work horse", I also use a bit of AfterEffects, when I need infographics (to be honest, I don't do that too often). I record videos in Camtasia, but I don't edit there, it is way simpler to organize big project in Premiere Pro.    Personally, I use Final Cut Pro X (Mac only). It is an industry standard along with Adobe Premiere. It provides me with the video editing, audio editing, acts as file organizer. One thing I love is that it lets me save presets from previous videos (such as how much crop, where the video is positioned, color corrections, etc) so I can apply them to future videos. That's been great to save a lot of time once I setup my studio correctly. It also has a great green screen option, it allows for outside plugins (such as on-screen graphics and animations), and the multi-camera option has allowed me to save a TON of time when editing. It's a bit of an investment at $299 and I know there are lots of other options for free out there too.    I use Adobe Premier Pro and love it. With that I also use Audition to clean up our sound. I tried Final Cut, and while it has amazing tools, Premier just clicks in my head. I am working on an iMac Pro if that helps too. I used iMovie back in the day but one of the version updates they did took away all the features I liked and used and I got mad at it and have barely touched it since.   Screenflow for Mac has been amazing! I do have the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, so technically, I can start to explore Adobe premiere and Adobe after effects, but for teaching courses screenflow keeps it nice and simple with some pretty decent transition effects.    I use Adobe premier pro. Mine is just slides and voice over. Only takes couple of days to edit. So, usually when I finish editing, I unsubscribe the service. Adobe is so generous that they do refund if service period is less than 2 weeks.   I also use ScreenFlow on my Mac. I have been using it for many years now and it has grown from an application to just record and edit screencasts to something more capable. So nowaydays I even use it to edit talking head videos etc.   I am sure that pro-level applications like Premiere or Final Cut Pro X have a lot more bells and whistles. And I might look into that in the future. But for now I am pretty happy with it. Author: @Marious 

Hello, I am working on my future first Udemy course and I am facing a problem when recording my voice simultaneously with my screen. I am using a Blue Yeti micro which is very performant at capturing sounds and a video recorder and editing software called Free Cam 8. Since I don't have any 100% isolated room within my studio flat, my recordings are biased with noise from fridge, cars outside etc... I am also facing another problem which is reverbations.  Could you advise me how to get rid of such noise using  some material and/or techniques or maybe denoising software ?   Thank you very much in advance,   Author: Mehdi (@SakjiMehdi359)   Setting up the right acoustic environment for your recording is for many the most taxing, time-consuming, yet important technical task in teaching on Udemy.   It is an investment worth making, but you need to be aware of this:   You need to: 1. Sound proof the room OR 2. Sound proof some part of your environment, like a walk in wardrobe OR 3. Build a shell around your desk to make a DIY mini room and sound proof that   AND OR   Turn off appliances   Before doing all that, you might like to try boxing the Yei into a cardboard box lined with foam. Search Google for 'Microphone Box'.   You can use Duvets or foam to sound proof the environment.   You tube is full of videos showing you various ways to do this.   Search for how to do DIY sound proof for podcasters or something similar.   Once you have done it once you won't have to do it again.   @SakjiMehdi359 , I use a Blue Yeti and had similar problems with computer sound being picked up (I foolishly bought an all-in-one that puts the computer fan about a foot behind my mic.  Padding my environment with foam squares helped a little but I was able to greatly reduce unwanted sounds using a Kaotica Eyeball:   The mic stuffs into a foam ball with a cutout to speak into with a blue pop filter over it.  The thing isn't cheap ($199) but it cuts sound nicely without a lot of effort.  I was barely able to stuff my Blue Yeti into the thing.  I noticed they now offer a Fatboy option for larger mics.   $0.02,   ---Brian   @Vigasan: Hey Sakji,   There's really only two ways around that problem.   1) Change the environment - See if you can book a private conference room, other instructors have prepped in advance so they can book just 1-2 days and get their recordings done and done the editing at home.  An alternative is to see if you can use a friends house, someone who lives outside of the city, to record. You can offer to dog sit, or house sit when they go on vacation for example. 2) Change your set up - This won't help with all problems of course but the best thing to change out is the microphone. The Blue Yeti is a decent entry mic but is known to pick up a ton of background noise as well. Depending on your budget, I would look into good dynamic mics to pick up. There are mics out there that will pick up only objects super close to the microphone itself so definitely do some research and listen to sample audio before deciding.   You can use software like Audacity to help remove noise but it works best when the same noise is present throughout like a hum or fan sounds for example. It's not as great for random sounds. Always try to get the best sound quality directly from the mic though.   @BrunoG: Hi, I would suggest using a dynamic microphone such as a Sennheiser E835 as it does not pickup far sounds as condenser mics do. You have to speak close to the microphone as it's effective range is about  2 to 15cm.   @Umar: nVidia recently released NVIDIA RTX VOICE. It removes noise in realtime in many applications. I started using it for my recordings and the results are amazing. The only catch is that you need to have nVidia GPU on your PC (non-RTX gpus also work through a tweak). Here is the link to setup : https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/guides/nvidia-rtx-voice-setup-guide/       @PranavP: Have been in similar situation where i tried few things like using a very closed room or using zoom inbuilt cancellation,but more efficient then it found recently a nice AI based tool named Krisp ,which helps cancel all types of background noise with its advanced algorithms. Give it a try,would be surely helpful.   

    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.  

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 

It seems that every instructor on Udemy has an opinion about what makes an effective online presentation, but rarely do we have a discussion about evidence based research. So... I thought I would post some of the research I have found, encourage others to post additional research, and hopefully, instructors (Including myself) can make better informed course creation decisions. 1. https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/effective-educational-videos/   How Video Production Affects Student Engagement: An Empirical Study of MOOC Videos Key findings:     2. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED560520   Seeing the Instructor in Two Video Styles: Preferences and Patterns   Key Findings:    Instructional content designers of online learning platforms are concerned about optimal video design guidelines that ensure course effectiveness, while keeping video production time and costs at reasonable levels. In order to address the concern, we use clickstream data from one Coursera course to analyze the engagement, motivational and navigational patterns of learners upon being presented with lecture videos incorporating the instructor video in two styles--first, where the instructor seamlessly interacts with the content and second, where the instructor appears in a window in a portion of the presentation window. Our main empirical finding is that the video style where the instructor seamlessly interacts with the content is by far the most preferred choice of the learners in general and certificate-earners and auditors in particular. Moreover, learners who chose this video style, on average, watched a larger proportion of the lectures, engaged with the lectures for a longer duration and preferred to view the lectures in streamed mode (as opposed to downloading them), when compared to their colleagues who chose the other video style. We posit that the important difference between the two video modes was the integrated view of a "real" instructor in close proximity to the content, that increased learner motivation, which in turn affected the watching times and the proportion of lectures watched. The results lend further credibility to the previously suggested hypothesis that positive affect arising out of improved social cues of the instructor influences learner motivation leading to their increased engagement with the course and its broader applicability to learning at scale scenarios. [For complete proceedings, see ED560503.]   3. https://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/ld/resources/presentations/delivering-presentation Delivering an effective presentation   An effective presenter needs to be flexible, energetic and enthusiastic. This guide will help you turn your written presentation into an imaginative public performance.   Your turn.     Author: Lawrence M. Miller (@LawrenceMMiller) Management & Leadership Coach

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

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.  

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).  

Hi All,   By the time I started my Udemy journey I had already been making video content for many years and was using video editing software which was affordable but also had plenty of functions (VideoStudio X6). When I started on Udemy I realised I needed something different. My sound quality from my camcorder wasn’t suitable, the camcorder only took proprietary microphones which required batteries for the lapel mic (and there wasn’t a compatible mic to place on the camcorder). The lapel mic batteries only lasted about 4 hours and I had times when the mic would cut out (it was bluetooth) or where the batteries would run out and I wouldn’t have noticed and would end up with a silent, unusable video.   So I realised I was going to have to capture the audio separately (I was using my Zoom H2 and then more recently my Zoom H2n. I now also have the Zoom H1 and Zoom H4n Pro, all of which serve different purposes) to the video and then synch it in video-editing software. I initially tried to do this manually by zooming in on a clap in the waveform of the video and audio and lining them up, but frequently they would be slightly out of synch and it was time-consuming if I have recorded 100 videos for an eCourse and I now have to synch 100 videos of audio, and then there was the added problem that when cropping the video I had to make sure I cropped the audio at the same time and didn’t accidentally just crop the video, or I would quickly have a video way out of synch, so I was saving each video as an unedited video with the external audio as a track, and then editing this video, but that took a long time to do.   So, for me, the biggest decision over choosing new video-editing software for making my Udemy courses was whether it could auto-synch the audio and video file together and have a single file created quickly which I could work with. I found that the most recent version of the software I was already using happened to have this feature included, so I upgraded to that software (I now use VideoStudio X9 Pro). It significantly sped up my production time.   I have recently found out that there are video-editing software programmes available which allow you to bulk process videos. Currently I have to edit a video, then wait ages while it processes before I can edit the next video. What would be ideal is to do all the editing during the day and bulk process all the videos over night, so I may be finding software which can do this and upgrading my software again as this is one of the most time-consuming parts of my editing stage.   How did you pick your video editing software? What is important to you in the video editing software you choose?   All the best Dan   @DeniseFletcher: Hi @Hypnodan, I'm at the low tech end of editing so I just use Camtasia, Audacity, my iRig mic my iphone and powerpoint. I try to do as little editing as I can 😉    @GregReverdiau: Hi Dan, Several factors I consider: - ease of use: this really depends on how our brain works. There’s no right or wrong answer. Try the software and see what works.  - compatibility with your operating system: some software works better with windows and some better with Mac.  - price: free vs one time fee vs subscription model.  - functionalities: Does it do all you need to do   Based on all those, I am a Mac user and I tried both Premiere and Final Cut and went with Final Cut. It reportedly works faster on Mac than Premiere because it was designed for the hardware, it’s a one time fee vs a subscription and it was easier for me to use. It has functionalities like multi cam which I love for my editing. With that said, Premiere is an industry standard and an amazing software. Btw, both do batch exporting so you can export everything at the end of your editing day and let the computer do the work while you sleep!    @GrahamNicholls: I'm not what I would call technically advanced with editing software to be honest @Hypnodan    I edit everything on my Ipad and started out just using iMovie but after a few courses I wanted something with more functionality but was still easy to use. I came across LumaFusion which claimed to be the cloest thing on a tablet to that of PC software. After trying it out I found it very easy to use and it processes videos really quickly so I went with it and haven't looked back since. Author: @Hypnodan 

    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) 

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  

What are the best days to do promotional emails?   Hey @AbdulAziz  Honestly, I haven't found a best day! For me, it is more about having an engaging title so that people want to open that email, not about what day you send it.   Best Regards Graham   Tuesday morning works best for me outside of Udemy promotions.   In my experience, I noticed that they work better if you send them at the beginning of the week, like Monday or Tuesday, better if in the morning... weekend is to avoid...    

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.  

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!