Hi @MichaelPog, sorry for the delay here, I wanted to check in with the team to get the most up-to-date information. Those are good questions -- both ones our team is actively working through as the data comes in from the pilot. Here's what they said:
1. Currently, we don't allow any individual instructor to send announcements/emails to students who are enrolled via the subscription, though students can view educational announcements on the course level. Unlike on the marketplace, where students make a pretty definitive selection of a small number of courses, on a subscription students are often consuming little parts of a lot of courses without that same level of intent. Receiving announcements from every instructor they've taken any amount of content from would be overwhelming (imagine you get an announcement from someone on whose course you only watched the preview video). This approach takes cues from what we see on announcement opt-in behavior from students who enroll in more than a few marketplace courses.
We do want to understand how instructors can help students stay engaged in subscriptions and drive engagement with their own content. This could potentially mean introducing other ways for instructors to reach out or interact with students in the subscription context or allowing instructors to segment their announcements between subscription and transactional learners. Promotional announcements are also complex since it could make sense to upsell to courses outside the subscription, but the message would of course need to be different if the student already had access. In short, we don't think that announcements, as they work on the marketplace, make sense in subscriptions, and we're looking into what might help meet the same need of helping learners get more and helping instructors engage with the learners in their courses.
2. Great question, and one that our Product and Data Science teams are currently looking at very closely. As you may know, we currently have an interim program to ensure that the revenue you drive with your promotions is kept steady during the pilot. In the long term, though, we envision a system where instructors get a bonus amount or higher share when they drive a student to become a paying subscriber, just as you get a higher share when you drive a student to make a direct purchase. You should expect to hear more about this within the next few months as the pilot progresses.
This work is all in very early stages, so if you have thoughts about what would add value for students and for you, we'd love to hear them. 🙂
Bella Almeida
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