Udemy

RandyMinder · ‎11-28-2023

UFB students never see these messages, correct?

RandyMinder · ‎11-24-2023

Hello @GabriellePi333 - You cannot assume Udemy will automatically promote your course. It will depend largely on how many other courses already exist in the particular topic area, that are highly rated. If there are many, it just makes sense Udemy will promote those courses and not a new one because Udemy is more likely to earn revenue from an established course rather than a new course. More than likely you will have to do your own promotions until your course gains some traction and Udemy notices it.

RandyMinder · ‎11-24-2023

I would offer two pieces of advice: 1) Before the instructor spends months creating their first course, they should do their homework and research how many courses already exist in the topic area. A routine question I see here from new instructors is, "why am I getting so few sales?". A common reason for this is because 20+ courses already exist, all rated 4.5 or higher. It's virtually impossible to compete against this. 2) Understand how little the instructor will earn from each sale. A typical question I see here is, "I put so much work into my course, published it and set the price at $49.95. Udemy sold it for $9.95 and I earned $3. What happened?" Typically an instructor will a maximum of $2-$5 per sale. Sometimes as low as $.65. And, if the instructor stays in the Deals program, they have no control over the price of their course. Udemy attempts to determine the optimum price.

RandyMinder · ‎11-20-2023

Hello @RitadeSousa063 - You have no control how your course(s) are advertised on the Udemy sight. Udemy handles all that for you if you enrolled in the Deals program, which you did by default. Udemy decided how best to advertise your course based upon ratings, sales and how new it is, and probably other factors.

RandyMinder · ‎11-16-2023

Hi @Samreen Nisa Qureshi - There is nothing wrong. By default you have opted into the Udemy Deals program. This means they can sell your course for any amount they want. The price you set really doesn't mean very much. Udemy can set the price higher or lower based on some internal algorithms that attempts to maximize sales. Most new courses are automatically set at $19.99. The only recourse you have is to drop out of the Deals program but then you are solely responsible for marketing your course. But you can set any price you want.

RandyMinder · ‎11-08-2023

Hello @Palara - Welcome to the realities of Udemy. You have to understand that when you opt in to the Udemy Deals program (I think that's what it's called), which you do by default, Udemy can sell your course for anything they want. The price you set really means almost nothing. They claim to have some sort of algorithm that optimizes each course's price for maximum sales. I haven't really seen any evidence of this, but it is what it is. And, in some countries, like India, the price will almost always be set lower. Then after all the fees and taxes and Udemy's cut, we get what is left over. This averages between $3 and $5 per sale but I've seen it as low as $.65. Most new instructors rarely spend anytime learning how earning money on Udemy really works. So they are shocked when they set a price on their course at something like $49.99 and Udemy sells the course to someone in India for $5 and you keep $1 (maybe).

RandyMinder · ‎10-10-2023

Good luck. It's been my experience most students don't want to engage with the instructor unless they have a specific question they want answered or they want you to do some of their work for them.

RandyMinder · ‎10-09-2023

Hello @rmathisen - I don't think anyone here is going to be able to help you. We're all just instructors and moderators here. You will need to reach out to Udemy instructor support and instructorsupport@Udemy.com (I think). I will say though this appears to be an on-going issue with instructors. Courses get banned or taken off-line with no explanation from Udemy as to why or what the instructor needs to do. This is one area Udemy can certainly do a MUCH better job.

RandyMinder · ‎10-05-2023

Hi @Prof.Dr.Sha550 - Why should anyone buy a Udemy course when so much is free elsewhere? Because if the course is good and meets a need, people will pay for it. Over the past three months I have earned over $11K from my courses. Other instructors are making far more. But to earn this sort of money, the course must meet a real need, almost certainly needs to be in the business / IT space, be somewhat highly rated (4.4 or higher) and not have too much competition. Have you really thought about how many people want to learn how to play a keyboard on the phone? Frankly, that would not interest me in the least. Did you first research why would anyone want to do that? Maybe some people do, but that is the question you have to ask yourself.

RandyMinder · ‎09-23-2023

@Alexia - I think you are going about this all wrong and you are likely to irritate many of your students. Why would any of your students want to purchase a 'work in progress'? You are basically telling your students, "thanks for purchasing this course but it's not finished yet and more content is coming". I would give you a 1 star rating and ask for a refund. BTW, I don't have any problem with a review course being only 2 hours in length. What I have a problem with is you labeling it Part 1 and telling your students more is coming. This will not end well for you.

RandyMinder · ‎09-21-2023

Awesome reply. You would think a marketing person would know how to market their course.

RandyMinder · ‎09-21-2023

Hi @DaliaAlQtai744 - Giving away large numbers of free coupons is almost always a bad idea. Worse yet is making your course free. It's been the experience of many instructors here, myself included, that those "students" who enroll for free usually never actually go through the course. And, for whatever reason, those that do seem to be more inclined to leave bad reviews. I took a look at your course and was immediately turned off by the fact that you have "Part 1" in the title of the course. Yet, the course is only 2 hours in length. This implies a part 2 is coming that would require another purchase. I suspect you are doing this to increase the likelihood people purchase both part 1 and part 2. And, that's not a terrible idea. However, if you are going to do that, the part 1 course needs longer than 2 hours (IMO). I have done this same thing twice, with pretty good success. However, both part 1 and part 2 are 5+ hours in length. Also, have you taken a good look to see how much competition you have? In most cases, when an instructor creates a post like yours, the reason for poor sales is because there are already dozens of other courses teaching the same thing. In cases like this, the new course has almost no shot of success unless the instructor does his/her own marketing.

RandyMinder · ‎09-09-2023

Hi @ilovedogs74 - you almost never want to make your course free (free coupons are a bit different). There are bots that roam the Udemy environment and snap up all free courses. These are not real students and will never actually engage in your course. Also, many instructors would tell you that many students who do engage in a free course (free coupon or free course) will, more often than not, leave poor reviews. It's just not worth it.

RandyMinder · ‎09-05-2023

Hi @Harnam - I would strongly suggest you first check to see how many courses already exist in this space. I'm guessing there are already dozens, if not hundreds. So many times a new instructor will spend months creating a course, release it and then wonder why they have virtually no sales. In most cases it's because dozens of other courses, rated 4.5 or higher, already exist. The level of competition on Udemy is intense and there are not many areas that are not saturated with courses. Especially in the business and IT space.

RandyMinder · ‎08-09-2023

Hi @TranceMindset - I think the best piece of advice I (or any experienced instructor) can give you is this. Before you even jot down your first outline notes, check to see how many courses already exist on the topic you plan to build a course around. So many times I read about a new instructor who created their first course and it's not selling. Turns out it's because there are already 20+ courses existing on that topic, many of them rated 4.5 or higher. The new instructor really has no chance unless he/she is able to do their own extensive marketing.

RandyMinder · ‎07-23-2023

Hello @H.K.Gowthami and welcome. Don't make the mistake almost every new instructor makes and forget to see how many courses already exist on the topic you wish to create a course around. I did a search on Vedic astrology and got 1,210 results back and 529 of those are rated 4.5 or higher. So your first consideration should be how you intend to compete against all those highly rated courses.

RandyMinder · ‎07-19-2023

Hi @MohamedSami955 - If you can figure out how Udemy prices courses we create then you are doing better than 99% of the instructors here. Essentially, if you have signed up for the Udemy Deals Program, Udemy will charge whatever they want to for you course. It really doesn't matter what price you set. That appears to be almost irrelevant. I have most of the prices on my courses set at roughly $29.95. However, based on how popular the course is (or not), Udemy may adjust the price up to $89.95 or as low as $19.95 if it's new. Also, when Udemy is running a sale, it will lower the price on each course to somewhere between $9.95 to $12.95, even if you had it set at $149.95, for example.

RandyMinder · ‎07-03-2023

Hi @Anonymous - The only suggestion I would make is to make sure you first determine how many course already exist in your specific topic area and then decide how you are going to be able to compete with perhaps dozens or hundreds of other courses that already exist. A common post that I see in this forum is someone who released a course and after a month they don't have many, if any, sales. Often it's because there are 100 courses already existing that cover the same topic and they never bothered to check this because spending a couple months creating a course.

RandyMinder · ‎06-07-2023

Hi @ArdianWicak505 - I used to be like you, somewhat. However, I quickly realized that when we generally earn $3-$5 for each sale, making a course good and getting it released is far better than perfect and maybe never releasing it. You certainly don't want to produce junk but it really makes no sense to go over and over a course and try to make everything as perfect as possible when we earn so little money on each sale. Of course, this assumes your goal on Udemy is to make money. If this isn't your goal, and your goal is to just create great courses and you don't really care if they sell, then that's a different story.

RandyMinder · ‎06-05-2023

Hi @RonErez - I wouldn't feel too bad. I think this is pretty common. At least it has been with me. I had one course that was consistently rated around 4.7 and then, over the course of a month or so, dropped to 4.1 or so and now it's back to 4.5 - 4.7. Students can be VERY fickle when it comes to giving ratings. It's not uncommon for me to get a 5.0 and the next person might give a 3.0. And since most students never leave a review (and Udemy doesn't require the student to do so) you never really know what a student likes or doesn't like. @MarinaT - How do you expect instructors to work on improving their courses when maybe one out of every 50-75 students actually leaves a useful review and Udemy doesn't require them to do so? Udemy could at least require the student to leave a review if the rating is below 3 or 3.5. Otherwise, how do we know what the student didn't like? Yes we could message them but students rarely respond to messages.

RandyMinder · ‎05-24-2023

@JeremyZhang955 - I saw you have created so many courses, how did you solve the cold-start problem at the beginning? Mostly by being patient. My first couple months I may have made $20. And, even though I was in a fairly crowded market, most of my initial courses offered something no other instructors were offering. So, they were somewhat unique, in a crowded space. Almost 4 years, 30 courses and 6,000+ students later, I have carved out a niche and do fairly well. At least compared to the average instructor. I'm able to average $150 - $300 per month just in self promotions where we get to keep 97% of the proceeds. Regarding ChatGPT - If you think about it about the only thing you can really focus on is prompting. So, almost all the courses on GPT focus on prompt engineering, as they should. But, it makes it really hard to differentiate yourself.

RandyMinder · ‎05-24-2023

Hi @Rahmat S.T. - That is really a rather pointless question because all courses can be purchased very cheaply if you are willing to wait until the next sale, which is usually within the next week or two, if a sale isn't already occurring. Therefore, it doesn't matter if a course is priced at $29.95 or $89.95, wait until the next sale and it can be purchased for $11.95 (or less). Besides that, Udemy is going to price them at whatever level they choose. So, IMO, the price you set doesn't mean much. I have created 30 or so courses on Udemy and most of them are under 5 hours. If I think they can go over that I will split them into two courses, a Part 1 and Part 2. This has worked extremely well for me. I have two courses now, Kusto Query Language Part 1 and Part 2. At least 90% of the time when a student buys one, they will buy the other at the same time. You can't beat that. Both are about 5 hours in length.

RandyMinder · ‎05-24-2023

Hi @JeremyZhang955 - The cold hard fact is that it is REALLY hard for most new courses to gain traction on Udemy, especially in a hot area like GPT. There are already many, many courses on this topic and Udemy is going to promote the ones that sell well and are rated the highest. It is extremely unlikely Udemy will promote your course, at least initially. You will have to do that yourself until you get enough sales and ratings (4.5 or higher) so that Udemy notices. BTW, I was seriously considering creating a course on ChatGPT and Bard. However, there are simply too many courses already existing, that are very highly rated. I felt like I would be wasting my time.

RandyMinder · ‎05-19-2023

Hi @ElizabethDj0021 - I have created close to 30 courses over the past 3.5 years and all my courses are faceless. Most of my courses are rated 4.3 to 4.7 so my students do not seem to care. However, I will say I think it depends a lot of what you are teaching and whether you can keep the student engaged without including a section of the page showing your face. All of my courses are very engaging with regards to what I am teaching so I've never felt it necessary to include a shot of me talking. I also don't particularly enjoy taking courses where the instructor shows him/herself talking during the whole course. I usually find that rather annoying.

RandyMinder · ‎04-13-2023

Hi @MichaelEric298 - You have to keep in mind that it really doesn't matter what the list price of a course is. Rarely will any student pay full price for a course no matter what the price is. Udemy has really painted themselves into a corner with all these ridiculous sales where a $100 course is sold for $11.99. Virtually the whole world knows not to buy any Udemy course until they have their next sale, which is usually no more than a week or two away. Therefore, it really doesn't matter if your course is priced at $19.99, $59.99 or $109.99 etc. Almost no student will ever pay that when they can wait a week or two and pick it up for $11.99 (or something close to that). 99% of my sales only occur when Udemy is running some sort of sale or special promotion. And my courses are relatively cheap (around $29.95). Such is the way of life in Udemy-land.

RandyMinder · ‎03-06-2023

The price of $12 is only if students from particular countries purchase the course. For example, if someone from the US purchases the course, they would pay $12. If someone from say India purchases the course, they might pay something like $4. It's all based on exchange rates and whatever pricing arrangements Udemy has with other countries.

RandyMinder · ‎01-27-2023

Hi @LandonCrigl966 - A few things come to mind: It really doesn't matter how much success you have had in your career teaching students when it comes to getting initial traction on Udemy. About the only way to succeed (however you define that) is to find a topic that isn't already saturated with courses. You have your list price for the course set at $85. Almost no one will pay this kind of money for any course on Udemy. Why? Because the entire world knows that if you wait a few days, your $85 course will be on sale for between $9.95 and $13.95. You are in a rather crowded market. I did a search on "Realtors" and returned 102 results. So this means there could be at least 102 courses teaching what you are teaching. And, when I did a search on "Real Estate" there are 200+ courses rated 4.5 or higher on the subject. There simply is no way you are going to be able to compete with those courses unless you find a way to draw students to your course by your own marketing. I took a look at your promotional video. It was ok but I think you need to spend more time talking less about the real estate market and why I should purchase your course. Also, it appears you are reading from a script. IMO, that doesn't give a good impression. You should know your material well enough (or rehearse more) so that you don't have to do that.

RandyMinder · ‎01-13-2023

Hi @Keibai - Since there are already 90 courses available on Udemy covering chatGPT I doubt you are going to run into any issues. All those instructors would have received cease and desist orders already. However, it certainly wouldn't hurt to ask. Then you would have your bases covered.

RandyMinder · ‎12-27-2022

Hi @CraigSebastian - Welcome to Udemy! Before you get too far into your course creation, you should be aware of the competition you will be facing. I did a Udemy search on "Russian Language" and limited the search to just those courses rated 4.5 or higher. I got 2,687 results back. This means there are that many courses teaching the Russian language that you will be competing against. So, while you are creating your course, I would give serious consideration as to how you are going to make your course stand out above all the others. Also, keep in mind that Udemy probably will not promote your course at all because you are a new instructor with a new course and Udemy would much rather spend their advertising dollars on proven courses in this space. If you are going into this to just have fun and maybe make a few dollars, then by all means, go for it and have fun. If your intent is to make a lot of money, well, that might be tough for many months or years until your course gains some traction. And it will involve a lot of self-marketing work on your part.

RandyMinder · ‎11-15-2022

@NoleenDaya - Basically he means that Udemy is probably not going to promote your course until you get quite a few sales and your ratings are strong (4.4 or higher). By "kickstarting" he probably means you need to tell others about your course, through your own advertising and not expect Udemy to do it (because they probably won't), at least initially.

Udemy

Randy Minder

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Randy Minder

RandyMinder • Traveler

Lead Business Intelligence Developer / Power BI / Snowflake

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