Udemy

RandyMinder · ‎10-14-2020

Hi @MichaelMoses - The Udemy rating and review system is just flat broken and lends itself to gross abuse. Lot's of instructors gripe about it but Udemy hasn't done anything about it, at least as far as I know. So, if you want to be a Udemy instructor, you'll have to put up with it.

RandyMinder · ‎10-13-2020

Hi @monad98 - What I would suggest you do first is to search for "Graphic Design" in the Udemy search box. You will get many thousands of courses already teaching this. Unless you want to compete with hundreds or thousands of existing courses, I would recommend you pick an area of graphic design that isn't already saturated with courses.

RandyMinder · ‎10-12-2020

Hi @Kelly_Fidei - Your situation is not that unusual. New instructors often grossly underestimate how hard it is to sell courses on Udemy. The competition is fierce and there are tens of thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of courses from which to choose. I took a look at what you are offering. My first thought was, "What the heck is Agile & Emotional Intelligence?" You have to think like a Udemy student. How would any student find your course? What would they enter in the Udemy search box to find it? After reading your introduction, my best guess is that you are a life coach, of sorts? If I have a hard time figuring out what you are offering, potential students might also. I did a Udemy search just on "Listening". I got back almost 2,600 results. This means you potentially have 2,600 courses competing against yours. This means you will probably need a lot of patience and time for your course to gain traction. Finally, I see your course is priced at $34.95. I don't think you're going to find many Udemy students willing to pay $34.95 for a brand new course, from a brand new author, that is only 1.5 hours long. You need to keep in mind that most Udemy students are accustomed to waiting for the next sale, and paying no more than $10 for a course, and often much less in other countries. If I were you, I would lower my price to $19.95 (the lowest you can offer). But, even then, it will could take a significant amount of time attracting students.

RandyMinder · ‎10-09-2020

@HerStylistPro - It won't hurt to try to engage these free students. But, remember, 99% of these students, have no interest in your course. So, the only thing you have to lose is your time (and patience perhaps). Offering your course for free is, in my opinion, a bad idea for at least two reasons. I've already mentioned one of them. The other is that Udemy will not permit you to send promotional emails to students in a free course. You have to remember Udemy's philosophy on free courses. They have stated they should only be made available so students can get a feel for your teaching style. This is why they are limited to two hours. One other comment I'll make. I took a look at your course and it seems to be centered around bridal hair styling. Do a search on Udemy and search for "bridal hair styling". How many results do you see? I saw at least 8,500. This means your course is competing against 8,500 similar courses. Don't be discouraged if it takes months to get more than a few real sales, assuming you change your course to a paid course. You are in a very crowded space.

RandyMinder · ‎10-09-2020

Hi @HerStylistPro - Did these 180 students acquire your course for free? If so, this is expected. Offering a course for free will generally generate large numbers of students, but, 99% of those have no real interest in the course and will never actually take the course. I don't know why this is, but it's a fact. It's almost as if these students are running some sort of bot, looking for free courses, and they just acquire them. Because of this, you really cannot get too excited about students signing up for free courses.

RandyMinder · ‎10-07-2020

Hi @BillHuffhine - This depends upon a number of things, such as: How many other courses are there teaching the same thing you are Overall demand for what you have to offer Price I took a look at your course and I don't think you are going to attract many students with a price of $49.95 for just a 1.5 hour course. You have to remember that students are accustomed to waiting for sales and then paying about $10 for a course, and much less in other countries. So, it's rather unlikely very many people are going to pay you $49.95. If they are interested, they will wait for the next sale and pick it up for much less. But, even then, they will have to be able to find your course among potentially hundreds of similar courses. I would suggest lowering your price to $19.95. Also, your title is a bit esoteric. I cannot tell, from your title, what exactly you are teaching. What specifically would someone put into the Udemy search bar to find your course? Finally, I would caution you that courses that are as short as yours get refunded pretty heavily, based on my own experience. It's common for students to feel like they really didn't get their money's worth for just a 1.5 hour course (actually less than that after the introduction etc.) so they will get a refund.

RandyMinder · ‎10-01-2020

Hi @RueMckurry - On top of what everyone else has written, which is quite good, you need to consider how many other courses are teaching the same subject. I went to Udemy and typed in "Learning English". I got 10,000 results back. How are you going to differentiate your course from the 10K already available? You picked a VERY crowded area in which to create a course. It could take many months, or longer, for your course to get noticed. And, even then, it's got to be better than most of the courses available to achieve any sizeable number of sales.

RandyMinder · ‎09-29-2020

Hi @RossMcGowan - It was just about a year ago I published my first course. I now have 13 of them. My monthly revenue is somewhere between $800 and $1,000. And, last month, one of my courses got included in the UFB program, which is additional revenue. Fortunately though, for me, this is just a hobby. I have a day job so I've created these courses on the side. Most of the courses I created were in areas I wanted to learn more about. So I did and created a course around it. I probably won't be creating any more Udemy courses. Udemy can be a brutal experience, both internally and externally. Fortunately I've had a couple other learning sites reach out to me about putting my courses on their sites. If I do create additional courses, it will be for other learning sites, where they care more about the instructors and where courses are not sold, but viewed on a subscription basis. I didn't directly address the motivation issue. What always motivated me was learning more about a topic and then creating a course and seeing if it sells. Since I don't rely on this income to pay the bills, there really isn't much stress about sales, reviews, returns etc. However, what has demotivated me more than anything is the fact that someone from India (as an example) can purchase one of my courses that normally sells for $24.95, for $4 and I might get $1 or $2. That, as much as anything, is why I don't think I'll be creating more Udemy courses. The Udemy business model is great for Udemy but not for about 90% of the instructors which keeps Udemy in business.

RandyMinder · ‎09-09-2020

Hi @aprilpineda There are a couple things you need to keep in mind. First, the Udemy marketplace is a VERY crowded space. Therefore, it's unlikely anyone is going to create a course that isn't immediately competing with dozens, or perhaps, hundreds, of other courses on the same topic. There are exceptions of course, but, what this means is that it will probably take a long time for any new course to get noticed and gain some traction. The most important thing any instructor should do, before you start recording your first lesson, is to determine how many courses your course is going to compete with. It's been my experience that very few instructors do this. They create a course, publish it, and expect to start making hundreds of dollars a month, right away. It simply doesn't work that way. They don't realize their course is competing against 200 others on the same topic. I never really worried about whether my courses (I have 13 of them) would sell or not. I do this pretty much as a hobby and anything I earn is extra spending money. I think most instructors need to look at it this way. This keeps the stress levels down and makes the whole experience more enjoyable. There are Udemy instructors that make A LOT of money from their courses. The vast majority do not.

RandyMinder · ‎09-07-2020

Hi @AtikaIslam - First of all, do not place any importance on the fact that you had 10,000 free enrollments. 9,975 of those people will never take your course. They just like getting free courses. This is just the way it is and I have no idea why. Secondly, language can have a huge impact on course sales. Personally, I will always purchase a course from a native English speaking instructor if I can. When someone pays hard-earned money for a course, they should not have to struggle to understand the instructor.

RandyMinder · ‎09-07-2020

Hi @mak_academy - Have you considered that maybe there isn't much demand or interest for using Jarvis with Python? It could also be that your accent makes it very difficult for you to be understood. I listened to your promotional video and I had a rather hard time understanding what you were saying. How many people are listening to your promotional video and not signing up?

RandyMinder · ‎07-28-2020

Hi @GabrielHerr127 You've got to take refund rates with a grain of salt. Many of the top instructors have their courses on UFB as well as for sale. The courses offered via UFB are rarely, if ever, refunded. Therefore, their refund rate is going to be quite low overall. My refund rate is almost a constant 4% each month. It almost never fails. And the majority of my refunds are from Indian students. I have no courses offered on UFB. In my opinion, Udemy's refund policy is broken but Udemy seems uninterested in doing anything about it. This is a bit of a mystery to me because when a course is refunded, nobody makes any money. I agree Udemy should offer a refund policy. But, the fact that a student can complete 100% of the course and get a refund is just brain dead.

RandyMinder · ‎07-18-2020

Hi @SabaMohsin338 Welcome to Udemy. I would suggest, before you create a course on learning English, that you take a look at how many courses already exist on this topic. I did a Udemy search on "Learning English" and got 10,000 results back. So, if you create another course like this, you should expect it to take many months before your course gets noticed.

RandyMinder · ‎07-16-2020

Hi @RoshniPurswani Welcome to Udemy. I assume you intend to create a course on learning French? If so, you might want to consider there are already over 600 courses on Udemy teaching the same thing. This shouldn't necessarily stop you from creating a course on learning French, if that is your intention. Just be aware that with so many courses already existing, it could take a long time for your course to get noticed.

RandyMinder · ‎07-12-2020

@GregReverdiau How does an instructor go about improving their course when Udemy allows students to leave a 1 or 2 star rating with no comments? And this seems to happen most of the time, not just to me, but to a lot of instructors, as I look at their ratings and reviews. Of all the ratings I've gotten that are 1 or 2 stars, maybe 10% leave any comments and maybe 1% leave a comment that is useful. It's been my experience that roughly 1 in 5 students leave a rating. About 1 in 5 of those that do give a rating leave any comments. And, only 1 in 5 of of those that leave a comment leave a useful comment. It's virtually impossible to know how to improve a course when Udemy allows this. I've read many of your posts on this subject and your typical response is, "improve your course". Well, that's good advice but Udemy seems to be working against instructors being able to do this effectively.

RandyMinder · ‎07-07-2020

Hi @ParnaDassarma I took a look at your course and I did a search on Udemy for "Process Engineering". I got back 10,000 results. This means you are competing against 10,000 other courses in this space. Therefore, it's going to be very difficult for your course to get any attention, and it could take a great deal of time. Udemy will attempt to market your course on your behalf. However, with so many courses in this space, it's unlikely your course will routinely get marketed by Udemy. You are going to have to market your course yourself, at least to get started. I might suggest you send links, containing discounts, to groups and forums specializing in this space.

RandyMinder · ‎07-07-2020

@pradeepchelani - No it will not.

RandyMinder · ‎07-07-2020

@SeanMurray29 Making a course free (as opposed to free coupons) has almost zero benefits. The vast majority of students who acquire a free course have no intention of ever taking the course. They just like getting free courses. And, you cannot send promotional emails to anyone who signed up when the course was free. Udemy does not allow it. Providing free coupons to a non-free course does have some benefits. You are able to send promotional emails to these students. And they might provide nice ratings / reviews (or they might not). However, in my opinion, the only real benefit to providing free coupons is so you can market your other courses to them. So, until you have additional courses, there probably is limited value to offering free coupons.

RandyMinder · ‎07-07-2020

Hi @SeanMurray29 I see several potential problems you are going to encounter with your course: You are asking a lot of money ($35) for such a short course (35 minutes). Very few Udemy students are going to pay you $35 for a 35 minute course. I would lower this to $19.95, the lowest price you can offer. It's been my experience that very short courses don't do well on Udemy. And the refund rate on them is fairly high (my guess based on experience). I did a search on YouTube and found a large number of videos on Jamaica Creole. I'm not sure why someone would pay to purchase a course when they can learn free on YouTube in the same amount of time. How many people do you think are really interested oin learning such a niche language and are wiling to pay to do so?

RandyMinder · ‎07-06-2020

Hi @RenuThakur122 A couple thoughts here. First, don't strive for perfection. More than likely, you simply are not going to earn enough money to justify spending hours upon hours trying to make your course as good as it can be. The average Udemy instructor will only earn about $4 for each course sold. So, you need to consider whether the time spent to perfect your course is worth it. In my opinion, it is not. Second, before you get too far into your course, do some research, if you haven't yet, to make sure your course isn't going to compete against 500+ other courses teaching the same thing. Almost every day an instructor will post a message here wondering why they are not making any sales. In most cases it's because there are 500 or more courses teaching the same thing. This makes it almost impossible for your course to get noticed.

RandyMinder · ‎07-06-2020

Hi @RicardoStephan I took a look at your course and saw three things that may help explain your lack of sales: Your course has a huge amount of competition. I did a Udemy search for Adobe Photoshop and got 7,800 responses. It's going to be almost impossible for your course to appear on the first couple search result pages with so many competing courses. You have your course priced very high, at $95. Most Udemy students will never pay that much for a course. They will simply wait until the next Udemy sale, if they are interested. So, at that price, you will probably never have many sales until there is a sale, and then somehow your course has to get noticed amoung the 7,800 other courses. Your course is only 1.5 hours long. It's been my experience that courses under two hours don't normally do that well, and if they do sell, students will often ask for a refund, simply because of the length, and not feeling like they got their money's worth. Personally, I will never release another course less than three hours. It just seems like the refund rate is too high with short courses.

RandyMinder · ‎07-02-2020

Hi @AmanKatna1985 - Congratulations on your first course. How do you make your first sale? My first suggestion would be to lower your price, a lot. Udemy students typically will never pay $94 for a course. Especially a new course by a new instructor. There is another consideration on price. You have targeted Hindi speaking people in India. Indian students are accustomed to paying just a few dollars for courses on Udemy. My guess is that very few of them would be willing to pay the equivalent of $94. And, those that do might likely do so with the intention of getting a refund when they finish the course (the majority of my refunds come from Indian students). My second suggestion would be to make an english version of your course. You are limiting your course to students who speak Hindi. Therefore, you have eliminated the entire world outside of those parts of India that understand Hindi. Also, I did a search on Udemy for "Microsoft Excel" and got back 10,000 results. This means of course you are competing against thousands of other courses. It's going to be very difficult for your course to get noticed, especially since you are targeting Indian students and it could take a long time to get a steady stream of sales. Therefore, you might want to consider offering free coupons to gain some visibility.

RandyMinder · ‎07-02-2020

Hi @PranshuBailwal Do your homework first. When I did a Udemy search on chemistry I got back almost 500 courses. This means that your course will be competing against many hundreds of other courses. Be prepared for your course to potentially take a long time to get noticed.

RandyMinder · ‎07-02-2020

@Kazuki You are very welcome. I think a good way to look at the accent issue is this. English is my native language. But, let's say I create a course in Japanese. Let's also assume my Japanese is ok but not great. You can understand what I am saying but you really need to concentrate. If my course is the only course on the topic, you will probably buy it because you have no alternatives. However, if there are a dozen other courses just like it (and rated about the same), and the instructors are native Japanese speakers, you probably will not purchase my course. And I wouldn't blame you. This is what most non-native english speaking instructors face on Udemy who create a course for world-wide consumption.

RandyMinder · ‎07-02-2020

@Kazuki "I would like to question, for the first month, does everybody gain few students and after a few months the students gradually increase? or the students increase immediately if the topic is right and the quality is high?" I don't think there a single, correct, answer to this question. It will depend entirely on whether you are a new author and it will depend upon the number of competing courses etc. The quality of the course probably doesn't come into play right away because students won't know about quality until they buy it and go through the course. Almost any new author is going to struggle at first. There are so many courses available on Udemy and virtually every topic that could generate a nice number of sales probably already has numerous courses already available. So, getting your course recognized could take quite a bit of time. Also, I listed to your promotional video. To be honest, this may turn some people away. First of all, the background music was very loud and it made it difficult to hear your voice. Secondly, your accent makes it a bit of a struggle to understand you. Students may just decide to find an instructor they can understand more easily. I'm not saying that a strong accent will turn everyone away. That isn't the case. But, with so many other courses to choose from, some potential students are likely to find a native english speaking instructor, if one is available. To be quite honest, I know I would if I had to devote too much energy to understanding the instructor.

RandyMinder · ‎06-29-2020

Hi @Kazuki You said you may have picked the wrong topic. I think you might be right. One of the things you need to consider before creating a course is the number of courses that already teach your particular topic. I did a Udemy search on 'Wordpress Development'. I got 10,000 results back. This means your course is competing against thousands of other courses. Because of the number of courses already teaching this topic, you are going to have to be very patient because it's going to be difficult for your course to get recognized.

RandyMinder · ‎06-29-2020

Hi @HemantDhole589 Welcome! I would strongly suggest, before you start creating your first (or next) course, that you spend a bit of time researching how many courses already teach what you are teaching. We get a lot of posts here about instructors who spent many, many hours creating a course and are wondering why they are not getting many, if any, sales. Often it's because they are competing with hundreds of other courses on the same topic.

RandyMinder · ‎06-28-2020

Hi @Soumyapk428 Before you start your course, you should research how many courses are already published on Udemy centered around chemistry. There are hundreds so you are going to have some very stiff competition. You should expect your course to take a long time to get noticed and gain any sort of traction.

RandyMinder · ‎06-28-2020

Hi @DevanandSB The obvious recommendation is to re-record your course in english. Any course published to Udemy that isn't in english is going to greatly limit your potential audience unless you have a specific, thoughtful, reason for doing so.

RandyMinder · ‎06-26-2020

I have about 13 courses on Udemy. My first couple took a long time to record and edit because I really didn't know what I was doing. Now I can knock out courses pretty quickly, after I've done the research I need to do. There are two reasons for this. The first is because I'm much better at doing this than I was early on. The second is that I've stopped trying to be perfect. When you think about it, you're going to earn somewhere between $.80 and $5.00 for each course sold (if you're an average Udemy instructor). It's simply not worth putting in the extra effort to try and be perfect. Your time is much better spend creating new courses than making existing ones as good as you can possibly make it.

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