I'm afraid since we are several days before the launch of my first online course...

[Dries_Ketels]

Dear fellow instructors and friendly people, 

I have a question about the organic sales aspect of Udemy. At the moment I'm afraid with the promotion side of my course. I have several social media accounts (app. 7.000+ followers, mainly on instagram) and that's it. I don't have any mailing lists or anything of that nature. I assume and estimate that I will not get many sales from my social media page since I havn't posted much in the last couple of months (perhaps 10 people will buy the course).

My main question is the following. If I only rely on organic traffic through udemy and have app. 10 sales from my own marketing in the first couple of days. Do I have a good chance of creating a descent course that grows organically? Assuming I have created one of the better courses within my niche. 

In other words, what's the minimum amount of enrollments and reviews you need to be able to get organic sales coming in? (again assuming I've created the best course within that niche) 

extra info: 
- The subject is grant writing for artists. In that niche there are around 10 other courses so there's not much competition. (currently the biggest course gets around 600$/ month) 
- I've won dozens of grant, residencies, competitions etc.  and I'm very confident in this space, I'm also a confident public speaker and have no problems to be natural in front of a camera or anything. I'm confident to have made the best course within this small niche of grant writing atm. 

I was also thinking about perhaps doing a facebook or instagram campaign of around 500-1000$ or something. Does anybody has experience with this form of marketing for your udemy course? Will this be necessary? 

[GrahamNicholls]

Hey @Dries_Ketels 

I started with no list of contacts as well and had similar concerns but knew that I wanted to go for it so I did. The truth is that the best marketing for your course is more courses!

Placing just 1 course on the Marketplace might get you a few sales and that is multiplied with multiple courses.

The best idea I can offer you is to go and check out the course that Scott Duffy offers on how to use the Udemy marketplace and search engine effectively.

Best of luck with you knew course.

[Dries_Ketels]

Thanks for your quick reply Nicholls I'm very happy to hear that the organic way is possible since it worked for you. I'm definitely going to create more courses. And will check out Scott Duffy's course, is it oriented towards beginners only or also for more advanced students? (since I have SEO experience)

The thing is I might be able to create 10 more courses (30-40 hours) before I start repeating myself. And the other topics where I have tons of experience and results in have way more competition then the grant writing one. We are talking about topics like: meditation, drawing, painting, business related things for artists, etc. 

May I ask you one more question Nicholls? How long did it took you before you got a descent student base, after several courses/months already or did it took much longer then that?

Friendly,
Dries 

[Dries_Ketels]

@GrahamNicholls 

If I may ask you one more question it would be the following one. Did you only do the following 4 things? Udemy SEO, creating awesome course, being active in the Udemy forums, creating multiple courses and cross sell with them. Or did you do more then that to get your results? And which of these was most powerful for you, creating multiple courses and cross sell? 

Ps: I'm already feeling connected because of our shared interests. Curious to your course on meditation, perhaps I'm going to buy it one of these upcoming days. 

Thanks in advance,
Dries 

[GrahamNicholls]

Hey @Dries_Ketels 

I tried a few other things such as FB ads but they were poor in return. I now have a private FB Group for my students which helps with engagement but in general, yes.... I add more courses and cross sell when I launch a new one.