The Udemy Cashflow Cheatsheet - Amazon S3 · pricing 53 driving traffic 54 udemy traffic and ranking factors 57 coupons and discounts 58 launch day tactics 62 pre-launch activities

The Udemy Cashflow CHEATSHEET

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WHAT IS UDEMY? 5

HOW MUCH CAN YOU MAKE AS A UDEMY PROFESSOR? 5

WHAT CAN YOU TEACH? 7

WHY SHOULD YOU MAKE A COURSE? 8

UDEMY MYTH BUSTERS 9

WHAT SHOULD YOU WRITE ABOUT? 10

FOURTEEN-DAY QUICK STEP GUIDE TO CREATING A UDEMY COURSE 11

MARKETPLACE DEMAND & RESEARCH 16

GOOGLE 19

FACEBOOK 19

CLICKBANK 19

OTHER SOURCES FOR RESEARCH 21

FORMATTING YOUR COURSE 23

LECTURE TYPES 23

VIDEO 23

AUDIO AND AUDIO INTERVIEWS 27

TEXT/ARTICLES/PDF/CASE STUDIES 28

ORGANIZING EVERYTHING 30

WHO IS YOUR AUDIENCE? 31

DEVELOPING YOUR OUTLINE 32

DEVELOPING YOUR COURSE CONTENT 33

PRODUCING YOUR COURSE 34

SCREEN RECORDING AND QUALITY SLIDE TIPS 34

PUBLISHING YOUR SLIDES AS A VIDEO LECTURE 37

CAPTURING GREAT QUALITY VIDEO 38

HOW TO SET UP LIGHTING 39

CAPTURING GREAT QUALITY AUDIO 42

PUTTING EVERYTHING TOGETHER 44

DELIVERY OF YOUR CONTENT 44

LOCATION AND TIME 44

EDITING AND POLISHING 45

VIDEO EDITORS 45

OUR FINAL RESULT 46

MARKETING YOUR COURSE 48

YOUR PROMO VIDEO 48

YOUR SALES PAGE 50

PRICING 53

DRIVING TRAFFIC 54

UDEMY TRAFFIC AND RANKING FACTORS 57

COUPONS AND DISCOUNTS 58

LAUNCH DAY TACTICS 62

PRE-LAUNCH ACTIVITIES LAUNCH PHASE #1 63

COURSE QUALITY CHECK LAUNCH PHASE #2 64

LMOST LIVE LAUNCH PHASE #3 64

EVIEW PROCESS LAUNCH PHASE #4 65

LIVE IN THE MARKETPLACE LAUNCH PHASE #5 65

MAINTAINING YOUR GROWTH 67

BUILDING MORE COURSES AND CONTENT 68

KEEP NETWORKING AND BUILDING YOUR BRAND 69

Copyright 2017 | OnlineMarketingClassroom.com | All Rights Reserved 5 / 70

What is Udemy? What is Udemy? Simply put, it is a website community where instructors can create and teach educational courses to students. Who can be an instructor? YOU CAN!

If you have something to teach, you can profit by setting it up as a course on Udemy! You will have access to a market of 13 million students already registered at Udemy, and with 20,000 instructors and problem wondering how well Udemy is established as a sales channel to build your online educational empire!

How Much Can You Make as a Udemy Professor? Like any online business, it depends how much effort you put into it. However, you keep 70% of all sales, and 85% if you directly refer the customer due to your own marketing efforts. In this Cheatsheet, we will teach you what to look for in a winning course, and how to maximize revenue and sales.

y often has promotional sales of around $19 that you can opt into as a seller

you will receive 70% of that. That means, you will receive $13.30 per sale.



If you can sell only ONE course per day at $19, your income will be: $13.30 x 30 = $399

you to create a series of courses, and as you build up your audience, you can remarket to them to launch Udemy courses faster and faster. By scaling this way, you can start to see REAL money beginning to flow in:

the formula to reach your goals:

To Reach $5000/month:

# of

Courses

Income (based

on $19 price)

Conversion

Rate

# Sales per

course per day

Traffic per course

per day 1 $13 1% 13 1,300 2 $26 1% 7 700 3 $39 1% 5 500 4 $52 1% 4 400 5 $65 1% 3 300

$5000/month is $166.66 per day. If you have 5 courses on the market, you only have to make 3 sales per day 3 course. While it will be slow-going at first, as you build up an audience of students, networking with other teachers to cross-promote, getting known in the community and building multiple marketing channels for multiple courses, you can make a steady stream of passive income all the while becoming the authority professor in your niche. Some of the top professors on Udemy make $8 million per year! In fact, the top 10 instructors had combined sales figures of $17 million. You can visit some of these instructors to see their profiles, courses and number of students: Rob Percival (17 courses, 165,000+ students, $2.8 million in total earnings): https://www.udemy.com/user/robpercival/ Victor Bastos (4 courses, 81,000+ students, $900,000 total earnings): https://www.udemy.com/user/victorbastos3/


https://www.udemy.com/user/robpercival/

https://www.udemy.com/user/victorbastos3/


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What Can You Teach? What can you teach through Udemy? Anything and everything! To find out what courses are available, simply sign up for a free account at Udemy.com. Once logged in, you will be redirected to the list of courses:




Everything from computer programming to dieting to learning a new language is listed for enrollment. There are even courses on how to make a Udemy course!

Why Should You Make a Course? More important than the what you can teach is the question YOU make

and you would like to make a nice little side income doing so. A more complex answer is that you can also use Udemy as an effective launching platform to market yourself as a professional in your field. If you are an internet marketer selling widgets, what better way to establish yourself as a professional by offering your own course on how to use or build that widget? This is one Unique Selling Propo

brings is hard to understate. Of course, there are a few tips on making the best course possible:

scount your passion. Only teach what you are really passionate about.

bleed through your presentation. The engagement of your course will suffer.

While your passion is definitely important, you will want to intersect that with what the marketplace needs and wants. If you are passionate about competitive mooing (yes, doing cow impressions), the marketplace may not be large enough for you to earn a good income.



The sweet spot is finding something you are passionate about and researching the marketplace to see if there are people who would like to learn about your passion. We will talk about how to test your interest in the marketplace for its potential.

t have expertise in my passion!fine, it may actually benefit you! How? By researching your passion more in depth to create a course, you will gain a deeper understanding of what it is you will be teaching. By the time you finish and release your Udemy course, you will be an expert!

to market it. We have a couple

Udemy Myth Busters

I need to create a course no one else has created before!

to lack of interest. You actually WANT some competition. It shows that there is a demand for this topic.

My first course has to be perfect out the gate! Your first course is NOT likely to be perfect, or even complete, content is can always update and improve your course, and in fact you are encouraged to, with real feedback from students. Above all else deliver to your students the outcome they are expecting, and as effectively as you can. Students will reward instructors through great feedback if you deliver the outcomes they care about.

will constantly tinker with things and end up never releasing your course.

The course is done, and that’s it.

A core part of making courses is, well, making more

courses. To be successful at Udemy (and any Internet Marketing business), you do

not develop strategies for single, one-time content. You instead create mini-courses

given away with free coupons as lead magnets for main courses, then spin-offs and



supplementary materials, and completely new courses in similar, parallel topics and

niches.

One of the greatest benefits of Udemy is that it gives you the opportunity to send your students both promotional and educational emails a few times a month. So anticipate engaging with your students in an on-going way.

Courses are only created by “experts”

Being an expert simply means knowing more than your audience about your topic.

material when building your course, you will be learning more and more about it.

Remember anything you can learn, you can teach.

What Should You Write About? This is always the most difficult phase in the process where do you get started?

Think of the following:

What are your passions?

What do people say you should teach?

What do you want to learn personally?

What problems do friends and family look to YOU to solve?

When you have an idea in mind (and the next section, Market Research, could also

Will your idea solve a problem for people?

What are the pain points that your course will solve? Write a list of

do people search for to

solve this problem?

How does your solution solve the pain point? Because of your solution, your

graduated student is now able to <fill in the blank>.



Fourteen-Day Quick Step Guide to Creating a Udemy Course

Creating a quality course can take a surprising amount of time. With proper focus and a real game plan, you can make every second cou -day plan, distilled from our personal experiences in creating courses.

courses you want to deliver. This will give you a great place to start. The best way to look at this is to read this Cheatsheet in its entirety first, then come back to this plan to help you begin.

Plan your Course

Day 1 Sign up and decide your course topic

It begins today! Sign up to Udemy

course topic.

teach, and the things people will be interested in paying to learn. Students come

bridge them from where they are now, to where they want to be.

Find their need, and plan to address it. Do your research, with Google Trends and

hot topics. Look at competing courses and find where you want to take it.

Day 2 Outline your Course

outline your course. One of the most important things you can do

as an instructor on Udemy is to show students a sense of progression. Your

outline is going to give your course structure, as well as be your working

document on creating the course itself.

because, frankly,

Perhaps you really need two lectures to explain something? Or perhaps you

omitted a concept you needed to introduce first. Expect the outline to evolve as

you create content for your course.



delivered. Bake directly into the outline your unique advantage and what makes

your course really great. Keep in mind there are several different kinds of lecture

types to consider.

Day 3 Iron out the Technology, and Test Production.

production setup and this

will involve a variety of production phases. Think of some status points that any

one of your lectures can currently be in at any time:

Not Started Researching Creating Slides Slides Complete

Narrating Audio Audio Complete Creating a Screen Cast Rendering PowerPoint Render Complete

Editing Video Video Complete Final Video Render Upload File Full Complete

During this day, invest some time considering the look and feel. Find a good

template for slides, if you are using slides. Consider your colour scheme and your

production.

Your goal for the third day is to walk a lecture from each phase of production.

experience. Everything from poor lighting, to poor video equipment, to poor

audio. You need to test it all.

Focus on creating an efficient and repeatable process. Look for efficiencies you

can introduce-everywhere. Here are some examples:

Multiple monitors I find with a second monitor I perform much more

quickly. I borrow another monitor from my household to get that extra

edge.

The first course I created, I used Audacity to clean up my audio (reduce

noise etc). I would take my video file, convert it to wav, filter the audio,

and re-

to a wav file in the first place, removing an entire step. This is worth it!!!!!!

By the end of this day, you should get a 2-5 minute video file. Upload this to Udemy for their review. Heed their advice, and make any changes required!



Produce Your Course Content

Day 4 to Day 10

The basic progress of creating a one-hour course, a four-hour course or even

more is the basically the same. The only question is the length of the journey

it on the Udemy platform.

t be doing this all at once. Your goal here

is to create an assembly line for lectures:

From research and planning

to recording

to editing and finally

to uploading them.

No one will create a single lecture from start to finish and then move on to the

next one. Instead, strong instructors will be working on a variety of lectures in

various phases. This will enable using your computer and time more effectively.

For instance, is your computer tied up rendering a video file? Maybe use your

tablet to research or sketch out the next lecture. You need to overlap the course

creating process each day, so you are consistently working on lectures.

Y this linearly either. Introductions and Conclusio

make sense to record

true for a series of lectures that could take a while to explain. Is this a four-part

lecture? A five-part? You might not know. So create the Introduction last.

Your goal here is to work. It will be challenging, and it will be hard to continue at

times. If you get stuck ask yourself what the on next thing you should do, to

keep going. And then do that.

Plan your promo video here, and plan to invest heavily in it. Your promo video will be a real distinguishing factor for in your course. Start it no later than when your course is around 80% complete.



Complete your Course

Day 11 Pre launch

These include crafting the learning goals, writing a description of each and every

lecture, and so on. This is actually more important than people give credit to.

Consider these factors:

This text is used by the Udemy algorithm for search optimization. Ensure

you have full descriptions that include keywords that you want and need

to rank for in the Udemy marketplace.

Remember the people might be reading it too. This is your course landing

page and it really deserves some good focus.

Remember to copy in your course outline, as core content to use in writing the

descriptions of each and every lecture.

r prospective

students.

Submit or request a course image. You can get Udemy to supply the thumbnail

before submitting it for review.

ate) your instructor bio, as appropriate.

Day 12 Submission time

Setup and have a Google Analytics account ready, with a tracking code, so you

that initial data.

verification process. The premium Udemy instructor simply means you have an

associated PayPal account.

submit stolen and fake content.

required.



Day 13 Resolve issues

Fix as required. Did you get some feedback that needs to be addressed? Fix it as

quickly as possible, and submit for re-review, so you can get your course over this

hurdle.

Day 14 The course is live!

marketing gusto you can muster. Free coupons, social media, (etc), are all tactics

used to lift your course and make money.

Things to monitor:

Monitor your free coupons. These coupons can go viral, and can lead to

sudden poor quality traffic to your course if they are submitted to less

quality websites. Watch it closely.

Monitor your keyword rankings.

Actively manage and respond to reviews. Students sometimes leave

reviews in error, and Udemy asks for reviews very early. Reach out to

students as soon as possible for all reviews.

Rinse and repeat the next 14 days!!



Marketplace Demand & Research So, how do you find out if people are willing to take your course? This is where you will begin investigating the marketplace. There are a few steps to take to gage the interest in your area of expertise. Though it is best to teach what you are passionate about, think long term about this. Look for a subject area that will be in demand for years. As well, your topic should have related interests that you can turn into new courses. For example, a course on bird photography could be followed by a complete course on landscape photography. These both could have a free mini-course on using your camera like a pro. The best first step is actually seeing what Udemy provides:

interested in wildlife

photography, check to see if the category exists, and how many courses are



Looking at the stats, 248 students have enrolled. Scrolling down, you can see it was p 248 x $24 for the course = $5952.

instructors !)

There are 3,390 students enrolled in this one course, and it was released in July, 2016

three months!!



Even more to note though the instructor is a software development professional,

previous example. He is, though, well known in his own niche, and has several courses in Udemy (one of them with over 14,000 students!) This shows how important branding and

which we will get into this below. Hot Topics: Periodically, Udemy will publish a list of the best-selling and most popular topics. View it here: https://teach.udemy.com/course-creation/hot-topic-courses/ Along with using Udemy itself to gauge the interest in courses, you have a wealth of other information from other sources.








https://teach.udemy.com/course-creation/hot-topic-courses/



Google To find interest in your topic, simply do a Google search and see what comes up! If there are thousands or millions of entries, you are in luck. If you see advertisements within the search results, you are in even better luck, because it proves this niche makes money. There are a few Google properties to search for when doing your market research:

Google Keyword Planner (https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner) While designed for Adwords, this is a good way to see how many people are searching for what keywords in your niche. Google Trends (https://www.google.com/trends/) Type in your niche to see if interest is going up,

Facebook With over a billion active users giving over far too much personal information on a daily basis, Facebook knows a bit about the demographics and buying habits of people! In fact, not only can you find out about what people are interested in, you can zero down to find out what divorced soccer moms who own an iPhone 5 in a particular zip code within Tulsa, Oklahoma are interested in! This will likely be TOO MUCH information, but you can find all this information through Facebook Audience Insights (you will need an approval ad account): https://www.facebook.com/ads/audience_insights From there, type in your niche (or as close as possible to your ideas) to see how many people are interested, and, more importantly, what else they are interested in (the magazines they read, the tv shows they watch, etc) to give you a general idea on the audience you will be targeting.

Clickbank


https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner

https://www.google.com/trends/

https://www.facebook.com/ads/audience_insights


Clickbank is perhaps the most similar to Udemy in that they also sell informational products and how-to guides. The difference is that while Udemy teaches courses (originally for career-development, such as computer programming and marketing), Clickbank concentrates mainly on self-help guides (pdfs, video series, etc). Their sales model is for an author to write the guide and have several marketers sell the guide on their behalf (for a large cut of the sales). While Udemy does have an affiliate program (run by Linkshare, a 3rd party company), their sales model is quite different from that of Clickbank.

To see if your course topic is selling well there, Clickbank has tools to filter through

while in the Affiliate Marketplace page (one of the tabs at the top of Clickbank): Gravity: This DOES NOT show how well the product is selling, but how well affiliates (marketers) of distinct affiliates who have sold the product at least once in the last 12 weeks. The more affiliates who shigher the gravity. As an owner of a Clickbank product, a gravity of 10 means that this many different affiliates have successfully sold this product. It could definitely be marketing acumen on the part of the author, but it also shows that this category has proven sales.

owner chooses not to recruit affiliates, and just wishes to sell it with his own traffic.



informational products. If you are planning a computer programming course, Clickbank would not be an ideal source of research to gage market demand.

Other Sources for Research Forums

for forums. Look for at least three different forums popular in your potential niche. You are looking for questions people are asking, as well as concerns, worries and demographics. Do you see common threads between forums? What is the average age of these people? What are their concerns and worries? Are they looking for a job? Do they just want to be better at their hobby? More importantly, what are the solutions being offered? Keep these forums in mind, because you can establish yourself here as an authority with a Udemy course. Not only can these people be your customers, but you will be an active participant in the near future. Yahoo! Answers and Quora Both of these are websites are in a question and answer format. Basically, a member asks a question or has a problem that needs solving, and several people will give an answer. You can do a search to see how many people are asking questions in your potential niche. This gives you an idea of how many people are desperate for a solution, and what types of answers are given. Yahoo! Answers can be seen as source, with the person asking the question choosing the best answer. Quora is more geared towards questions of a more professional and specialized nature, with the community upvoting or downvoting the best answer. For Udemy research, Quora is best, because you will be creating a professional course. Other Sources for Marketplace Demand and Research: http://buzzsumo.com/ https://www.reddit.com/ https://www.youtube.com/


http://buzzsumo.com/

https://www.reddit.com/

https://www.youtube.com/


Other Course Marketplaces: https://teachable.com/ https://www.skillshare.com/ https://edurila.com/ (very small)


https://teachable.com/

https://www.skillshare.com/

https://edurila.com/


Formatting Your Course

r course! You know what you want to teach, and you have done all your market research. The next step is not outlining your course (yet) ... you should actually think about how you are going to first format your course. Imagine a chef knowing their available ingredients first, before designing their menu.

Lecture Types

tempted to start outlining your course. In-fact, this is the conventional wisdom that

Personally, online courses. Or more specifically, to review the types of lectures that go into an online course. Imagine a chef knowing their available ingredients first, before designing their menu.

that matter are nearly universal for online courses. For each, imagine where you might use the lecture format in your own course. A certain format may be better than another for your topic. For instance, a course made up of mostly of audio lectures would make little sense for a course on photography. Finally, consider the overall makeup of your course, almost like planning a balanced meal. Udemy expects courses to have at least 60% video content, and 20% to be

non-technical content. So plan your content to your lecture type and plan a well-balanced course!

Video Video lectures are the most engaging lectures for the audience. You should also consider researching closed captioning your videos, depending on the demographic for your course. Students with English as a second language will often seek these out, in order to help improve their understanding of the lecture content. In the video format, there are several types of lectures: The Talking Head Lecture



Talking head lectures are videos of you, as the instructor, physically in front of the camera. This is by far the most effective format, to the point that Udemy often stresses how valuable they are for student engagement. Students get to see you, and it creates a personal connection that the other types of lecture formats simply

er), and they are actually quite rare in the marketplace. The reason for this is simple it can feel daunting to talk in front of a camera! Our advice is to use this to your advantage! Use talking head videos to really make your course stand out in the course marketplace, above your competition. Consider using them at least for introduction and conclusion lectures.

Screen Captures/Screencasts



Screen captures and screencasts are video files that are generated by capturing your computer screen and audio, in real time. This is an effective format, especially for creating lectures that describe technical how-to content. lecturers, because they can often easily show how to do something, rather than having to describe it. Nearly anything that can be displayed on your computer screen can be captured - including the delivery of slideshow presentations. Audio can be added after recording convenient and authentic to do it at the same time that your video is being captured. Some people will also combine this with a talking head lecture for a

Slideshows

Slideshows, are often recorded and used to deliver lecture content. Popular options include Keynote for MAC and PowerPoint for PC. In terms of planning your lecture content and delivery, consider the following things:



1) The old adage Death by PowerPoint exists for a reason. simply read your lecture slides and use that as a lecture. deliver anything of value to your student. Udemy also rejects lectures created like this during their review process. Look for how to get great engagement, while using the slides as a structure to help deliver great content. 2) Become familiar with the presentation software, especially around its animation functions. Animation is a fantastic tool to help illustrate ideas and concepts. The capacity of several presentation tools is very extensive, and also easy to use. ll get great student engagement when you leverage these tools fully. Make sure you know how to include both pictures and videos in your presentation files as well. Finally, keep in mind that slideshow several different media types together into a lecture. This could include having an introductory slide, followed by slide that plays a video created by screen capture, followed by more slides. Because of their versatility, slideshows form the backbone of the majority of lectures of most courses. Video Interviews

Interviews with experts are a rare and refreshing source of content. Keep in mind

ducted in person, but could include recorded Skype or Google Hangout video chats. This will mean you can interview anyone Interviews are often engaging in themselves, and people are more forgiving of flaws in interviews than other forms of video content.

You



can test using screen capture software on your workstation, but if you have problems you might want to use a specialized product such as Callnote to record the conversation. Some conferencing services (such as Google hangout), will also record the conversation for you. Regardless of whether you are conducting an interview in person or online, remember to focus your attention on leading the conversation to explore the topic being discussed. A good interviewer will clearly focus on the interviewee rather than make it about the interviewer themselves.

Audio and Audio Interviews

Audio lectures are perfect for certain situations, such as courses that are meant to be consumed at the gym, in the car, or while on the go. Also, there are ideal types of content for an audio only delivery. Great examples include courses on languages, as well as meditation courses that include much point in having a video for a guided meditation session, where you ask the student to close their eyes in the first few minutes of the session!

If included as an audio lecture, it will be only playable through the Udemy mobile application or website. However, if you add it as a downloadable mp3 resource file, technically savvy students will be able to take and consume your content on their mp3 player or mobile device. Audio is the most important thing to get right. Students may forgive bad video, but they are not going to forgive bad audio. The quality of audio is also heavily scrutinized in the Udemy review process.

The audio format can be especially suitable for interviews. This is because interviews

People being interviewed rarely include props or bring illustrations.


https://callnote.net/


Sometimes instructors will their video lectures into audio files as a bonus, and including them in the course. While this may initially seem like an easy way to extend your content, keep in mind that your audience will no longe

Make sure your audio lecture stands fully on its own, without needing video.

Text/articles/pdf/case studies

Finally, you can include nearly any kind of document content as a lecture. On the Udemy platform there is a rich text editor, which means that youarticle directly into the Udemy tool. This is similar to Google docs. Keep in mind that

or print it). However, a great feature of the article format is that the words written in articles count towards the total duration of your course. About 240 words is equivalent to one minute. Alternatively, you can also include documents as downloadable resources in zip files, or in PDF format. Often instructors creating technical content will need to put their source code examples into zip files, to facilitate their access through the Udemy platform. Some instructors will also include their slides as downloadable resources. The article format is great for providing your students content that helps extend their learning experience. Consider checklists, roadmaps, transcripts and even infographics. ur course, you already have a transcript! So be sure to include that as a downloadable resource for your students as well. While articles are an easy way to create content for lectures, the trap of creating them when a personal touch is really needed. Articles are the least engaging lecture format in digital courses.



head video lecture. Match your lecture format t Keep in mind that none of There are variations and hybrids that combine more than one lecture format together. One combination you may use is screen capture (for instance, a how-to video), combined with a talking head video. the engagement of seeing you explain the topic at hand. Ask yourself how some can be combined, and where you might use the approach.










Organizing Everything

the variety of lecture formats available. Courses delivered by Udemy are really just individual lectures grouped into sections. You describe both your lectures and your sections when you upload your course lectures into the platform while creating your course. The best way to organize everything is to map out an outline. A basic course outline will show how your course will break into a few sections, and what lectures and what format will make up each section. Remember that your course promises to deliver specific objectives to your student. The course outline is your go-to game plan on how your course will accomplish that for them. When you are crafting your outline, be sure to deliver some immediate results as soon as possible in your course content. Udemy will often ask students for a review after only completing a few lectures. Courses that start strong are more likely to get great reviews than courses that take a long time to get warmed up. Start as strong as possible! The lecture format is important to keep in mind for your course outline, because Udemy has guidelines around the amount of video content that your course must include.

matches the percentage you need or if you need to change the some of your lectures article on the topic:

https://support.udemy.com/hc/en-us/articles/229232927-Course-Material-Rules-and-Guidelines





Who is Your Audience? There are three distinct audiences to consider for your course outline:

Yourself (as the instructor) The course outline is It will give you a clear list of lectures and sections, as well as what you want to teach in each lecture. roadmap and checklist complete. Instructor course outlines anticipated length of the lecture, the lecture format (and so on). They also are the basis for describing the sections and lectures that make up the course when publishing to the Udemy platform. In this way, the course outline you use as an instructor will often have a lot of detail

-use to create the outline seen by students. Your Existing Students H and sections will help them see their progress in learning the course material. Having clear objectives per lecture will make them clear, crisp and on the point. Lectures should fit together in a way that supports their learning journey. Existing students will also be more interested in completing your course when the lectures have been thoughtfully organized. Use compelling titles in your lectures to

encourage readers to continue

New Students The course outline should clearly demonstrate how their learning objectives are met by the course. Udemy instructors often miss this, or they focus instead of a long sales format at the beginning of the course.

course outline. Together, you can really make your course stand out. Students will ist

to get a feel for the course. Consider your course outline to be an extension of the sales page.



Developing Your Outline

outline. Consider just drafting your ideas into a spreadsheet, where each row is a lecture and your columns will consist of something along these lines:

1. The section the lecture will belong to. 2. The enticing title of the lecture. 3. The main points the lecture will deliver. 4. The expected duration of the lecture. 5. The lecture format. 6. Who is delivering the lecture (if you are co-instructing)

7. And some status of the lecture (so you can mark it as done).

When you use your course outline as a basis, you can expand to have full descriptions of your lectures. As an instructor, keep it a simple roadmap (for now). getting the goals of the lecture, the structure of how they group together, and the lecture formats. If you are stuck while developing your course outline, you might consider your course to be like a series of tree branches, where each branch is a subject (or section), and each leaf is a lecture. Often instructors will get stuck at the branch level, meaning that they have problems figuring out what sections you should have.

To get around this mental block, consider instead what leaves (lectures) you need. come first. Simply cons Then the order will come more easily, along with being able to group them together. As you are grouping your lectures, consider what should be included as bonus material compared to your core lectures. Udemy has specific guidelines about what can be placed in each. In the core material they are not looking for students to be promoted to, or need to buy additional products or services to complete the course. Udemy is especially sensitive to things that may not have been outlined as an upfront requirement in the course description. You might consider giving a lecture specifically on course requirements and prerequisites. - of students! Nothing is worse than signing up to a course only to realize it has a

Finally, when developing your lecture outline, evaluate each lecture for its length and see if it can be divided into smaller pieces. Instructors will often develop outlines where lectures are too long and need to be subdivided into smaller topics.



Lectures can be up to twenty minutes in length, but ideally your lectures will be five to seven minutes in length. This will help keep students engaged, as well as let students pick up a lecture or two when they have a few minutes to spare.

Consider the three golden rules for your lectures:

If you think your lecture could be too long, it absolutely is.

Developing your Course content

begin using it as a roadmap to actually create the lectures of your course. At first this will be quite difficult, if not clumsy as you work to create your first lectures. This is entirely normal, and should be expected. The key thing to focus on at develop a process that is repeatable with less effort. With your first course, a byproduct of the creation should be your own method to develop courses. Pay attention to this, and focus on developing some sort of template or system. Y find that you will soon be decreasing the amount of time to develop lectures and the effort will be easier. The quality of your courses will in a better position to make multiple courses. Also, before embarking on creating your course content, be sure to fully review

instructor) to inadvertently violate policies, it would be worthwhile to look at them before investing time creating content that might need to be changed later. Full details on the Trust and Safety policies can be found here:

https://teach.udemy.com/trust-safety/ If you find that things take a look at your lecture format. Instead of thinking of

te on what you would teach an employee, a family member, or a contractor. If you can explain it to them, well on your way to being able to teach the material to anyone.


https://teach.udemy.com/trust-safety/


Producing Your Course You have done the research, you have your outline, and you know the format of each lecture. You will need the following:

Screen capture software

A video camera and tripod for talking head videos (an iPhone will do)

Some sort of lighting system

Audio

Screen Recording and Quality Slide Tips

ou will need expensive screen capture software in order to record your slideshow presentations. Some programs, such as PowerPoint, will allow you to narrate your presentation, and even has the ability to render your presentation directly to a video file.

Important: Make sure your video settings for your presentation format is 16:9 or “widescreen”. Udemy, as well as other online course marketplaces, want video content to be delivered in high quality, widescreen format. It can be a real pain to adjust your slides to a wide screen format after creating them, so set yourself up for success right



away if possible, and ideally 1920x1080. When capturing your screen, keep in mind the following tips: Test. -to video, only to

Test! capture yourself doing work you need to do anyway and using that as a way to test your capture process. Be sure to check your audio if you plan to capture it too. It can sometimes take some technical work to tell the capture software what audio source to use during the capture.

Cut out long gaps.

time finishing an operation. This often comes up in a lecture that includes software installation, or configuration. Remember that you can use video editing software to cut these long gaps out, so you can create a tighter and better lecture.

In the marketplace there are several free options, some midrange options, and higher priced options. Be sure to review capabilities before investing in a screen capture software program. High end software such as Camtasia includes video and audio editing functions,

ftware for other purposes as well. If your budget is constrained, you might instead use a number of free tools together to get all the different functions you need. An extensive comparison of software packages for a variety of computer platforms is maintained by Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_screencasting_software Udemy also maintains a list of options, platform (Windows or PC), and their associated price points: https://support.udemy.com/hc/en-us/articles/229234107-Recommended-Video-Editing-Tools Be sure to check the Udemy site before investing in software (such as Camtasia) as there have been discounts offered to Udemy instructors in the past. The Camtasia discount was recently discontinued when Version 9 was released in fall of 2016, but it could return! Slide Presentation Templates


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_screencasting_software

https://support.udemy.com/hc/en-us/articles/229234107-Recommended-Video-Editing-Tools

https://support.udemy.com/hc/en-us/articles/229234107-Recommended-Video-Editing-Tools


Presentation slides are the backbone that makeup most online courses. Even if -

slides to at least outline the course itself and provide some structure around core elements. You .

To give your lectures a high-quality template. There is nothing more powerful than this to give your lectures amazing design, and to really differentiate your courses. Presentation templates often include support materials such as bonus graphics and fonts. While there are many Slideshow

GraphicRiver (part of the Envanto) - https://graphicriver.net/

Designs.net - http://www.designs.net/

Creative Market - http://www.creativemarket.com/

Regardless of where you pick up your template, be sure to review the terms and conditions of the template. These can vary even in the same marketplace, as they are set by the artist that made the presentation template. Most are simply making sure you a -selling the template. This may students with PowerPoint versions of the lecture (because it could be edited to use the template), so if you wish to share your slide, give your students PDF versions of the documents instead. Of course, make sure your template supports 16:9, widescreen format. This will enable you to screencast or record your slides and turn them into videos with the right on-screen resolution. Once you have Look at the animation functions your presentation software is capable of. Some simple animations can be especially valuable to help make your course engaging, and helps bring your content to life. Adding Images

Including pictures is another way to make more compelling content, and to help illustrate concepts with lots of snap. There is a ton of options, but one of the most popular free options is Pixabay (https://pixabay.com/). Their library is extensive, and all files can be included (freely) without attribution. You can purchase stock photos as well, and we www.stockunlimited.com and stock.adobe.com.


https://graphicriver.net/

http://www.designs.net/

http://www.creativemarket.com/

https://pixabay.com/

http://www.stockunlimited.com/

https://stock.adobe.com/ca/


If you are considering including stock video clip content (yes, you can!), sites like http://www.videoblocks.com/ are your go-to site for clips and backgrounds. Remember to read their terms and conditions as well.



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Publishing Your Slides as a Video Lecture Once your slide deck is created, render them to a video file. From there, publish that as the complete video lecture, or use it with video editing software to combine it with other sources of content. minimum resolution of 1280x720 if possible, and ideally 1920x1080. In order to convert your slides to video format, you have two overall options: First, you can narrate with video that you can play back with timings and animations intact. This is really dependent on your slide show software, but larger packages such as PowerPoint can do this.


http://www.videoblocks.com/



Secondly, you can instead do a screen capture video while running your slideshow on your screen in order to generate your lecture. If you have more than one monitor, screen capture software such as Camtasia enables you to record on one screen while you view your lecture notes on the other. Often the second approach is more effective, but some instructors find it difficult to

That is, you would present the slides sequentially, one after the other, in one take, generating a single video file at the end. Keep in mind, with a video editor you can cut out parts and slice multiple videos together, allowing you to edit out errors. When delivering your slides, use a snap of the fingers or a several second pause as a way to indicate that you have something to edit. Regardless of the way you approach it, creating video content from slides is common way to develop the backbone of your course experience. Most of all, ensure that you deliver a compelling experience to your student. Remember not to commit the g sin, by simply reading the slides to your students. you to read for them, they expect you to teach.

Capturing Great Quality Video Capturing great quality video is one of the best ways to differentiate your course from that of your competitors. There are several different technical elements to consider, and while none of them are especially difficult, instructors can often become overwhelmed by all the different things that go into it. D ! Read further to consider a few core things to push your results ahead of the pack.



doing. An iPhone camera is often an excellent choice. Laptop cameras are also great. The key element is to consider how portable it needs to be, as well as the resolution and storage of the device. If you have a DLSR camerago. Review the capability of your device, and make sure it can record at a minimum 1280x720. Where You Record:

The location will play into what you can use to record (in some cases). Will you need a tripod? If you are using a smart phone, you might consider an inexpensive mounting bracket attached to a tripod to enable you to record on the go. The other location item to consider is lighting. Will you have access to lighting from outside? Will this restrict the time of day you can record, or mean that your recording will depend on the weather? Consider the sound in your location, and existing lighting.

How to Set Up Lighting Lighting is the real secret sauce of shooting great video. Have a look at the photo below. These are still frames of the same person, moments apart, from a single video clip. The only difference is that in the top frame, the lighting rig was turned on, and in the bottom frame it was turned off:



Simply put, making a modest investment in lighting can return amazing dividends in terms of course quality. The lighting rig used in the example below is a relatively simple one inspired from

here: https://wistia.com/library/down-and-dirty-lighting-kit


https://wistia.com/library/down-and-dirty-lighting-kit


the lighting rig that produced this result is simply:

Terital work lamps, purchased from IKEA

CFL Daylight light bulbs

Parchment paper from a grocery store as a home-made diffusion material.

Clothes pegs to attach the paper to the lamps.

A simple selfie stick that can screw into the tripod, to raise the iPhone camera used to record the video.

All of this was mounted to a ladder. Again re-use what you have!

Finally, to make a custom green screen, we included a poster board from a dollar n interactive

chalkboard. While this worked amazingly well, in the end we scrapped the idea



because we felt it made the course content delivered in the green screen area too small for students to clearly see it.

In the end, the custom lighting rig cost a total of $50 of components that the improved.

light. Remember that you can film facing a window, and open it up to get light on your face for your video. Instructors have been successful with a variety of other rigs, including using paper lantern lights from Amazon and Hemma lightbulb sockets from IKEA.

with some thoughtfulness and ingenuity, you can create an amazing DIY lighting rig! Finally, if you have some budget to spend, there are lots of professional grade lighting rigs that you can purchase from companies such as Amazon or B&H, and these can even include backdrop or green screen kits.

Capturing Great Quality Audio

Audio quality will make or break your course. Students can be tolerant of mediocre video, but they will never tolerate poor audio. Beyond a simple lighting rig, also think about investing in a microphone. terribly expensive, but it does require a modest investment. Udemy has outlined some advice on audio gear, which is worth looking at. A good value microphone that many people use is the Yeti Snowball. This value- oriented microphone is everything you really need to record. Keep in mind that this is a USB microphone, and will require connection to a laptop or computer to record. For those looking to upgrade to a premium quality, the Blue Yeti is a microphone with several different recording features.

If a highly mobile solution is desired, many instructors have reported great success with the iRig Microphone, because it can connect to iPhone devices directly. Be sure to review the connection requirements as this has changed between the iPhone 4/ iPhone 5&6 / and most recently the iPhone 7.


https://support.udemy.com/hc/en-us/articles/229605608-Recommended-Audio-and-Video-Equipment


background noise and normalizing the recording levels. Camtasia is able to do this packages that can also

do this, such as Audacity. These software functions will never make a poor recording great, but they can substantially enrich good quality audio to make it genuinely excellent.



Putting Everything Together So how do you pull together your course into actually lectures? First of all, remember that you are guiding your student through an experience. You want that experience to deliver value to them, as well as be engaging and compelling. choose your lecture format, your recording location, and then create your content.

Delivery of Your Content

l encounter is do you create a script Some will say

no, and some will say yes. The truth is somewhere in-between, and the degree you should script depends on you. Good delivery means that you are succinct and to the point. words, and use good vocal variety.

reading a script. Great delivery lets your personality shine through, being authentic while not being too informal. That you are human. Above all else, students are simply looking to connect in a way that is human. So, how much should you script? You should script enough that you can give a succin etitiveness that can plague instructors trying to think on their feet to deliver content that should have been scripted. y wooden, un-authentic, and un-appealing. The key is scripting exists to help you get a great lecture together. The amount to use will really depend on your delivery. Focus on that. Udemy has also published their own thoughts on this topic, similar to ours here: https://teach.udemy.com/script-or-outline-infographic.

Location and Time Beyond the delivery, keep in mind the location and time. We usually record early in the morning, while the house is asleep to get the quiet needed to create great quality lectures. Wearound in the background.


https://teach.udemy.com/script-or-outline-infographic


While no one is able to control all outside variables, a little bit of forethought will go a long way to helping capture great content. Finally, remember that capturing content is only part of the process. editing that content to create your final lecture files. So if you fumble in a lecture

Simply pause or mark it by snapping your fingers a few times. This will give a pattern in the audio waveform, often used by video editing software, and will make it easy for you to find your way around the video clip while editing it.

Editing and Polishing Good delivery will involve recording, but a great lecture will be the result of editing and polishing. It is in the video editor that you can And

ll pull together a better source of audio by enhancing and cleaning it up. You use the editor to pull together all the content and make your final lectures. also where you might add background music, which can really help create tension in promo videos for your course. We usually get our soundtrack clips from Audiojungle.net. A couple other sources:

Jukedeck.com

Freestockmusic.com

Freesound.org

Soundjay.com

Video Editors

product. PC:

Camtastia Studio (most recommended)

Sony Movie Studio

Lightworks Mac:

Screenflow

Camtasia for Mac

Lightworks


https://www.jukedeck.com/

http://www.freestockmusic.com/

https://www.freesound.org/

http://www.soundjay.com/


Our Final Result Our final result is here (we partnered with David Valentine, a friend who is a computer programmer): https://www.udemy.com/machine-learning-for-data-science/


https://www.udemy.com/machine-learning-for-data-science/


And was featured as New and noteworthy:

Now the real work begins. Marketing your course and driving traffic!



Marketing Your Course Your course is finished. Now what? Do you just publish it on Udemy and wave good-bye? Of course not! Now the REAL work begins actually selling it. And not just selling it, but making tons of money, gaining a student following, and branding yourself as an expert. The first thing you need to do is create a promo video for your course.

Your Promo Video This is the VERY FIRST piece of content your potential student will see when going to your page. Because of this, it is the most important video you will ever make for your

There are a variety of ways to make your video, and to learn more on what format it should take, simply look at the promo videos of the instructors and competitors in your niche: Animated slides

PowerPoint slides



Talking Head (Best Converting)

No matter the type of format, there are a few basic points to creating a successful promo video. They are:

What this course is, the goals, and what it will provide for the student

Why you are uniquely qualified to teach the course (even if you are not a



Why they should buy it now instead of later Your video should be no more than 90-120 seconds, be in HD high quality, and Udemy encourages you to show your face like in the third video example above.







Your Sales Page Your page on Udemy is your landing page, or your sales page. The ONLY thing you

Udemy knows that the promo video is the #1 conversion element, so they have formatted the page to show this up front:




Your sales page consists of the following elements: Your Title: Very clear and concise. What exactly are you offering and what is the

Your Subtitle: Explain exactly what this course is, and what you as a student will learn. Reviews and Students: Getting good reviews and having lots of students is also

populariwe will cover this below.) Course Summary: Summarize what your course is about, how it is being taught, and what students will achieve upon finishing the course. This is where great sales copy is critical, and where you need to know what your audience is and what their own goals with this course is. For instance, if you have created a course on becoming a web developer, you will know who your typical student will be through your research. They will be:

Likely wanting to change jobs

Unable to advance in their career because they need this knowledge

Need to make more money



Are stressed out at their current job Thus, the first couple of lines Looking to boost your income as a web developer? Or maybe you're seeking a career change that gives you more free time and flexibility? (This is the actual opening lines from one of the best-selling programming courses on Udemy, with 230,000+ students enrolled since 2014.)

The summary goes on listing why you should take the course, what it is about, and

-earning web developer

The summary continues with what is included in the course, key benefits, requirements, what you will get from this course, and even who should take this course - People wanting to make a living (or side-income) from web development

demy has extensive tutorials on course building. Read the section on writing a great summary here.

Instructor Biography: Finally, you need to write a compelling biography. What makes you uniquely qualified to offer this course to students? Why should they take


https://support.udemy.com/customer/portal/articles/1716793?b_id=3056


passion and

enthusiasm, and show a bit of your personality in your writing.

Pricing When you first join Udemy, the courses you create will be free. In order to charge for them, you need to apply to become a premium instructor. There is no charge for this, and it will usually take a few days to become approved. To start the application, click Price & Coupons from the course management page, and change your price from Free to Paid. So, what should you price your course at? If you are a new instructor at Udemy, it is best to look at the existing marketplace and see what your competitors are pricing their courses at. Keep in mind that Udemy has changed its pricing structure recently. Instructors often priced their courses very high, and then pushed out coupon codes that dropped the price very low to create significant perceived value. (See coupon codes later on for a discussion). Udemy has changed their pricing to discourage this, only for them to retract and revise their policy a bit. Plan your approaUdemy marketplace, as those are the competitors for your student dollars. If you already have a following (in the form of an email list), then you can likely price higher, because your audience will already have a built-in trust factor and will be willing to pay more for your course over that of an unknown instructor. You also have to look at your topic and who your typical student will be. If you are selling a high-end computer programming course, your students will likely be IT professionals looking to upgrade their skills. In that case, you can likely price your course higher. However, if you are offering audience will likely be amateurs just merely interested in learning something new. In that case, your price point will be lower. It all comes down to perceived value. Think of two similar courses:

Your competitor

Your coursehours of lectures



Both courses are likely very similar, but your course promises more (this is a simple example, but you get the idea). You can likely price it slightly higher than your competitor because of the perceived value your students feel they will make more money after they take your course. Test your price point to see which price coverts the best. You may be surprised that more people buy your course at $37 than at $27!

your product. If you are offering a high-end computer programming course at a steep discount to try and increase sales, this will likely backfire. People may see your course as low quality, and opt for your higher-priced competitor. It is okay to offer coupons and discounts, but at a reasonable amount. Be sure to opt

selling times. Again, test to see which converts the best.

How much money do you get when you make a sale, and how much does Udemy make? There are three tiers: 97% - When YOU make a sale with your own efforts, using a coupon code (Udemy

you get

50% - When students buy your course through Udemy itself, with no code 25% - When students buy your course through an affiliate or a Udemy ad

Driving Traffic So, how do you get eyebafrom that of a Udemy instructor to that of a marketer. Just like selling any other product, you have a variety of marketing channels at your disposal:

Youtube Create some videos and place them on Youtube. Instructional videos work better than promotional, and a lot of instructors place videos on Youtube that are part of their actual course. You could put up to one quarter of your content this way, and invite people to join your course discount



Make sure you list your coupon on the first line of the video description in all your videos!

Your List

traffic to your Udemy course. If you have an existing list of clients or people from a related niche, you can send them an email offering your new course (at a tasty discount, of course!)

create a website to drive traffic to your Udemy courses. Then, make sure you have an email sign up form on your website to begin growing your list. Of course, nobody is just going to sign up and give away their email address out of the goodness of their hearts they need to feel like they are getting something of value in exchange for you receiving their information. For Udemy, offering a free mini-course or even offering your entire course for free is a great way to get

Lead magnets are great because not only does the student feel she's receiving something of value, but you now have her email ... with it, you can send an automated follow-

for free as the lead magnet, you can offer your next course, with a discount. Recommended opt-in services to host your list include:



Aweber

MailChimp

GetResponse PPC Advertising Facebook ads, Google PPC and other advertising methods can all be directed to your Udemy sales page. Make sure you use your coupon code URL as the destination!

Your Own Website Make sure you set up your own website! Use this to host a blog, drive traffic to and encourage visitors to sign up for your email list (more on this below), and brand yourself as an authority on your topic. Keep in mind tdirectly ask Udemy students for personal information (or to sign up to your mailing list), for a particular purpose. Udemy is obviously sensitive to students that may want to take their course but not engage with the instructor outside of the Udemy platform itself. Leverage Other Sales Channels You have a course. Why not make parts of it available elsewhere? We have already

! Write a Kindle ebook and sell it on Amazon, with your coupon code inside the ebook. Even better, write a series of books! You can even take your videos and turn them into engaging books. Other sales channels:

Promote your services or your ebook on Fiverr

Post your slides to Slideshare

Upload your audio lectures to Soundcloud

your full Udemy course. Finally, keep in mind that one of the great things about Udemy is platform platforms and use those as additional Sales Channels as well. Other Marketing Strategies to Drive Traffic



Become an authority in a handful of popular forums related to your topic, and invite readers to check out your course (in a non-provide great answers first to build up your profile as an authority figure!)

Offer free coaching calls to help teach and answer questions to students

Post your course on Craigslist, Reddit, as a press release, etc

Hold a webinar with free, valuable training to potential students. At the end, invite them to learn more by taking your course

Post weekly articles on your website related to your course topics

Build relationships and offer tips through your Facebook page. Boost posts to drive more traffic to your page. Make sure you offer a coupon there!

Think local! Look for meetups or user groups in your niche and create relationships. Soon you may be invited to be a guest speaker on your topic. When at these meetings, have business cards with your Udemy coupon code URL.

powerful, as this social website caters more to professionals.

Reach out to other website owners and instructors and offer partnerships to cross-

they are mentioned on. Then, contact those websites and ask if they will review your course as well (offer it for free with a coupon code in your email to them.)

https://blog.udemy.com/how-to-get-record-course-sales-your-first-30-days-on-udemy/

Udemy Traffic and Ranking Factors Udemy, of course, is a source of traffic itself. A substantial part of winning the Udemy game is to be ranked highly, for both keywords searched and the category of your





So how can you make sure you rise to the top when students are browsing for

explain how their ranking algorithm actually works. But people have an idea. Here is a brief checklist on what goes into a best-selling Udemy ranking:

How updated your course is

The number of students enrolled

Free vs. Paid enrollments (paid is a better ranking signal)

Student engagement Udemy tracks the percentage of your lectures that

are watched

Student reviews

Coupons and Discounts

If you have a have a tremendous number of students in them. The truth of the matter is, many of

Part of having a winning strategy on Udemy is being aware of this and using coupons effectively. A complete strategy for coupons involves several different parts.

Which coupons to create. Discounts or Fully free courses?

What limits do you place on coupons?

Where do you post your coupons?

How do you use coupons effectively?

Our best tips for using coupons are as follows:

ou need that initial social proof as quickly as possible. If sales are dropping, consider distributing a coupon as a means to re-invigorate the course.



Coupons are an amazing incentive to get students to finish an existing course. This is a great way to increase your student engagement. You can send your

100% of this course over the next month will get a free coupon code to my y posting on the

Imagine telling your students the following promotional email:

For the first 50 students, get 75% off by using the coupon code 75per <url> For the first 100 <url> For the everyone else, you can get 25% off, up until the end of next week. <url>

The <url> would be a direct link to the course with your coupon code

actual limit, meaning that you could allow more students than 50 to get your 75% offer. Structuring your promotion this way will generate urgency to get

Coupons are often distributed by a course link with the coupon code as part of the URL. Test this full URL. Nothing is worse than messing up your coupon and having it submitted to the site incorrectly! This is especially troublesome as some sites (like Udemy Studio) will only allow you to submit once.

Be aware of season promotions that may be happening at Udemy. Udemy has

two major sales per year, one being sales for Black Friday (November), and Sales for the New Year (Early January). If you increase your students during this time, prospects will likely notice and assume your course is selling like hotcakes! Additionally, this may also drive traffic to get a few more reviews, adding to recent reviews on your course page.



MONITOR YOUR COUPON USAGE! In our course marketing efforts, we did a large coupon promotion, and while we got great traffic using Udemy-specific coupon websites such as http://www.promocoupons24.com/, we also got picked up by some dubious sites. As a result, we got a bunch of suddenly bad reviews for our course, by people (or bots?) who simply grabbed the course during a free promotion, then clicking

To minimize this, regularly do a Google search for your coupon code to find out if it gets shared with a spammy website (if this happens, shut down the coupon.) Our course rating went from 4.8 to 4.1, and even after 2 more 5 star reviews, it only climbed up to 4.2. Ouch!


http://www.promocoupons24.com/


difference in your marketing efforts.



Launch Day Tactics

Once your course has been submitted for review, have a brief victory.

! Guess what the end of your journey, but the start of the very next phase. And the timer on that phase started

marketplace.

the marketplace; .

A soon as you publish your course, it is accessible. marketplace until it has been reviewed (and approved) by Udemy staff, but the moment you submit it, direct links to your course will work. So begin to promote your course immediately.

students can sign up and take your course, and even potentially

The number of students, the number and quality of reviews, as well as student engagement in your course are all things that directly determine how your course launches. A strong launch is required to genuinely be successful in Udemy, as Udemy will promote courses only when the marketplace is showing interest in your course! So, the biggest challenge in this moment is to break free of gravity. Once

So break free of that gravity! Launch a new and noteworthy course, and then transition to a top paid course as part of your launch.

A successful launch plan will be something you should have considered BEFORE submitting your course to Udemy for review. In many cases, there may be certain



An ideal course launch will involve the following phases:

Pre-launch Activities Launch Phase #1 Pre-

, such as priming them before your course is live with exciting emails and Facebook announcements. Finally, get your website ready with good stats and monitoring. Google Analytics is best for this, which Udemy supports. The details on adding it to your Udemy sales page is here. Schance to capture that critical launch data.








https://blog.udemy.com/for-instructors-how-to-setup-and-use-google-analytics-to-track-your-udemy-course/



Course Quality Check Launch Phase #2 Okay. make sure your course will be approved. -be students,

gate. Keep i.

The required feedback items will need to be addressed for your course to be listed in the marketplace, but the recommended items can be taken care of anytime. Do

trying to make you successful, because when you are successful they are as well.

is here. https://support.udemy.com/customer/portal/articles/1594299-quality-review-checklist Your course is good? Fantastic! Also check your marketing engine. Do you have

e are known as solo ads, and can be very lucrative. In your market research, you will have likely identified several authority websites in your niche. See if they have email lists, and ask if they can send a one-time email promoting your course (there will be an advertising fee for this.) And finally, make sure you have working access to the Udemy Studio face book group. You should have signed up for that when you became an instructor and

xt step, so please make sure you have working access! All systems go?!?

Almost Launch Phase #3

purchase it for money. But you can immediately get students in the door by

This is the moment where you load up your course, with students to build social proof and get you are you want to start off with as much momentum as possible.


https://support.udemy.com/customer/portal/articles/1594299-quality-review-checklist

https://support.udemy.com/customer/portal/articles/1594299-quality-review-checklist


The number one location to submit free coupon codes is the Udemy Studio Facebook group to join, so follow their document on how to do it. They also have specific guidelines about NOT asking for reviews, so read their rules carefully. You can also only submit a single coupon for a course, and only once, so double-check your URL! (Trust us this has happened to instructors!) Udemy Studio is often frequented by other websites that will share the coupon code. Essentially, any coupon code will go viral at okay, and is encouraged. This is the moment you want as much free traffic to your course as possible. In addition to Udemy Studio, if you have an email list, definitely send an email to all your subscribers announcing your new course. Offer it for free, in exchange for feedback. This is a great way to receive testimonials from actual students, and improve your course with their feedback.

more than sales. Sales will come.

Process Launch Phase #4 Your course is live, but not yet in the marketplace. Now is your chance to fix up any issues the Udemy review team provide, as well as your students. Keep in mind that Udemy wants you to win. So take advantage of their feedback with sincerity. Fix thconsider the feedback of your early adopter students to. You may spend some time in this phase, or very little. It depends on your quality of

rough this gate, and onto the next the marketplace!

Live in the Marketplace Launch Phase #5

effective strategies to super-charge your new course on launch day?

to indicate the number of students that have signed up since the course

officially launched. This is a great way to build social proof that your course is

rocketing out of the gate. Send out a press release. Instead of writing the


https://teach.udemy.com/udemy-studio/

https://teach.udemy.com/udemy-studio/


press release for potential students, write it with bloggers, journalists and

reviewers in mind. This is a great pre-launch tactic to get the word out through

a positive review in a popular media outlet.

Encourage people on your email list to share your course coupon code (free

or not) with friends and family.

Do a multi-pronged approach of publishing a Kindle book, blasting out an

email, uploading a new Youtube video, publishing an article in LinkedIn, and

holding a webinar on your training

And remember to follow all that marketing goodness, as an internet marketer to

from being listed in the marketplace itself. Finally, one more thought at this time. Monitor everything. Get your metrics in order and track your progress. Check daily where you are listed in the category as well as

nd get this data



Maintaining Your Growth You may have had a great launch, but how do you maintain and grow your sales, month after month? Keep Your Course Updated

course, add new bonuses, and otherwise continue to increase the value of your product. This will prove to Udemy and your students that you are constantly engaged with them. You can even create a simple update to your sales page such

Offer to keep your course updated by suggesting to your students their top questions. Make a few new short lectures as well this is a great way to

This will also reduce the number of refunds of your course if content is constantly being added, students will want to stay in your course to study future updates. Answer Questions Your students will have questions and this is a great chance to show them what

recogn

https://info.udemy.com/instructor-badges.html

demy site (yet), they are a great indicator that Udemy is tracking these metrics, and it may become a ranking signal in the future.

the right things. Keep Building Your Email List Your email list is perhaps the most powerful way to market your course. Continue with your email opt-in and continue to promote your website in forums, on Facebook, and Youtube to get your visitors to join. Set up an autoresponder so that new subscribers will receive an email sequence from you where you send them valuable information and promote your course. All major opt-in services have this autoresponder functionality.


https://info.udemy.com/instructor-badges.html


Dealing with Bad Reviews and Refunds Bad reviews and refunds will happen (see section on coupons!)

Refunds simply let these go. A certain percentage of students will simply ask for a refund. Luckily it will be a small percentage. Bad Reviews These will need some management. First, realize that a student may have simply accidentally clicked incorrectly. Udemy pops up a review screen very early on, and it can be easy to mistake where to click to close it. Or, your student may have been at the end of their rope and had a very bad day. So reach out to your student in a polite way. Review how far the student has reviewed the course. You can respond to every review on your course page, so if a student has completed a woefully limited amount of content, use this in your response on your page. A simple response could have the following elements:

1. Thank the student for their feedback, and that you are genuinely sorry that

2. Say that you noticed they completed only xx%. Is it possible, that what you

were disappointed as the important part of topic is in the course later on?

3. Ask them how you can improve the course, specifically. (Perhaps they

thought it was too basic, and you can offer them a free coupon code to the

advanced class?)

4. Thank them for their time.

If a student has completed more of the course (50% or more) then obviously

respond on your course page (public), and over Udemy private messaging directly. Students above all want to be heard. They can change their review, but be sure not

keep bad reviews down.

Building More Courses and Content



Why stop at one? Build more! Have you created a course on animal photography? Create another one on landscape photography! Not only will you be increasing your sales by offering more course, but you will be growing as an authority figure by offering a series of courses. Your second course launch will be much easier, because you can use your existing website traffic, Youtube channel subscribers and email list to announce your new course. As this audience already knows you, conversion rates will be much, much higher! As well, you can reach out to your enrolled students announcing your new course, and asking for feedback and testimonials before you launch.

Keep Networking and Building Your Brand Why think about building multiple products when you can simply increase sales of your original product? You can do this by continually attracting new affiliates, new JV partners and forming new business relationships. If you have branded yourself, continue building relationships so you start to become an authority in your niche. Be the person that other people interview for their products, podcasts or video series. Write guest posts as yourself to be published on other blogs in your niche. Go to conferences in your niche and sign up to be a panelist or a speaker. Send out press releases, build your Facebook fan base and be active on Twitter. Keep building up your brand so that when somebody is thinking of that niche, or if an affiliate is thinking of promoting a product, your name and your

We hope you enjoyed this guide, and it has given you a lot of great ideas for launching your career as a bestselling instructor on Udemy. Now start your research, begin filming your lectures, and launch your product to great success!











Documents

The Udemy Cashflow Cheatsheet - Amazon S3 · pricing 53 driving traffic 54 udemy traffic and ranking factors 57 coupons and discounts 58 launch day tactics 62 pre-launch activities