Case Study 1/7/2016 FREE Courses or Paid Courses? What Are The Benefits and Drawbacks

Case Study 1/7/2016 FREE Courses or Paid Courses? What Are The Benefits and Drawbacks

In this weeks case study I will be show you the results from my free course compared to my paid courses here on Udemy. Now, I must admit I only have 1 FREE course and this will be a smaller sample, however, I do think there is a lot of things we can learn and take away from this study.

1. Why create a free course on Udemy? Is there any upside?

When it comes to creating a free course on Udemy I am going to discuss three key upsides and three key downsides. These upsides and downsides are based upon my own experience so please take them with a grain of salt.

Upsides:

• Creating a free course allows students to sample your work firsthand and builds trust! This was a big eye opener for me when I first started online. I first gave my course on goal setting away for free to thousands of students! Fortunately many of those students really enjoyed the course and we willing then to pay a small premium to enroll in my next courses. This is the exact strategy I still use in my free course on confidence and self-esteem!
• Creating a free course does not necessarily need to take a lot of time energy and effort. Free courses (at least a lot of them I have seen) tend to be sample courses to an even bigger (paid course). Keeping this in mind, my free course is only 10 total lectures and it only took me a day to create!
• Free courses (when done correctly) build your credibility and boot your social proof! My free course is the #1 rated self-esteem course on Udemy and my larger paid course is a top paid course as well. This is because my engagement and completion of the course is very high! Many free students really enjoy participating in FREE courses! (this has just been my experience!)

Downsides:

• You cannot earn "direct" income from a free course. However, you can put coupons to other courses at the very last lecture of your free course to encourage students to continue their learning with you! This is exactly what I have done and while the earning are minimal, I have student who enroll in my "FREE" course enroll in my "PAID" courses each and every month!

(almost $70.00 last month from my free course!)

• You are not allowed to use promotional emails to FREE students in your FREE course. This is always a bit of a bummer, but I believe the main reason we are not allow to promote is to avoid spamming our free students.
• Engagement and motivation can be tough with free students because we sometimes do not value things we don't pay for! However, if you course is engaging and interactive, students who enroll for free can still be very engaging and wanting to learn!

So, should you create a free course? I say absolutely! The upsides in my opinion outweigh the downsides and you can truly create a win win situation.

Action step: Start brain storming how you can create a new free course today! And then put that energy into action! If you would like to see me create a free course on a specific subject, please post here in our discussion!

Sincerely,

Joe Parys