Case Study 5/10/2016 How To Create A Udemy Bestseller!

Hello everyone and welcome to yet another online teaching case study! In this week’s case study, we are going to be discussing Udemy Hot Topics and how to create your next bestselling course

Mentioned in last week’s blog, Last month (APRIL 2016) Has been my slowest month on Udemy (revenue wise) In the past 6 months!

This means its time to step up our course creation! In this blog post you will discover the secrets to creating an awesome online course here on Udemy. I will discuss 3 main tips to help you get a bestseller up and running here on Udemy!

Let’s dive in!

Here are the essentials to almost every excellent course here on Udemy

1)    The Course is A “Hot Topic

This means that there are a lot of people looking to enroll in the course and the subject is in demand. An example would by me PHP or Android courses which have over 20,000+ students enrolled in them!

2)    100+ Good reviews

We have discussed how the review system has changed and now more than ever it is very important to have more than 100+ positive reviews. This is because the volume of reviews being written are increasing! So we need to increase our positive reviews. How do we do this? Check out my previous blog article!

3)    Course discussions & Minutes viewed are being generated every weeks

Udemy is moving torward looking at the data in your courses! Specifically those course who have a lot of discussions being generated and minutes being watched! Youtube does the exact same thing and I thing Udemy is moving toward using this as a benchmark as well!

I hope you have enjoyed this week’s case study! There are many ways to begin teaching online, but this should give you some great ideas that have worked for myself and many other online instructors! Stay tuned next week where I discuss more online teaching strategies. 

Thank you for reading our blog post today! If you have any questions please feel free to post your comments below!

Also, you can check out all of my blog posts for FREE by going to:

http://joeparysacademy.blogspot.com/

Sincerely,

Joe Parys

Case Study 4/11/2016 How To Get Your Course Approved On Udemy

Hello everyone and welcome to yet another online teaching case study! In this week’s case study, we are going to be discussing: 

How To Get Your Course Approved By The Udemy Review Team!

Recently I have been creating many new courses and had difficulty getting a course approved by the review team. In fact, it took the team more than 2 weeks for them to approve our course. Let me share with you my experience and how persistence can help you launch your very next online video course!

1) First, it is important to know that the Udemy review team does a very good job in screening our courses. However, they do sometimes get overloaded and need us as instructors to do our best to stay patient, but also persistent.

On average the review team takes about 2-3 business days to respond to your course once you submit it for review. In my last courses case, it took about 10+ business days. So, on day 5 I decided to send Udemy support and email. They got back to me saying they were looking into it. It was then another 3-4 business days where nothing happened and there was no response. So I decided to persistently send them another email. Again it took them a few days to respond, but once they did the course went live within a matter of hours!

Now, when working with the review team members and Udemy support it is important to be as helpful as possible when it comes to getting your course approved! Here is an example from my course!

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Since I was able to execute and be helpful the review team was able to put my course in the new and noteworthy section and the course is doing very well now because of it!

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This is the power of working with the review team and producing a high quality course! We hope to see your next course live on the Udemy marketplace in no time! 

Thank you for reading our blog post today! If you have any questions please feel free to post your comments below!
Also, you can check out all of my blog posts for FREE by going to: http://joeparysacademy.blogspot.com/

Sincerely,
Joe Parys​

Case Study Week 4: 12/28/2015 The Power of Social Proof & Giving Your Courses Away For Free!

Case Study Week 4: 12/28/2015 The Power of Social Proof & Giving Your Courses Away For Free!

In this weeks case study I am going to be discussing the power of social proof and why giving your courses away for free is very powerful, especially if you are just starting out here on Udemy!

I decided to create this case study because I get a lot of students asking me about this topic in my own Udemy courses! I hope this helps everyone!

1) First, we must define what social proof is. wikipedia tells us that "Social Proof a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior for a given situation." -dictionary.com

What this means is that people are more likely to choose what is "popular" than what is "unpopular". Let me give you an example. If you wanted to learn about how to teach online video courses and there was a course with 11,000+ students (like this one) and another course with only 100+ students in it, which one would you be more likely to choose? Most would chose this course because it is more popular, has more students, and is "bigger".

My bestselling courses all have in access of 5,000+ students! Here they are with their ratings and number of students!

2) So How was I able to have thousands of students enroll in my courses? Excellent question and here is my answer:

The Power of Giving Your Courses Away For Free:

When the course is first launched I give my existing students that chance to enroll for free for a limited time! This get students in the door, allows them to try it, and then shows me and Udemy if there is a big need for this subject. If there is a lot of free students enrolling, this tells me that there are a lot of students interested in learning about this subject.

I then begin to sell the course and Udemy itself will begin promoting the course if there is a lot of engagement (which comes from free and paid students). This strategy has worked very well for not only me, but for many other top instructors here on Udemy.

**Bonus**

Also, when you give you course away for free to start, it allows students to sample your work! If they really enjoy it, they will want to learn more from you and be willing to pay for your next course! This is the power of giving your courses away for free to start!

In conclusion, I hope you can see why it is so important to GIVE GIVE GIVE and why social proof as a strategy is very effective. If you have any questions please feel free to msg me or add on to this discussion!

Sincerely,

Joe Parys

Case Study Week 3: 12/23/2015 The Power of Co-Teaching and Building a True Business on Udemy

Case Study Week 3: 12/23/2015 The Power of Co-Teaching and Building a True Business on Udemy

When I first came to Udemy my idea was that I would have to build and create lots of courses myself in order to succeed. This however has not been the case. Why some of my own courses are bestsellers and earn me thousands ever month, a majority of my sales come through co-taught courses. Let me explain how I have learned to go about doing this from using this course!

1) Jerry discusses in many lectures in this course the power of co-teaching and working with hard working like minded people. However, just because you do this does not guarantee instant success. Let me give you an example.

When I first started co-teaching I worked with an instructor who had never worked with Udemy before. I had to be patient, very willing to help, and show this instructor how to be successful on Udemy. This took us many trial courses and much time before creating a bestseller. This instructor and I now have more than 6+ courses together!

2) When Co-teaching Always seek to create a win-win situation. You should be willing as the lead instructor to take full responsibility for the course and also reward your co-instructor for their efforts. Having a solid relationship with my co-instructors is the most important part of creating and having a successful course(s) on Udemy!

3) Be willing to view Udemy and your Courses as assets and more like a business. I went to school for teaching, but I have learned an incredible amount about business from teacher here on Udemy. The more you study business, how to create these assets, the value of your time and of a Udemy course, the better the results you will receive!

4) I now have more than 30 courses and 800+ reviews because I have learned how to create these courses with others, myself, and to treat Udemy like my own business :) I hope this helps and inspires you and if you have any questions please feel free to post at the bottom of this message!

Sincerely,

Joe Parys

Case Study Week 2: 12/14/2015: Which Courses Sell Best On Udemy and Why

Case Study Week 2 12/14/2015 : Which Courses Sell Best on Udemy and Why

In this case study this week I though it would be of tremendous value to write about which courses sell and tend to do best here on Udemy and why it is the case. Let me break this down a little for you.

In my own personal experience and in the experience of many other instructors here on Udemy, the courses that typically sell the best are the ones that:

1) Are Comprehensive Courses: Aka the 1 stop shop course, everything from A to Z, From Beginner To Advanced, and Complete Courses.

Why are these courses selling better and have more enrollments?

• There is more value in this course (most comprehensive courses I have are are least 7+ hours long and some ranging to 20+ hours in length). So ask yourself, if you could buy a course with 20+ hours or a course with only 2+ hours on the same topic, which would you buy at the same discounted price point? Probably the 20+ hours because you get more content!
• Udemy is constantly discounting our courses to $10, $15, $19, and some rare $24 coupons. Knowing this, customers will really have the same "price" for every course on Udemy that is part of these promotions. This is also why bigger courses tend to sell better.

2) Technical and Hot Topic Courses Sell Best On Udemy: By technical I mean web-development, ethical hacking, computer based courses, marketing, ect. tend to do the best. Also, hot topic courses (low quantity, high demand) also tend to do very well. Why is this?

• Technical courses are very in demand right now. It's really a matter of supply and demand, and right now being able to learn how to build your own website from scratch for only $10.00 is very valuable for a lot of people!
• Hot Topic courses again are very in demand and there are not many teachers teaching these! I myself have a hot topic web-development course on Bootstrap which is now my bestselling course, a combination of technical skills and a hot topic at the time.

As you can see, last month my top 4 courses are either comprehensive, technical, or a hot topic or a combination of the three!

1) Complete Bootstrap Course (7+ Hours) Technical and Comprehensive.

2) Transform Your Confidence (12+Hours) Comprehensive and High Quality

3) Learn To Read and Write Music - Technical (only 10% of the worlds population can read and write music!)

4) Complete PHP course - Technical and Comprehensive.

• So What can we learn from all of this?

If you want to be successful here on Udemy start expanding your mind and how you can exploit these strategies. If you don't have the specific skills, you can always work with someone who does!