The other day I had someone ask me a question about the online course marketplace, Udemy.
He wanted to know if this was a good place to put up his course and wanted my opinion on it.
If you are not familiar with Udemy, it is a marketplace where instructors from all over the world can upload their courses for people to search and find based on the topics they are interested in learning about.
Think of it like Amazon or Ebay, but for courses instead.
Udemy spends a lot on advertising to get people to their marketplace so they can purchase courses from online course creators and instructors. On the surface this sounds great.
With your course on Udemy, you get traffic to your course and exposure to your brand.
However…
I would never recommend you placing your signature course on Udemy.
If you are not familiar with signature courses, it is basically your top of the line, what you want to be known for type of course. It is also usually your most expensive course too.
Going back to why I don’t think this is a great idea.
Udemy, as I mentioned above is focused on driving traffic to their website and they’ll do it any way they can.
By the way, do you like discounts?
Of course you do.
I know I do.
So does Udemy.
How about 90% off. Huh?
Yes, 90% off.
Udemy has been known for offering 50-90% off on courses that are on Udemy to their audience in order to attract more members and sales.
If you upload your signature course to Udemy and let’s say you’re offering it for $500 which you have spend weeks or even months putting together.
Udemy without giving you any advanced notice will give out 90% off coupons for your $500 course, which means you’re left with $50.
But wait there’s more…or is there?
“We will pay You fifty percent (50%) of the Net Amount received for Your Course” – from Udemy’s agreement
That means you are left with $25.00!!! For you $500 course. Ouch.
So how can you benefit from their marketplace but not take such a huge loss?
Create a teaser course or take just one or two modules from your signature course and put it up there. Don’t even charge for it.
Use it as a marketing tool to funnel your Udemy students back to your website or course platform and to offer them your full course for $500. ←- Here you keep even more of your profits.
Well I hope that made more sense and gave you a good understanding on why you should not place your course on Udemy, but still use the marketplace to drive traffic to your website and sell more courses!