3 Big Mistakes I Made With My First Online Course
In January of 2021, I published my first online course on the Udemy course marketplace. Finally, after four months of hard work and long hours, I had a finished product and was ready for the money to start rolling in!
Now, four months later, I’ve had 21 students sign up for my course and have made a whopping $123.11. Of course, this was not the start I had envisioned for my course, but I made a few big mistakes with my first course, and I want to help you avoid these mistakes.
Mistake #1 – Field of Dreams Syndrome
To quote the movie Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come”, this is what I thought would happen with my first course. I just assumed the content would be so good that everyone would want it. And I do think that the course I created is excellent, but almost no one knows it’s out there.
I had read many books that said you should build an audience before you build a product. I understood their logic, but it just didn’t feel right to me. Why would someone want to follow me if I didn’t have anything to offer them?
So, now I’ve got something to offer, but I still don’t have anyone to offer it to. I haven’t found where “my people” are.
So, what am I doing now? I’m starting to look for people who would be interested in my course. One way I’m doing this is by creating related content and trying to get that content in front of large groups of people to start finding the people with which my content resonates.
The better approach would have been to create this content first and then create a product that those who know, like, and trust me would buy.
One of the traps that lured me into doing things backward was that I was under the impression that the Udemy course marketplace would do all of the marketing for me. At least that was their promise. They would take about 50% of my profits but would market my course to over 35 million users. I was okay with that. But as you can see from the chart below, only about 20% of my course’s landing page visits over the past four months came from Udemy’s marketing efforts, and almost 80% came from my efforts:
Now, to be fair, the revenue I received from my course was more evenly split with Udemy’s marketing efforts bringing in a slightly higher percentage than my own marketing efforts:
I’m sure that the reason behind the increase in revenue from Udemy’s marketing efforts is related to customer intent. People searching on Udemy are more likely to purchase a Udemy course than people searching in Google, for instance.
Having said all this, I would suggest being more prepared to do your own marketing if you put a course up on Udemy. And doing marketing before you get your course up will have an even greater impact on how well your course does. Having students primed and excited to take your course will help the Udemy algorithm see your course’s success and cause it to do more to market your course for you.
Mistake #2 – Lack of Market Research
The next big mistake I made was how I chose my course topic. My main concern was what topic would be best for me to teach based on my knowledge and experience. I chose to create a course to help people new to Excel or who wanted a refresher on the topic. Unfortunately, I didn’t consider how many Excel courses were already available on Udemy.
When you do a search on Udemy for Microsoft Excel, you’ll get back 10,000 results.
I can’t tell you where my course shows up within these search results, but I can tell you it’s not on the first page. Now, I could apply some filters and show up on the first page. So, if I filter the results by:
- Topic = Excel
- Level = All Levels
- Language = English
- Ratings = 4.5+
- Features = Quizzes
Then, only 45 results are returned, and my course does show up on the first page. But who’s going to filter down the results by that much? Probably not too many people.
What I should have done before creating my first course was market research on Udemy to find a niche that
- I had the experience and knowledge to create a course for.
- Had a high demand.
- Had a low number of courses.
Udemy has an instructor tool called Marketplace Insights to help you find the right niche course to create. Just enter a topic, and the tool will show you stats related to courses already in their marketplace. There is a limited number of topics, but the tool can help you find a possibly profitable niche.
When I search Marketplace Insights for the topic of Excel, here are some of the details I get back:
The results show the demand is high, but so is the number of courses already available on Udemy. The median monthly income is $19, and I’m not even sure if this number is before or after Udemy takes its cut. Nevertheless, the top monthly revenue is very high, so if you can get your course to the first page of the Udemy search results, there is definitely money to be made for this topic.
I tried another topic, Excel Shortcut, in the Marketplace Insights tool. The results from this search were:
This topic still has high student demand, but only an average number of courses on Udemy. The median income is slightly higher than the number for the Excel topic, but the top monthly revenue is quite a bit lower. Still, with high demand and a low number of courses, this might be the topic I use for my next course.
Of course, you can use tools other than Udemy’s Marketplace Insights to get an idea of how well a course topic might do. Some of the Google tools I now use are:
- Google Search
- Google Trends
- Google Ads Keyword Planner
There are plenty of other tools you could use. Any tool you would use to do SEO keyword research would help you determine how good your niche topic might be.
Mistake #3 – No Unique Selling Proposition
The third big mistake I made was that I didn’t have a unique selling proposition (USP). My course has a lot of what most courses have. However, my course does not have anything that makes it stand out.
I’ve always known that I needed to do something that would make my course unique. Unfortunately, my calm style of teaching is not enough to differentiate my course.
I would suggest finding a way to make your course stand out by offering something that no other course has. For example, I am working on some additional Challenge exercises for my course. These Challenge exercises will be interactive videos that the students complete by following the instructions in the video. I don’t think any other course has something like this, and I think it will be a great way to give students the chance to try out what they’re learning.
Conclusion
I really enjoyed the process of creating my first course, and I intend to create more. I hope that the things I’ve shared with you in this article help you avoid the mistakes I’ve made and that you have a more successful course launch than I did.
Are you thinking about creating a course? What’s keeping you from getting it done?
If you have created a course, what things have you learned about the process that can help those considering making one of their own?
Looking for more freelance advice? Try some of these articles:
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Brenda Keller is a software coach who helps people feel comfortable with and learn how to use software. She has been an Excel user since it was first introduced in 1985 and has taught the program in various settings. Her new Microsoft Excel: Quick Start course was designed to help those new to Excel or those wanting a refresher to get a handle on Excel’s key features quickly. Check out her course on Udemy here or view her YouTube channel here to get more help with Excel. To learn more about Brenda Keller, check out her official website here.
