The Usefulness of Udemy

What, I know you're asking, is an Udemy (pronounced tú-duh-mee)? If you're a relationship seller (and if you're an online seller, you're a relationship seller), it can be a godsend. To shorten a lengthy response, Udemy is an online teaching platform that is open to anyone who wants to teach something they think others want to learn. If you have a level of experience in one area, you can create some instructional videos, PowerPoint presentations; PDF or even audio files and upload them. Puff, now you have a salable course!

Online learning is a hot market, and luminaries like Mark Zuckerberg and Harvard professor Robert Allison have jumped on the Udemy bandwagon, offering courses (Zuckerberg is even FREE). The reason is simple; People running Udemy actively promote courses for their "teachers" on places like Facebook, even offering promotions and discounts to increase sales. There is even a built-in affiliate program, which offers 50% commissions for those who promote courses taught under Udemy; One caveat is that this option is not immediately available for all courses, and the teacher has to request your course to become part of the affiliate network.

What this means for internet marketing specialists is the ability to sell your products without having to pay for web hosting and maintenance, site design, and the other additional costs associated with online product sales. Just complete your profile, design your course, upload your material, request to sell, set your price and you're done! It is a simple interface, and they kindly offer a free video course to teach you how to use it properly. If your sales are declining, they'll even email you with advice on proven ways to make your promotions more effective.

The beautiful part of Udemy is its social brand component. Each course list contains the name and image of your instructor, and when a prospective student clicks for more information, the instructor profile appears along with the course description. Students can recommend favorite courses to their Facebook and Twitter profiles, and both students and teachers can be followed from the course home page, creating the potential for cross-selling from students who have made friends in other courses. One of Udemy's claims is that they make their best instructors famous and their goal is to deliver.

You will also need to decide the format of the lessons. The majority of the course is required to be video based, Udemy requires at least 60% of the lessons. However, you can decide whether you want to use lessons based on slide shows, filmed how-to videos, or mashup.

So if you have a bunch of PLR videos and related e-books out there, reconstitute them (re-record the videos in your voice, give new covers to the e-books), add something else (mind maps, audios, etc.) and get to build a course. Give away a couple for free to create followers, and you'll soon void your way to the bank.