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Udemy Business Uncovered - Key Takeaways - September 21, 2023
- 15,000 companies using Udemy Business today across many industries and company sizes, government agencies, and nonprofits
- UB learners have access to over 24,000 courses
- The world is changing fast and needed content is rapidly evolving, particularly in the face of economic changes
- Weโre getting better and better at having the right content in the hands of our learners but weโre looking forward to expanding our knowledge with what UB orgs need to you our instructors
- Customer demand & need
- Emerging trends & first to market ideas
- Improving and updating existing content
- Growth areas & new audiences
- Udemy has numerous data points we can use to identify these content opportunities and we use that in tandem with the context that we have from learners, admins, orgs, etc.
- How do we prioritize these opportunities?
- To have a need met, usually we want to see at least 1 course added to UB, but that doesnโt necessarily mean that we consider the demand met
- Not an exact science - many factors to consider
- 14 language collections with over 14,000 courses
- The heart of the international collection is from courses created by native speakers with relevant cultural context
- International collections are a major strategic focus for Udemy
- We are close to releasing a new tool of UB content opportunities for you with hundreds of subjects, filters by language and domain
- These opportunities will be eligible for accelerated review and where available, you will be able to view extra details on intended audience & curriculum needs
Q&A
Q: There was a slide that mentioned length and duration, and that short is better for UB - thoughts?
A: Generally weโve found that shorter, more practical courses resonate well with UB learners. However, course length can vary from subject to subject, for example technical certification exam prep courses may need to be much longer than 1-2 hours.
Q: Iโve published a course on a priority topic, why is the topic still on this list?
A: While some topic needs may be met within a quarter, as of now, the full list is only updated on a quarterly basis on the Teaching Center. Topics may also remain on the priority list from quarter-to-quarter even after a course is published as we do want to provide a breadth of courses within topics in the collection.
Q: I teach on topic that is not on the content opportunity list, what can I do?
A: The list today may change as we continue to move through our process and add opportunities. You still have access to Marketplace Insights to see if there is value for this topic in the broader marketplace and we hope to have search capability in the future that will allow us to connect related topics.
Q: Can you give us a sense how much $ Iโll make by creating a course for one of these opportunities?
A: While we canโt make any guarantees on performance or revenue, remember that the performance of a course depends on many factors, not just on its topic. Revenue potential can be affected by the length and quality of a course, the specific learner it targets, the competition present on the Udemy marketplace, and external factors.
Q: Will you tell me if a course gets added from Udemy.com while Iโm creating one to meet an opportunity? Will we know if multiple instructors are creating content for the same opportunity? In other words, how will we know whatโs in progress?
A: This something weโd like to get your feedback in the beta process to figure out the best way to notify you as the instructor. However, this is already a reality of the marketplace - instructors can publish content at any time that might be in your pipeline! First to market is not just an opportunity for our Customers but our Instructors too!
Q: I see a topic on the UB priority list and Iโm interested in creating a course but when looking at Marketplace Insights, the conversion rate doesnโt seem to be very high, suggesting that demand for the topic may be low. Are you able to share why this topic is listed as a priority topic if Marketplace Insights suggests otherwise?
A: Our Content Strategy teams determine priority topics using several factors - including market trends, industry research, data, and customer demand (demand is measured, in part, by search demand). While there may be a good volume of a certain topic in the Marketplace, our team might still determine a need for content in Udemy Business for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to: 1) course freshness (for example, older courses may not include critical content such as addressing remote and hybrid work) 2) whether or not courses meet curation criteria (minimum ratings, instructor opt-ins, etc.) 3) we have determined a need for additional course content in order to have a competitive offering for our learners 4) we are seeking different perspectives - such as role or industry specific 5) we are seeing an uptick in requests or data trending toward an increase in interest on the topic