Udemy : Product Review | What still works for learners
Udemy recently went public and despite the hype, the response was, well…. below expected! Udemy Inc. fell 5.2% on its first day as a public company which is a bottom of the class debut in about a year.
Does it necessarily translate to bad news for the Edtech giant? Not really!
In the face of high competition in its space from the likes of Coursera, Pluralsight, and LinkedIn learning, Udemy has made its mark over the last decade.
With the platform clocking more than 45 million students, 183,000 courses, and 65,000 instructors teaching courses in 75 languages, the stats speak for themselves.
In this article, let’s have a look at what has worked for Udemy over the past few years and what I think could still improve -
- Cost of the content: When I think of one of the biggest problems Udemy has solved, I think of a user (let’s say Karan) who has recently started his learning endeavor. Karan is looking for Photography courses that are affordable and compact.
In comes Udemy with their pocket-friendly courses designed to offer structured learning for beginners as well as experts. Rather than wasting hours searching for free content on YouTube, Karan can choose from a plethora of courses starting from as low as $5.
- Quality of the content: For Udemy, bringing the cost down has only been possible because the platform lets independent tutors create their own courses. Naturally, this begs the question — what about quality?
Udemy plays this to their advantage by making sure the content created is up to the mark by training novice tutors on the quality and delivery of content. The platform offers round-the-clock support for course planning, marketing and recording. This helps the tutors deliver content that is accepted widely by the learners' community.
- Reviews and Ratings: Of all the features available on Udemy, my personal favorite though is Udemy’s rating and review system.
Reviews and popular opinion in general, sum up the wisdom of the users and serve as a means of collective intelligence creating a feedback loop.
As it’s difficult to browse through hundreds of courses and choose one, Karan relies on the opinion of the learners who came before him. Udemy has perfected its feedback loop over time by prompting learners to leave reviews while they are going through the course. Positioning these ‘Leave Reviews’ sections throughout helps Udemy capture the learner’s sentiment as they progress through the course. Finally, the reviews are displayed transparently on the course for the wider audience to refer to.
- Course Details: Udemy’s Course overview page is central to the platform’s overall offerings. Udemy has done an excellent job of identifying what the learners are really looking for once they land on this page.
Karan for instance is satisfied with the product’s reviews and is looking forward to discovering more. He wants a sneak peek in the course with an option to dig deeper should he need to. Udemy provides enough details like course preview, price, structure, etc. on the course overview page. Previewing the course offers valuable insights like the delivery style and content quality, helping learners make informed decisions.
There is one specific feature though, which I believe Udemy can explore to upsell their courses and improve engagement rates.
Use Case —
Karan has just finished his Photography Basics course and has a few questions for the instructor. Karan heads to the Q&A section and tries to explain his query (something to do with focus and lens usage) in the best way possible.
As the course has wide adoption, his question is one of the 70 questions asked in just the last 3 days. The instructor tries her best to answer all the questions, but Karan didn’t really get what he was looking for. Maybe he didn’t explain the problem well or maybe the instructor hurried through the answer.
Introducing Udemy Live
For just an additional fee of $1, Karan gets the opportunity to attend a live QnA session where he gets to ask his question directly to the instructor. There are other participants like Karan who can book their slot (as per the instructor’s availability) and submit their questions (limited by text or number) beforehand.
Upon successful registration, the link to the call can be shared with the participants through registered email Ids and in-app notifications.
This would also present an upsell opportunity to Udemy and the results can be verified by metrics like Enrollment ratio, Review & Feedback and Upsell ratio.
To conclude, Udemy has been delivering on its unique selling point of budget-friendly structured courses and is still providing opportunities to new tutors and learners alike. Increasing revenues and profits are a testament to the fact that Udemy stays competitive in the Edtech space.
However, with the advent of new platforms, Udemy might want to look ahead into diversifying its offerings and possibly getting into Programs offerings down the line. We will see what the future has in store for Udemy.
Till then, follow me for more of these articles :)
