[patrickk]

Care to provide examples? Was thinking of getting into this myself with premium courses.

Edit: this is a good example of the type of courses I mean http://www.diygenius.com/courses/ (not affilated)

Is it on your own site? Or the likes of Udemy?

[snoonan]

I'm not sure if its a good idea to share the exact topics, but generally they are language learning and software training (for example, specific CMSs).

I do everything through my own sites and find customers through via free podcasts, free and promoted youtube videos, etc. Udemy's on my list, but I believe in always owning your own brand, customers and leads.

[patrickk]

Thanks for the info, I understand completely you don't want to give away profitable niches.

> I do everything through my own sites and find customers through via free podcasts, free and promoted youtube videos, etc.

Very clever, creative promotional strategy! I would love to read more if you have a blog (again without giving too much of your exact products or niches away). I'm building up a side business currently, and cost effective, targeted promotion is high on my list...(there's a great idea for a premium course btw, would purchase in a heartbeat.)

> Udemy's on my list, but I believe in always owning your own brand, customers and leads.

I guess there's an important trade off between owning the customer relationship 100% and getting exposure on a huge marketplace...

[snoonan]

Drop me an email! (info in profile).

I definitely want to get around to doing work in Udemy, but I do have to say that they're not as big as, say, Youtube. :) For example, if you have a popular video, that gets embedded and linked to a lot. That builds link juice to your Youtube channel page and main site if write your video descriptions right, then suddenly you are ranking in Google search faster than you would normally. Same for a podcast and episode summaries. Having position and your own users in one channel also lets you ratchet up another by launching to those users. Over time, you build up big lists of people who you can re-launch updates or work with to develop new courses and products. Some people also use the leads to do affiliate marketing, but I personally prefer not to.

Anyway, owning your own traffic and lead list gives you the ability and permission to do that, so it's my approach.

btw, I forgot to mention I do have some free iOS apps to drive free users too. That by itself accounts for maybe 20% of my leads. I haven't touched Android yet.

[patrickk]

Sounds intriguing! Thanks for the offer to connect, email sent.