Right, it is time to create something  called promotional images. Uh, you can probably guess what it is. It's just the images that you use to promote your video. And probably the most important part of that whole pro  of this process is the thumbnail for your video. So earlier I said the most important part  of your course is the intro. Uh, I changed my mind.

Uh, it is the thumbnail that people see that they click  before they see your, uh, video. So whenever you're being listed on, uh, say a marketplace,  somebody will do a search for your course. And obviously there's gonna be a bunch of results. And that thumbnail along with the title is their kind  of initial like, should I bother even clicking on this? So, um, don't skimp on it or cheap on it,  or, yeah, give it, give it the, uh, attention it deserves. So I'll take you through in a second my promotional images  and what I do,  but there's, you don't have, there's no,  like, you have to do it this way.

I, I guess,  'cause I'm a designer, I have the skills  with things like Photoshop  and Illustrator and those types of things. So I can do that. You might not have those skills. So, uh, let's talk about the ways you can do it yourself. So either do it yourself  or you outsource somebody else to do it. So doing it yourself, you need a bit of software, okay?

And just use whatever you can use, okay? If you're really good at PowerPoint, there's no,  there's no reason why you can't make beautiful design in  PowerPoint or wood, okay? You just gotta give it the right size and output. Um, but let's say those are, those are not the, like,  they wouldn't be the official tools to be using. So the official tools would be something like Adobe  Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator, um,  other Adobe products that you might use. Say those are big and scary  and you're like, oh geez, it's a lot, it's a lot  to learn just to make a thumbnail.

Use something like Adobe Spark. Okay? There'll be a link on the screen here  of these different things. So Spark is Adobe's, um, yeah, there's a free version  that ends up being branded  and then there's a paid for version,  but it's just a, it's pretty amazing. Um, so Spark and Canva, okay? There'll be another link there.

And the both  of these do the same sort of job. They compete with each other. Um, and basically for non-designers, um,  you can put in your information and potentially images  and it just magics up really good layouts  without you having to do much. Okay? It suggests lots of stuff rather than starting  with a white page, okay? It gives you like, would you like to start  with this kind of style?

And then you just adjust it to fit, uh, suit your needs  and the results are pretty amazing. So, um, I like to do it all myself 'cause I'm a designer. That's the way it is. So I use, uh, I start  with a blank page using Photoshop or Illustrator. But if you want to, you know, if you want to do it yourself  but you don't wanna learn those bits of software,  which is a big deal, um, check out Canva or Spark. Alright?

Let's say that you don't want to do it yourself. You either don't have the skills or the capacity. So you want to get a professional in to help. So there are a couple of places that I use  where I need some, uh, graphics done  and I need it done at a budget, okay? 'cause going to a design studio is a big deal, right? So, um,  I use a site called Fiverr or Upwork.

Both those links will be there  'cause Fiverr is spelled a bit strange. And basically you give them, even though Fiverr is Fiverr,  you need to kind of budget in for both of those jobs  between 20 and 50 US dollars to get something done. So if that's within the scope of what you're doing, um,  that's a really good option  because you can check out, um, you know, you'll look for uh,  graphic design services and both of those platforms  and you can post it. You uh, it's a bit different. Uh, Fiverr, you find people and Upwork, you post a job  and people kind of apply to be part of it. So whichever service you like, check out both of them.

And um, basically the cool thing is you  wanna check out their portfolio. It's 'cause you want to find somebody with a style  that you like, okay? There's no point hiring somebody 'cause they're cheap. Um, even though, and they've said they've worked for Disney  and CNN and all those things. You wanna find somebody whose portfolio is nice  or at least fits your style  and you can say like, this is where I want to go with this. Give them some suggestions.

Okay? You might find some other thumbnails  that other courses have done  and say, this is the vibe that I want. Not to copy it, but to like, this is where I want it  to sit in terms of the look and feel. So Fiverr and Upwork a really good place to, yeah,  post your job and get somebody else  to create the graphics for you. Alright? So do it yourself.

Get somebody else to help, but can make sure you make some  considered decisions here. Uh, you can reach out  to your audience if you already have an audience  and say, Hey, which thumbnail do you really like? And get some feedback that way. Um, the other thing is, is that I do it all myself. And I'll just show you real quickly. Um, it's not a full tutorial on how to use Photoshop,  but I just wanna show you what I end up creating  for the different marketplaces and my own platform.

Just to give you a sense of, yeah, what I end up going  through when I'm creating my promotional images. All right, let's jump onto the computer  Now. Alright. Like I mentioned  before, I use Photoshop to do all my promotional images. You could use Illustrator. The reason I like using both of these is that a,  I know them, they're design tools  and they both have multiple art boards.

It means that you can see there's kind  of separate little pages within Photoshop. Um, it means that I can do the graphics  and I can see them as a consistent unit,  but I can design these separate graphics. So this is not gonna be a tutorial on how  to do things like this in Photoshop. If you want to check out my Photoshop course, okay,  I've got an intro and an advanced course,  both this and Illustrator. Um, I have courses on both of them  and just what you're really looking for is art boards. It's kind of one of the main things you wanna look at.

So you can separate all these graphics. So these art boards  or pages, you can see they are just slightly different sizes  for the different purposes. So for going out to some  of the marketplaces like Skillshare,  Skillshare have different rules from Udemy, okay? Udemy doesn't allow you to use text in your thumbnails. Weirdly, that though I put in there  and they don't seem to worry about  but they have in the past. So sometimes I'm allowed to use it  and sometimes I get caught out by their um, policy.

People say, Hey, you can't do that. Originally you couldn't use things like this  XD 'cause it had letters in it. They seem to have allowed that to slide,  but they differently won't allow this thing here. So that's why there's two separate ones. Very similar sizes game. I'm not gonna go through all the sizes here as well.

Okay? The each different platform has its own kind of sizes  and it changes over time. So just Google Skillshare thumbnail size  and they have very clear guidelines. Now I use, so that's for Skillshare and Udemy. Let's say that for on my own site I use instructor HQ  for the hosting and they've got the sizes that they need. Okay?

There's a homepage slider, there's these, um,  little sliders that go onto the homepage as well. And then there's a top banner. So I guess I wanted to show you  that I use something like Photoshop  'cause it allows me to grab, you know,  keep visual consistency across lots of different documents  by being able to see them all. This one down here I use for MailChimp. Okay? So when I send out an emailer,  they only need a really small size.

Then I use file export as  and I end up with a bunch of, you see all these JPEGs here  and I just make sure I upload them to the different places. Now if you want this file, if you're like, Ooh,  I wish he would share that file, um, you can,  I've posted it now. Um, if you go to instructor hq.com/promo psd okay,  if you go there, it'll link to  this PSD file that you can download. The thing that won't happen though is  that it'll be missing some fonts and missing the images,  but the sizes will be here and the fonts will change,  but you get a sense of it. Plus I have all the art boards already set up. So that's what I do  and it wouldn't matter to me whether I was using  Photoshop or Illustrator.

They both end up in the same place. So whatever your skills might already be,  you might try Illustrator or Photoshop. One last thing before we go is this one here I have,  I create a couple of promotional images  for the release date. Okay? So basically I just reuse  what I'm gonna use on the homepage  and I have a release date on that  and I use that, we'll look at it in the next video. But I do a lot of promotion around like, hey,  there's something coming out on the 22nd of February.

Everyone be ready and add a bit of hype around it. Okay? And it's worked really well for me. So I often will create graphics  that have like a date on them for the release date. Um, so we'll mention that in the next video. But yeah, I just wanted to quickly  show you what it looks like here.

Alright, onto the next video.