8 Powerful Ways to Beat Your Competition When Selling an Online Course

The online course market is becoming more and more crowded every single day. Between the years 2020 to 2025, the online education market is estimated to experience a 200% growth.

With more and more creators starting their online courses every day, how do you stand out from the crowd and beat your competition?

Keep reading below to find out how you can stand out from your competition in seven simple steps.

Competition is Good for You!

Before we get into the ways to beat your competitors, it is important to understand the benefits of a competitive market.

Many online course creators who want to start their business get extremely discouraged after witnessing a large number of competitors in the market they are about to enter. While competition can make things harder, it also has benefits that creators often fail to recognize.

If you are hesitant to create your online course because there are already other creators in your niche, the fact that there is a lot of competition should prove to you that there is demand for your idea!

Nowadays it is almost impossible to find a niche with zero competition, and if you do, it may not be as good as it sounds.

Competition means that there is demand for your product, the higher the competition, the higher the demand!

So the question should not be, "how do I find the least competitive industry?" Instead, you should ask yourself: "how do I find a profitable niche and stand out from the competition?".

Competition can also help you understand what your ideal clients are looking for, what do they want from an online course. You can enroll in your competitor's course, check out their reviews and figure out what their students are missing, so you can offer a better product!

So don't be afraid to enter a market where the competition is "too high". Especially when it comes to online courses, as your product is so unique, competition is not a problem. If you were selling a physical product identical to your competitors, then it would be trickier to convince people to purchase yours, as you would have no added value. But with online courses, you can always find a way to make your product unique and beat your competition!

So keep reading below to learn all the ways you can use to stay ahead of your competition in a crowded market:

Step #1 to Beat Your Competition: Do a Competitive Analysis

Carrying out a competitive analysis means researching your main competitors to analyze their products, business model, sales and marketing strategy etc... This research can help you discover how your competition works, and identify possible opportunities to improve your own business.

Completing a competitive analysis doesn't have to be a complicated task. Simply start by researching your competitors and identifying which businesses are your closest, most direct competitors in your niche.

Once you have identified your most direct competitors, check out their sites and social media pages to get as many insights as possible on how they run their business, what kind of content they offer, what are their biggest selling points and so on.

Step #2 to Beat Your Competition: Enroll in Your Competitors' Courses

If you want to go way forward and really understand your competition, why not sign up for their online courses?

This is probably the best and most thorough way to gain the insights you need about their business, see how they structured their online course, what kind of content they offer and so on.

Once you have completed your competitor's online course, don't just go ahead and copy what they are doing: try to deliver even more value and differentiate yourself by offering what they are missing.

Step #3 to Beat Your Competition: Focus Your Course Around a Result

Remember that people don't want to buy online courses: they want to buy a result, a change or a transformation in their lives.

Whether your ideal client wants to lose 10 pounds, learn how to make pizza at home, become an expert in digital marketing or make more money, you need to make sure that you are clearly communicating what kind of result your course is going to provide.

Chances are that your competitors are not offering a clear result to their audience, or maybe their marketing copy is not reflecting this hard enough.

In any case, it is essential that you specify what your students are going to achieve once they complete your online course. This will significantly increase your conversion rate and place you one step ahead of competitors who are not doing it correctly.

Related article: How to Choose the Perfect Name for Your Online Course

Step #4 to Beat Your Competition: Raise Your Price and Value Proposition

If your most successful competitor is selling an online course for $500, you might be tempted to offer yours for $490 or a lower price to lure their potential clients in.

While this might seem like the easiest way to beat your competition, we do not recommend you to compete in terms of price. In the eyes of your potential clients, a lower price will only mean a lower quality course.

Instead of starting a price war with your competitors, our advice is to raise the bar higher in terms of value and price. If you followed step n.2, you enrolled in your competitor's online course and you saw what they could have improved. So simply offer more value to your students and justify a higher price!

Learn how to price your online course: Ultimate Guide to Pricing Your Online Course (With Earnings Calculator)

Step #5 to Beat Your Competition: Get More and Better Testimonials

Social proof is extremely important when it comes to standing out from the crowd. How many (positive) reviews do your competitors have? Are their testimonials trustworthy?

Check out their social proof situation and come up with a plan to outrank them. If you are just getting started you might struggle with collecting your first few positive reviews, not to mention outnumbering your competitors.

This process will take you a lot of time, which is why it is important to come up with a strategy on how to maximize your reviews from day 1. If you want to learn more tactics to gain reviews quickly, check out this article from our blog: 7 Quick Tips to Collect Reviews Easily and Increase Social Proof in Your Online Course

Step #6 to Beat Your Competition: Niche Further Down

If your niche is too crowded it might be because your online course topic is too general. To gain a step ahead of your competitor, a good strategy is to narrow your niche even further.

Let's say as an example that you are selling a Yoga online course. This is an extremely popular niche and there are thousands of yoga online courses all over the internet. Other than providing extra value and raising your course price, you could try niching down.

You could target a subtopic of the Yoga market, for instance, you could focus on teaching "Ayurveda Yoga for women over 50 years old".

Narrowing down your focus and selecting a smaller, more specific niche can help you better target your ideal clients and stand out from your competition. Going back to the example above, if a woman over 50 is looking to purchase a Yoga course, they would choose you over a more generic Yoga course from your competitor as you are promising exactly what they are looking for.

Step #7 to Beat Your Competition: Find Alternative Marketing Channels

Where are your competitors promoting their online courses?

Back in step 1, when you were carrying out your competitive analysis, you should have identified the main marketing strategies that your competitors are using.

Instead of copying their promotion strategy, try to find alternative channels that are yet unexplored by your competitors and promote your online course there. Make sure that these channels are still aligned with your business model and are actually visited by your target audience.

Step #8 to Beat Your Competition: Offer What They Don't Have

Last but not least, one of the most important things you can do to beat your competition is simply offering your clients what your competitors are missing.

When you enrolled in your main competitor's online course, did you notice any gaps worth filling or any important content they are lacking?

Their students might have noticed it too!

So go ahead and fill the gaps by adding what they are missing to your online course. And make sure to effectively communicate this to your potential clients!