5 Things to Learn About your Competition

Here’s a simple truth: unfortunately, your dental practice is not the only one. Growing your dental practice requires you to learn about your own office and begin to understand your competition. However, you can only grow so much when you only focus on your own office.

Learning about your dental practice in relation to your competitors will sharpen your knowledge about your offered services and your location so that you can refine your marketing strategy to your desired patients.
Knowing about the services, reviews, and location of your competitors will help your office to sharpen your skills and align with your target patients, improve your overall marketing process, and adapt to new challenges within your market. 

Here’s 5 things to learn about your competitors that will help your dental practice adapt and grow.

5 Things to learn about your competitors

     1. Their Services & Specialties

Believe it or not, not all dental offices are created equal. You’ll need to conduct research into your competitors and what services they offer. But don’t stop there. Are they successful with what they offer? What are their patients saying about those services?

Do you have a competitive edge over them in offering the same service but in a different, more effective way? Are your services more affordable? Remember, your competitors are conducting the same research about your dental practice. What will they find?

     2. Their Location; Near or Far

While a lot of patients search for the best dentistry based on services needed, most will focus their search on dentists near their location. How many dental offices are on your street? What about your block? Your city?

Whether you’re a single-location practice or a multi-location practice, you have to ask yourself why would patients choose your office over the others in the same area? Also, consider if you’d like to focus on attracting patients from farther locations. Nail down a range around your office that you’d like to focus on bringing in.

     3. The Way they Market themselves

The same service can be offered in various ways and price points, through many combinations of circumstances based on the patients’ needs. This combination of strategies is the way they position themselves to the public. The more you know about their positioning, the more you can differentiate your office from your competitors.

What specifics are listed in their GMB profile? What does their headline say from the first click to their website? How many interactions are they getting from their social media accounts? Are their testimonials and reviews growing and getting better? What about their methods of marketing? Is there an office appearing in local newspapers and TV commercials?

Once you learn what they’re doing right, you can adjust your positioning to do it better.

     4. Their Website & Social Accounts

What does their website have that yours doesn’t? Study the navigation pane and the page titles. Take note of the flow, the ease of access, anything that allows new patients to schedule appointments without having to call-in. Is their message clear? Are their services clearly listed?

Browse through their social media and research their followers. What are their most common comments and concerns? Is there any opportunity to have your office solve their problems in a more effective way? How is that office engaging with their patients on a daily and weekly basis? 

     5. Their Reviews

Look through their reviews on Yelp, their GMB profile, and their social accounts. If they have testimonials posted, read through all of them. See if there are any recurring themes to why patients choose their office and keep coming back. Do they like the friendly staff, the clean office, the easy checkout process? What about their pricing and appointment scheduling?

Study the negative reviews (if any) and see these as an opportunity for growth in your own practice. Perhaps patients need better financing options or more flexible appointment times. 

Does your dental practice understand your competition?

It’s essential for your dental office to constantly learn about and understand your competition. Carefully conduct research into their services, their location, their positioning, their web profiles, and their reviews. The insights you gather will undoubtedly guide your office into making important improvements and honing in on your specialties in order to gain a competitive edge and stand out to your potential patients.

As always, for additional information and help in gaining that competitive edge, please visit the Dental Engine to sign up for specialized training to help grow your dental office into being the best it can be.