Competitive Content: Understand Your Competition And Make Your Vet Practice Stand Out

 

As the Internet becomes easier to access for businesses and consumers, local pet owners have a wealth of knowledge and recommendations at their fingertips. They're empowered, and their dogs and cats often benefit from the information they can get on-demand. Yet the Internet is also becoming...well...crowded. Nearly anyone can set up an online presence for their business, and this has caused an incredible rise in the level of competition between businesses online. The good news is that tons of tools and strategies can allow you to create an outstanding online presence, and by doing this well, even a tiny business in the real world can outperform a much larger company online.

To make your veterinary practice stand out within the results of a "veterinarians near me" Google search, you need to differentiate from and outperform your competitors. Therefore, when you plan your online content - whether your website pages, blog posts, directory profiles, or social posts - consider the other messages that are vying for your audience's attention. As a veterinary practice owner or marketer, you need to have a clear positioning statement that helps people quickly understand what sets your practice apart from your competitors or other options that a pet owner may consider, such as OTC medications.

 

Do Some Google Searching of Your Own

In addition to the top-notch, unsurpassed veterinary care you provide in your clinic, you should also deliver an unsurpassed online experience to local pet owners. Look at your competitors' websites, social profiles, and directory listings to see what your current and prospective clients can see. Without ever stepping inside an office, dog and cat owners are getting certain impressions of the veterinary care available within your community. How does your business stack up against the others?

 

 

Start with Basic Comparisons

When considering your online presence, look at these big-picture items to help you create a solid foundation for your marketing strategy. Let's clarify some basics:

Your Direct Competitors

Your direct competitors are those veterinary practices whose service areas overlap yours. The exact distance depends on the density of people, pets, and practices in your distinct community, but generally, this is within 5 to 10 miles. In other words, if local pet owners can drive 3 miles east to your practice, 4 miles west to Other Practice A, and 3.5 miles north to Other Practice B, your three clinics are in direct competition.

From most pet owners' perspective of your three clinics, it may not be the specific services (such as laparoscopic vs. traditional surgery) or staff (1-doctor practice vs. multi-doctor/multi-location) that puts you in direct competition. The simple fact that their cat can come for vaccines or their dog can come for a heartworm test may be all that they're currently considering.

 

 

Your Indirect Competitors

Your indirect competitors fill the same basic needs for your clients and prospective clients - or at least they claim to. Examples include:

• Pop-up vaccine clinics that don't provide additional illness or injury care
• Spay/neuter clinics that don't offer additional veterinary services
• Pet stores that sell supplements, specialty diets, and over-the-counter medications that may not fall within your medical recommendations
• Online pharmacies and stores not affiliated with your practice, where pet owners can order the same products sold in brick-and-mortar stores

What messaging can you use to address these indirect competitors and help prospective clients understand why coming to your veterinary practice would be a better choice? Once these basic messages are laid out, you must figure out when, where, and how those messages should appear to local pet owners. 

 

Your Veterinary Practice's Competitive Advantages

What do you have that no one else does? These can be your competitive advantages: good qualities of your business that your competitors could not immediately replicate. Some benefits are available to any and all practices, but they do require investments of time, money, or education. So, what can you highlight as unique about your practice right now?

• Specialty equipment
• Specialty expertise or accreditation
• Certified or licensed staff
• Local partnerships
• Exclusive products or services

 

 

Offering Added Value to Your Clients

Added value can be related to your competitive edges. You need to define and communicate the specific value that these edges will bring to dog and cat owners in your community. What benefits will they enjoy because your practice has several licensed technicians, Sunday business hours, or a certified acupuncturist?

As a specific example, if your practice provides grooming or doggie daycare and boarding, while your local competition does not, you have an edge to offer to prospective clients looking for the convenience of a one-stop pet-care shop!

 

Do Your Competitors Have an Edge Over You? 

Identifying what makes other local veterinary practices great at what they do is just as important. You need to know what you're up against! Can you mitigate one of their advantages with something comparable to your own? If you honestly know that they have an advantage that you can't beat, how can you shift the focus away from them so that you take the spotlight? 

 

 

Be very careful not to tear anyone down. You don't make your business look good by overtly attacking other practices. Instead, use the opportunity to shine, praise your staff, and maybe even show off a little. Don't try to create bad blood around your competition; instead, relate to your clients and potential clients so that they feel good about your practice.

 

Reaching out to local pet owners online has never been easier. That's as true for your veterinary practice as it is for every veterinary practice and pet care business within your service area. Outshine them all with authentic, useful, relatable messaging that focuses on what makes your practice purr-fect, even with the competition barking up your tree!

 

We can help you see precisely how your current marketing efforts serve your practice and compare to your competitors. You can also schedule a demo to learn more about expert hiring and retention strategies as well as how to improve profitability!