How to Create a Digital Marketing Competitor Analysis

Do you know how well your local competitors are performing? Knowing your competition can show you what your chiropractic practice needs to do for improvement and it will also show you where you excel. By creating a digital marketing competitor analysis, you can start to understand where your competitors are succeeding and where they’re dropping the ball.

The components of a competitor analysis are an integral part of your marketing strategy. As you evaluate the products and services your competition offers versus what you have to offer, you’ll know what differentiates you from the rest. You’ll get a look into how unique your product is compared to other businesses in your local area and this will allow you to see why patients may be choosing to go to another practice.

Create a Digital Marketing Competitor Analysis in 6 Steps

Creating a competitor analysis doesn’t have to be difficult, but you aren’t sure to begin, we’ve outlined what information you need to complete one. Follow our step-by-step guide on how to build a digital marketing competitor analysis!

1. Create a competitor overview.

The first step in creating your analysis is to identify who the top competitors are in your area. When we say competitors, what are the other businesses that instantly come to mind? It may be another local business that is constantly trying to rival your prices or persuade your patients to come to their office. Add those practices to your competitor list.

When selecting these businesses, make sure they are direct competitors. A direct competitor is someone that offers the exact same product or service and is competing for the same customer base. These businesses should be your main focus.

A major resource you should utilize to research other chiropractors in your area is — yes, you guessed it — Google! Create a spreadsheet in excel or Google sheets and enter all of the competitors you’ve researched on the sheet.

Bonus tip: You can use the free Moz local tool to find out more about your business’s consistency online as well as your competitors as well to find out their rankings.

Be sure to research each and every business on your list and organize the information for each practice into categories based on their:

  • Google ranking
  • Social Media followers and reviews
  • Yelp reviews
  • Google reviews
  • Pay-per-click ads

Make a comparison of where you stand in each of these categories versus your competitors.

2. Determine what products and services your competitors offer.

Your products and services are what draw people to your practice. Analyze what your competitors have to offer and the quality of their products and see how they compare to that of your practice.
When researching their products, consider things like:

  • The discounts or rewards they offer their patients
  • Their pricing strategies
  • If they are a high or low-cost provider

You want to be as detailed as possible with your analysis of their products and services so you understand what they offer and what may be persuading ideal patients to choose them over you.

3. Look at the reviews of your competition.

Your reputation is everything! What people say about their experience at your practice can either help to increase your business or drive ideal patients away. Read the positive and negative reviews of your competition on Yelp, Google, Facebook, etc. to find out what they do well and where they might be lacking.


If something that one of your competitors is doing at their practice is increasing their churn rate, the measure of the number of patients who leave their practice over a certain period of time, use that as a learning experience and try to avoid doing the same thing at your practice.

Additionally, pay attention to the number of reviews they have. What is their positive to negative ratio for reviews? If your competition has more quality reviews than you, then that is something you can focus on improving.

Ask current and first-time patients to leave a review of your practice. You can ask them in person, on social media, or through email. Emphasize how important their opinions and experiences are to you so they are more likely to leave one. You can even offer incentives to get them to leave a review. For help with getting more patients or clients through your front door, you can read our ebook on generating reviews that can get the results you’re looking for.

When potential patients are looking for a practitioner in their area, your practice will rank at the top because of the overflow of good reviews you have!

If you really want to get first-hand insight, you can ask your customers what practice they used to go to and why they decided to stop. You can get a clear idea of what they are or aren’t offering that is causing patients to move on.

4. Check up on your competition’s social media.

check-social-media
Do competing practices have a Facebook presence? A Twitter page? How many followers do they have? How often do they post and how much engagement do their posts generate?

These are all questions you should ask yourself. Include the answers on your spreadsheet and then use the information to improve your social media profiles and presence. Social media can help with patient retention and loyalty by building engagement and community all in one platform. And if your competition is doing well, it could help them keep patients.

Engaging with patients through social media allows them to see a more genuine and open side of your brand that they may not have previously been exposed to. It’s a less formal way to communicate with your audience while also building trust.

5. Search for paid advertising.

Whether or not your competitors are using pay-per-click ads is something that you should be on the lookout for. Are they already the number one business in your area and using paid advertising to keep ahead of the competition? Or are they a smaller business than yours and are using paid advertising to catch up to you?

Paid online advertising is commonly found on Yelp, Google, YouTube, and Facebook. Google ads have shown to be the most effective form of advertising for chiropractic businesses because it is so targeted. Paid online ads can help you hone in on your specific targeted audience in your area and ignore anyone that is outside the parameters you have set in place.

You can find out if your competition is advertising on Google simply by searching for other providers in your area. The ads will be found at the very top of the search results page and will say “Ad” next to them along with their phone number, rating, address, and hours of operation.

6. Analyze content strategy and the frequency of posts.

Try to determine what type of content and how often your competitors are pushing out this new content. They may be publishing fresh content on their website regularly or maybe it’s only every few weeks or months. Stay on top of how well their content is doing as well. When they post it on their social media, check to see how much engagement they are receiving.

If you want to begin creating more content at your practice, you can publish:

  • Blog posts
  • White papers
  • Ebooks
  • Infographics

Think of the type of content that would be of value to your patients.
Make note of whether their followers seem to really enjoy what they post or if they don’t get any likes at all. If you notice a trend of little to no engagement on their page, try to steer clear of posting the same content for your audience.

Pick a few of their content pieces and evaluate the quality of each piece. Make a checklist as you review their content to go over how accurate it is, whether or not there are spelling or grammatical errors, and if it’s easy enough for the average person to consume.

When you notice mistakes that they make with their content, be sure to emphasize that with your staff so that you avoid doing the same.

Compiling a complete competitor analysis.

To know your competition is to know the ins and outs of how they run their practice. A competitor analysis can give you all the information you need to make the necessary adjustments at your own practice to appeal to new patients and keep current ones satisfied.

How do you stand out against local competitors in your area?
Get a complimentary competitive snapshot today to find out!

With the help of our competitive snapshot, you can receive your current marketing score and that of your top competitors based on business listings, social presence, and more! Contact our team today to view your competition and learn more about the digital marketing tools we offer that can help you stay ahead of your competition.

Check out our other resources to learn how to improve your marketing tactics.

Top 5 Digital Marketing Trends Your Practice Should Adopt in 2020
The Do’s and Don’ts of Building a Powerful Brand Reputation
The Difference Between Paid and Organic Web Marketing

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