Analyzing your competitors

You do not need to beat every clinic in the city. You need to know who the patient sees next to you, what they charge, where they are weak, and what that means for your prices, your menu and your marketing. After this module you can do the analysis in an afternoon and repeat it each quarter.

Who counts as a competitor

The clinics that appear when your patients search. Search your five core treatments plus "near me" from three points across your area and from the clinic itself. Every clinic that appears in the map or the first page, twice or more, is on the list. Add the dermatology and plastic surgery practices that offer injectables. Ten to fifteen names is typical; more than that and you are analyzing the city, not your market.

The grid

One row per competitor, the columns below. It fits on one page and it is the most useful page in your marketing folder.

Column	Where it comes from	What you are looking for
Map rank for each core treatment	Your own searches (Marketing 2)	Who owns the map, and for which treatment
Reviews: count, rating, last 90 days, replies	Their Google profile	Volume and recency. A clinic with 400 reviews and 3 this quarter is coasting.
Neurotoxin price per unit, filler per syringe, top laser	Their website, or a call	Where you sit in the range. Most markets have a $3 a unit spread; know where you are and why.
Membership: yes or no, price, what is inside	Website	The clinic with no membership is renting patients (Operations 6)
Menu breadth and the lines they push	Website, social	What the market is moving toward; what nobody offers
Providers: how many, credentials, who is the face	Website, LinkedIn, state license lookup	A clinic built on one injector is fragile; a clinic hiring is growing
Website speed and booking	Their site on your phone (Marketing 1)	Slow site, buried booking button: leads you can win
Offers and discounting	Website, social, discount platforms	The clinic running $99 specials is training the market's price. Do not follow them (Marketing 4).
Hours	Google profile	Nobody open past 6pm is an opening (Operations 2)

Read the grid

Where you are underpriced. If your neurotoxin is $2 a unit under the clinic with the best reviews and you have comparable reviews, that is contribution you are giving away (Finance 7).
Where the market is weak. No memberships, slow sites, unanswered reviews, no evening hours. Each one is a specific move you can make this quarter.
What the market is moving toward. Three competitors adding biostimulators or a wellness line is a demand signal. Check the contribution per hour before following (Finance 7).
Who is growing. New providers, new locations, review velocity rising. Those are the clinics to watch, and, one day, the buyers or the sellers in your market (Advanced 5).

What not to do

Do not copy the menu, match the lowest price, or run the same offer. Do not present yourself as a patient to get a consult. Do not repost their content or claim their results. And do not spend more than an afternoon a quarter on it; the grid is for decisions, not for watching.

Mystery shopping, done properly

A phone call to ask about prices and availability is fair and normal. Note how fast they answer, whether they offer a time, whether they mention a membership. That is their Operations 1, and it tells you what a patient who calls both of you experiences. Then make the same call to your own desk from a number it does not know.

Where Benchmark comes in. Competitive intelligence is one of our core services and the one generalist consultants cannot offer: we keep pricing, review and membership data on clinics across the markets we work in, so your grid comes with numbers you could not collect alone. Every scorecard's service line page carries a market read. For a new location (Operations 10) the grid is the first deliverable.

Try it yourself

Build the list: your five core treatments plus "near me," from three points in your area. Every clinic that appears twice.

Fill the price and membership columns for the top five. Note where you sit.

Call the best reviewed competitor and ask about a neurotoxin appointment. Then call your own desk.

Check yourself: Marketing 6

A competitor is

Every medspa in the cityA clinic that appears when your patients search, from where they searchOnly clinics with lower prices

Ten to fifteen names from your own searches is the list.

A competitor with 400 reviews and 3 in the last quarter is

DominantCoasting; recency matters and the map is winnableClosed

Volume and recency both count. Recency is the opening.

Your neurotoxin is $2 a unit under the best reviewed clinic and your reviews are comparable. That is

A competitive advantageContribution you are giving away on your biggest serviceIrrelevant

Price against the market, then check the unit table.

A competitor runs $99 neurotoxin specials. You should

Match itNot follow; they are training the market's price and losing money on the visitRun $89

The discount trap, Marketing 4.

The competitor grid should be refreshed

DailyQuarterly, in an afternoonNever, once is enough

For decisions, not for watching.

Pick an answer for each question.

Download this module as a PDF

Want this done, not just explained?The 10-Day Sprint finds the leaks for $1,000, one time. After that, on the plan, the scorecard keeps coming and at least one growth initiative is executed with you every month. Plans from $2,299 a month. Everything in this module is part of that work.

See the sprint and pricing Text Nate

Educational material from Benchmark Advisors, not tax, legal, medical or investment advice, and not a promise of any result. The sample clinic and its figures are invented. Rules differ by state and change; confirm anything that matters with your CPA, your attorney and your state board. Full disclaimers.