Running a successful pet services business, whether it’s a grooming salon, boarding facility, or dog-walking service, requires more than just a love for animals. If you want to attract plenty of loyal customers and make your business stand out from the competition, you need a solid marketing plan. And the first step to creating a plan that will help you stand out from your competition is understanding who your competition is and what they’re doing.
By conducting a thorough competitor analysis before you begin to create your marketing plan, you can develop a much better understanding of your market and identify opportunities. If you’re ready to get started scoping out the competition for your pet services business, here’s everything you need to know about conducting a competitor analysis.
What is a Competitor Analysis?
A competitor analysis is a strategic approach to understanding the businesses that are in competition with yours. It involves using a variety of research strategies to evaluate their strengths, weaknesses, marketing tactics, and overall market positioning.
Forming an in-depth understanding of the competition you’re up against can offer a lot of benefits. For one, it allows you to identify opportunities for you to differentiate your brand by offering things that your competition isn’t or doing things in a different, more appealing way. Conducting a competitor analysis also helps you better understand your industry and market as much as it does your competitors. For example, it allows you to gain insights into things like industry trends, pricing expectations, customer preferences, and more.
“Know your enemy” is a concept that applies just as much in business as it does in war. While the other pet services businesses in your area might not be your mortal enemies, they are your competition, and it’s essential to understand what you’re up against if you want your company to succeed.
How to do a Competitor Analysis as a Pet Services Business
The most helpful kind of competitor analysis is one that’s strategic and thorough. In other words, you need to have a plan to follow before you start checking out the competition. With that in mind, here is a step-by-step competitor analysis template for pet services businesses to follow:
Step 1: Identify Your Competitors
Before you analyze the competition, you need to know who they are. When working to identify the business you’re competing with, there are two types of competitors to consider: direct competitors and indirect competitors.
Direct competitors are businesses that offer the same services as yours, targeting the same customer base. If you run a grooming salon, for example, then other grooming salons in your area would be your direct competitors. Indirect competitors, meanwhile, are businesses that offer alternative solutions to the same customer problem. So for our example of a grooming salon, a mobile grooming salon or a dog walking service that also offers grooming would be examples of its indirect competitors.
As for how to identify your direct and indirect competitors, there are a few different methods you can use, including:
- Google Search: Search for pet services similar to yours in your area.
- Social Media and Online Reviews: Platforms like Yelp, Facebook, and Instagram can help you identify competitors.
- Industry Directories: Check out websites like the American Pet Products Association (APPA) or local chamber of commerce listings.
- Customer Feedback: Ask your existing customers where they’ve taken their pets before and why they switched to you.
Once you know who your competitors are, you’ll be ready to begin your competitor analysis.
Step 2: Analyze Their Offerings
The first step when analyzing a competitor is to take a detailed look at what they offer. From the services they provide to their pricing structure, here are all the key factors you’ll want to consider during this analysis:
Services Offered
Start by looking at the specific services that your competitors are offering. Are there any services they provide that your company doesn’t? Are they offering unique add-ons like pet massages, organic shampoos, or one-on-one training sessions? Asking questions like these will help you identify ways to improve your own offerings by either matching what the competition is doing or offering something they’re not.
Quality and Customer Experience
Take a look at online reviews that customers have left for your competitors and see if you can notice any trends or recurring themes. Are there things that customers like about the business’s services? Are there things they dislike? By analyzing your competition’s reviews, you can better understand customer expectations and how they are (or are not) being met in your area.
Convenience and Accessibility
How convenient is your competition making the experience for their customers? Do they offer things such as mobile services, extended hours, or online booking? Many customers care about ease and convenience just as much as they do the quality of the service itself, so considering these things can be a great way to stand out from the competition.
Pricing Structure
The final, perhaps most important factor to consider when analyzing a competitor’s services is their pricing. Along with looking at how much your competition is charging for the same services your business offers, be sure to also consider their pricing structure and whether they’re offering things such as package deals, memberships, or loyalty programs.
Step 3: Evaluate Their Marketing Strategies
Once you’ve taken an in-depth look at your competition’s services, the next thing to consider is their marketing strategies. In most cases, this will require looking at both online and offline marketing efforts.
To analyze a competitor’s online marketing strategies, start by checking out their website. Analyze its content and design, and see how it is ranking for the searches you want your own business to rank for. To do this, you can use a tool like Ahrefs or Google Search Console, or you can simply search the keywords on a search engine and see where in the results their website shows up. From there, be sure to also check out their social media profiles to see the type of content they post and how engaged their audiences are.
To analyze offline marketing efforts, you’ll want to consider the local partnerships and advertising that your competitors are engaged in. Are they partnering with local vets and pet stores to gain customers? Are they running ads on local radio or television stations? By figuring out what marketing strategies your competitors are using to reach new customers both online and offline, you can identify untapped marketing opportunities for your own business.
Step 4: Assess Their Strengths and Weaknesses
After collecting as much info as you can on your competitor’s services and marketing strategies, you can perform a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis to turn that data into insights.
For each competitor, identify what they do well, what their weaknesses are, the opportunities you have to set yourself apart from them, and the potential threats that they pose to your business. Compiling all of this information into a chart is one helpful way to visualize your SWOT analysis.
Step 5: Identify Market Gaps and Opportunities
Based on your analysis, you can look for unmet needs and market gaps that your business could potentially fill. Here are a few examples of questions to consider during this process:
- Are there underserved pet owners in your area? For example, cat owners living in an area where there are no grooming services for cats.
- Is there demand for mobile services that competitors aren’t offering?
- Can you introduce eco-friendly or holistic pet care options that aren’t available in your area?
- Are your competitors slow in adopting technology for booking and customer engagement?
Asking questions such as these will allow you to find innovative ways to set your pet services business apart from its competition.
Put Your Competitor Analysis Insights Into Action With Surefire Local
Performing a competitor analysis can unearth a lot of insights that you can use to make your business more appealing to customers. This includes insights into how you can improve your services as well as your marketing efforts.
When you’re ready to put the marketing insights from your competitor analysis into action, Surefire Local can help! With our all-in-one marketing platform designed specifically for businesses targeting local customers, you can manage all of your marketing campaigns in one place with innovative tools that allow you to engage with customers in a way your competitors aren’t able to.
To see for yourself how Surefire Local can help you turn your insights into results, be sure to sign up for a free demo!