Customer loyalty is one element of success for any business. Once you’ve won a client’s trust, they will return to you repeatedly without new sales and marketing efforts on your part. If they love your product or service, they may even recommend it to others, serving as a free brand ambassador for your business. Brand loyalty in healthcare manufacturing is especially critical due to the competitive nature of the industry.

The healthcare marketplace is challenging. You’ve undoubtedly experienced the struggle at some point – having difficulty getting new leads or, even worse, thinking you’ve locked in a new lead, only to have it snatched away by a competitor.

In this business, long-term brand loyalty is worth working for.

But how can you know if you’re succeeding in maintaining that high level of trust that will keep a customer by your side for months, years, or even decades?

You can use a few metrics to check if your brand is resonating with consumers and winning them over.

Understanding the Value of Brand Loyalty

We aren’t alone in our emphasis on the importance of brand loyalty. In the year ahead, retention marketing is expected to be one of the biggest marketing trends. Instead of exclusively trying to attract new customers, professional marketers are refocusing on keeping existing customers happy.

Why the shift?

It’s a simple numbers game: With effective retention efforts, you can enjoy steady sales without paying big bucks for lead generation. This allows for a lower cost-per-sale investment overall.

Ideas for Boosting Brand Loyalty in Healthcare Manufacturing

There are a few ways you can nurture brand loyalty in healthcare manufacturing.

You can try personalized cross-selling and up-selling, for example. Check your database of existing clients. What products are they ordering, and what products could they benefit from? Giving customized recommendations for useful items your customers can actually use shows you’re paying attention to their needs.

Think of it like the “Customers Also Bought” function on retail e-commerce websites like Amazon. If you buy a flashlight, do you also need to buy batteries? If you buy leather boots, do you need a leather protectant spray? Those little suggestions are surprisingly useful sometimes.

Another tactic is to boost brand engagement with useful content. For healthcare manufacturers, this could come in the form of information-packed blogs, webinars, or social media content that’s relevant to your target audience.

Notice, we said information-packed – not promotional! Say you sell cardiac stents, for example. Instead of writing a blog that pushes your product, write a blog about the latest stent research or live-tweet an event, like the World Congress on Cardiac Surgery and Medical Devices.

Why do these techniques work?

They show that you care about your consumer and your consumer’s wants and needs.

According to Harvard Business Review, successful modern brands don’t focus on buyers but on users. That means instead of aggressively pushing products – consumers are too savvy for that now – they aim to make the consumer’s life easier. Isn’t that what we all want?

3 Metrics for Measuring Brand Loyalty

So, now you’ve got some idea of how to harness brand loyalty in healthcare manufacturing. But how can you be sure your efforts are working? 

Let these three metrics be your guide.

1. Content Engagement

We talked about using content to engage with customers and nurture their loyalty above. To see if your content strategy is working, you have to check your engagement levels. The precise metric will vary depending on the content format.

For social media, engagement can be measured using figures like clicks, likes, and shares.

Also, don’t forget the comments! A Facebook post with 500 likes but zero comments is arguably less valuable than a post with 300 likes but 100 comments.

Why? Comments show a more active interest. They require more than the click of a button. Comments can spark debates and discussions, allowing your brand to reply directly to consumers. This creates a more personalized engagement situation.

For podcasts, engagement might be measured by the number of listens, downloads, and likes. For webinars, it’s all about how many people tuned in. Email, however, is about the number of opens and clicks your content gets. Metrics need to be tailored to the given format.

2. Repurchasing Figures

Your customers can tell you whether they’re loyal to your brand or not – and they can do it without saying a word. Periodically revisit your sales data and check client behavior over set periods (e.g., monthly, quarterly, annually).

Specifically, look for repurchasing levels. This allows you to calculate the overall retention rate (proportion of returning customers versus new customers).

Analyzing repurchasing metrics may also allow you to regenerate leads. For example, if a customer who was a regular has suddenly dropped off, follow up. Did something happen that turned them off? Targeting issues will ultimately allow you to improve brand loyalty in healthcare manufacturing.

Also, keep an eye out for multiple product purchases. This is a great sign. It often means a customer was happy enough about their product purchase – and their experience with you as a provider – and thus expanded their order.

Conversely, follow up on orders that have decreased.

3. Reported Customer Satisfaction

Last but not least, if you want the harsh truths as to how engaged and loyal your customers are, go to the source: ask them directly.

Inviting your customers to provide feedback shows them you care about their opinion. It also gives them the chance to tell you where they’d like to see improvement – and gives you the opportunity to make changes accordingly.

Survey tools like SurveyMonkey are a great way to solicit feedback.

Keep your survey questions pointed and specific. Don’t just ask, “Are you happy with your experience?” Ask about their satisfaction with particular parts of the customer process, like placing an order, paying, or follow-up customer care.

Get Support for Your Brand Messaging in Healthcare

Share Moving Media is a full-service media company that supports healthcare suppliers in building trust among their consumers and increasing their market share.

We help our clients leverage top-quality content to boost brand loyalty in healthcare manufacturing. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The Marketing Minute, for more best practices.

Want help with your healthcare marketing? Contact us.