Retaining the Relationship: A B2B Healthcare Guide
For many businesses, the holidays are a yearly reminder to reach out to current clients with well wishes and gestures of gratitude. While these efforts are important, retention must be a year-round initiative to truly generate impact. Research across industries suggests that increasing retention by just 5% can drive profit growth by 25-95% over time. Given the value of retention, why do most B2B marketing teams focus primarily on generating net-new business?
Why retention marketing is underutilized
Consumer loyalty programs are second nature to B2C and D2C organizations, but B2B organizations struggle to implement similar approaches. This is true for a few reasons:
Scattered points of influence: In B2B, the “buyer” or “decision maker” is not an individual. The purchase decision typically involves multiple stakeholders and a multi-step consideration process. As the pool of decision influencers grows, retention marketing efforts get harder to track and accurately measure. Even if qualitative results are strong, gaining buy-in for retention marketing is tricky when quantitative ROI is not easily assessed.
Competing financial priorities: When money is tight, any spending deemed “nonessential” is at risk. As a long-term play, retention marketing is particularly susceptible to budget cuts since there are typically no immediate rewards or payoffs to show for the work.
Fear of misalignment: In healthcare specifically, facilities are vigilant about protecting vulnerable, increasingly thin margins. As well-intentioned as retention efforts can be, stressed healthcare executives may be turned off by a partner or vendor who is investing tangible resources in loyalty-building efforts. Fear of acting in a way that is misaligned with customer priorities may cause B2B healthcare marketing teams to shy away from organizing and executing a thoughtful retention strategy.
These barriers can be challenging to overcome and can only be addressed with a thoughtful, strategic retention plan. While each plan should be customized to the organization and its unique priorities, there are numerous strategies that healthcare marketers can consider.
6 retention strategies for healthcare organizations
- Set measurable, shared goals for internal teams: Incorporate retention into yearly and quarterly goals for marketing, account management, and executive leaders at a minimum. For instance, you can work with these stakeholders make sure the needs and challenges of current clients are incorporated into content plans. If you have reliable engagement or utilization metrics, co-develop an email engagement flow targeted to champion super-users and check in on those who haven’t logged in within a fixed period of time. The important part is to structure these objectives to be interdependent, necessitating teamwork and collective commitment to achieve, as this can help reinforce the importance of retention and keep all relevant contributors engaged.
- Take client check-ins to a new level: It is easy to fall into the trap of talking at a client during check-ins. While this type of meeting is a good opportunity to demonstrate your organization’s value to the client, that may not be why the client shows up. Reorient check-ins around the specific client’s needs, prioritize active listening, and ensure at any data you bring to the table closely aligns with their current goals.
- Preserve dedicated space for celebrating client wins: It is critical to understand that this does not mean case studies or co-led webinars. Organizations understandably want to accomplish multiple goals with one action. Healthcare marketers tend to combine client wins with company promotion—an efficient but not always effective approach. Instead, consider how you can regularly recognize and celebrate clients’ wins without any self-promotion using those regular check-ins, as well as personal outreach, social media engagement, and dinner “on us” at industry events.
- Proactively discuss preferred modes of appreciation: As in any relationship, clear communication is a key to success. Talk to current and future clients about the best ways to demonstrate gratitude, as this can ensure that you do not trespass any organizational or legal boundaries. For instance, can they receive gifts? If yes, what are their preferences? If not, what are other appropriate ways to convey gratitude or celebrate an accomplishment?
- Carefully craft year-end messaging: Year-round retention marketing can certainly still include holiday messaging, but you must be thoughtful about the broad range of individuals that you are collaborating with. Consider staying away from event-specific language (e.g., Merry Christmas or Happy Thanksgiving) that might be exclusionary or insensitive.
- Remember, timing is everything: Communication volume often ramps up during the holiday season, and even your most loyal and valuable clients might miss your retention efforts in the flurry of emails and year-end deadlines. To optimize engagement, consider building high-value retention efforts around your partnership anniversary instead. You may also want to note other important dates or parts of the year for each client (e.g., organization anniversary, HEDIS season, flu season).
These strategies can serve as an excellent starting point for organizations looking to ramp up their retention efforts in a valuable way. If your foundational relationship with a client is not solid, however, these efforts may not be received the way you intend.
5 ways to transform your client relationships
We recently shared tips on the blog for B2B healthcare organizations working to establish and strengthen foundational relationships with clients. Read the post or reach out any time for advice tailored to your needs.
