Skip to main content

Healthcare marketers looking to tap into brand advocates may not know how best to leverage this loyalty, but it’s certainly worth the time to learn. Whether it’s pharmaceuticals, devices, providers, or long-term care insurance, the industry is ripe for advocacy programs that showcase satisfied patients, clients and customers. 

Done well, brand advocacy for the healthcare sector can help build trust, referrals, and an impressive ROI. If your team is looking for an affordable and effective way to capitalize on promoters’ opinions, feedback, and experiences to boost a brand’s voice and impact, check out our tips and examples.

Leveraging brand advocates in healthcare and wellness

Capturing content like reviews, tutorials, and positive experiences is as simple as finding it or asking for it. These invaluable assets are essential to helping brands expand their reach, earn referrals, measure patient loyalty, and understand the drivers of patient and customer satisfaction. 

Here are specific actions you can take to leverage these healthcare brand advocates.

Ask advocates to leave reviews

Satisfied customers are your best advocates but they may not always leave a review without some prodding. Look for ways to make it easy for patients and consumers to rate your product or service — preferably when it’s top of mind.

Among other methods, marketers can gather reviews through customer interviews, live chat support, and email- or text-based surveys. It’s also worth investing in advocate marketing software tools like Zuberance to incentivize customers to post reviews on healthcare review sites like Healthgrades, Vitals and RateMDs or any third-party review site.

Share advocate content

User-generated content can be reused in marketing and advertising to help lend authenticity thanks to compliments and high ratings from impartial parties. Capturing these positive sentiments can also beef up your evergreen asset collection, which can be used in emails, printed collateral, and targeted ads on social media.

But perhaps the most organic way to benefit from your advocates’ messaging is by sharing it on your brand’s social media channels. By highlighting these promoters’ words, healthcare brands can increase their perceived trustworthiness in terms of knowledge, experience and customer service. 

Leveraging the Zuberance Advocate Hub allows wellness brands to incentivize UGC with five types of rewards: e-gift cards, free or discounted products or services, brand swag, premium experiences or charitable donations.

Ask for referrals

In every industry, consumers trust recommendations from their friends and family more than anyone — even more than experts. Although the American Medical Association has a strict rule against physicians not offering financial or other valuable incentives to patients who recruit other patients, word-of-mouth referrals are allowed.

Wellness-related businesses have a unique opportunity to tap into the power of brand advocate programs. By offering incentives, these businesses can encourage their customers to actively promote their products or services. These incentives could range from discounts, free products, exclusive access to new offerings, or even opportunities to be featured on the brand’s social media channels. This not only motivates existing customers to share their positive experiences with the brand, but also helps attract new customers. The personal testimonies and recommendations from brand advocates can be a powerful marketing tool, building trust and credibility for the wellness business.

Create an online forum 

Your best customers make the best brand advocates, so why not create a space to gather their feedback, reviews and ideas? 

The benefit of the Zuberance Advocate Hub is that its a branded online portal featuring a gamified system of challenges and rewards. Even answering questions or sharing experiences in the hub can be viewed as a challenge and rewarded.

Advocate hubs have a discussion tab where all members can answer questions and discuss 

Put your most loyal advocates’ words to work for your healthcare brand by showcasing their glowing reviews and listening to and incorporating their feedback. Ask for referrals to build awareness around your offerings, expand your patient or customer base, and boost your ROI. 

Not sure where to start? Reach out to Zuberance for help.

A person meets virtually with a woman. Contact us to begin your advocate marketing program.

Want to check it out?
Book a Demo

Businesses leverage Zuberance to fuel their advocacy programs, integrating them into their overall marketing programs. The outcome? Lowered marketing expenses, enhanced customer engagement, improved retention rates, and most importantly, positive ROI.

BOOK A DEMO