Digital Healthcare Market platforms in India

Dr. A. Sita Madhavi

Professor, Dept of Management Studies,
Geethanjali College of Engineering and Technology, Hyderabad
gsitamadhavi@gmail.com
Abstract:
The world is turning to digital marketing for communication and promotion. With the current
scenario of lockdown due to covid-19, most of the educated community is resorting to getting
glued to mobile and internet. From academic, industrial, retail, and commercial work to
entertainment, relaxation, and healthyfication, everything seems to be internet dependent.
This article tries to compile the promotional efforts of several, similar healthcare start-up
apps on social media. It portrays the role of digital marketing by reviewing the literature of
these apps in the digital media.

Introduction:
Content helps businesses establish credibility and drive traffic which eventually translates
into customers1. Traditionally internet was used only as a platform for interactive marketing.
But today, internet has provided scope for digital marketing. Social media has become an
unquestioned leader in transforming the very concept of digital marketing. However, its full
potential is yet to be harnessed. Literature review indicates increased use of social media
among the general population, particularly among the younger people.
Social media permits greater customer participation. Customers tend to give reviews on
social media, which impact the survival of the company. As a result opinions of customers
“matter”. Word of mouth, sharing personal experience, has a profound impact on the success
of the product/ service or concept. On a single, simple, sensitive, stimulation of a mouse
click, a picture, a message or a video goes viral among a thousand people. Social media
enhances the power of viral marketing. It increases the speed by which information reaches
the customers and gets circulated in the market. Perhaps this is the reason why digital
marketing is gaining inertia in India and in the world over. 
Objective:

1
Jai Vardhan, Content is king: How 1mg leverages content to drive commerce, September 12, 2017, https://entrackr.com/2017/09/1mg-
leverages-content-drive-commerce/
  This article aims to create awareness on the existence of some of the leading
healthcare apps in times of Covid 19.
 It reminds the reader about the promotional efforts of different health-care apps on
social media and finally throws light on the impact of these promotions on digital
media.

Discussion:
Customer’s reactions to different brands' promotional campaigns; may range from very high
social media reach and customer engagement, to low social media reach and no customer
engagement. Popular healthcare apps assessed have overall moderate quality. Inspite of this
customer awareness of these apps is slowly increasing on digital media. In times of Covid 19,
customer expectations are extremely high, due to the need of the hour. They do not excuse
the apps for being “Startups”. The promotions created by these apps have a limited reach (due
to the slowly growing awareness). These apps are still competing for a “market-space”. In
some cases where the promotional efforts had a deep impact on prospects, the apps had the
risk of extreme customer expectation. It is apps responsibility to integrate, network and align
its supply chain to make their customer promise a reality. Evidence-based content is what is
warranted to gain customer’s trust.

Following are some of the social media campaigns conducted by some of the popular health-
related apps:

Practo:
Practo is like the “Bookmyshow” app for all kinds of cashless, paperless, and painless
appointments with doctors. It was founded by Abhinav Lal and Shashank ND. The
Bengaluru-based Computer Science engineers created a sensational 1,20,000 appointments
(booked) every month, with traffic growing at 24 % per month. They have over 4 million
monthly users.
Some of their popular digital campaigns on social media include:
1. #Call mom Now(May 2016)
2. # ThankYouDoctor (March 2016),
3. #HealthyBreakups (Feb 2016),
4. #If you could sing to your doctor (Sept 2015),
 5. #If your doctor could sing to you,
6. #Your home for health

Lybrate:
Lybrate was founded by Rahul Narang and Saurabh Arora. Its motto was to prevent people
from self-medication. Lybrate helps people to make informed decisions about health. It
answers queries for free or gets into one-on-one interaction with doctors on payment of fees
online.
Some of the popular social media campaigns of Lybrate include:
1. #Saynotheselfmedication campaign
2. #IfOnlyTheyHadLybrate
3. #Super fact of the day
4. #7DeadlySins to avoid
5. #HappyValentinesWeek
6. #RealCricketFan

DocsApp:
DocsApp claims to provide expert consultation in specialised areas of medicine. Some of the
popular areas include Gynecology, Sexology, Pediatrics, Dermatology, Psychiatry, Weight
Management, among others. It has set up a helpline specifically for elderly patients, where
people aged 60 and above can call for a free consultation. DocsApp has directed its marketing
effort towards creating “empathy”. They have set up a medical department on their platform
solely dedicated to COVID-19, where coronavirus-related consultations are provided to all
customers free of cost. They have touched more than ten million lives and have logged more
than three million online doctors in previous financial years.
Their popular social media campaign includes:
1. #BaatTohKaro campaign
2. #ErasedPages awareness campaign for World Alzheimer’s day

1mg:
1mg is like “Amazon” in distributing medicines. The company uses offline advertisements,
newspaper advertisements, and health camps for its promotion. However, the majority of
their marketing is digital. It has released ad films highlighting its offerings like services
beyond order management, at-home tests and scans, access to medical information and so on.
It aims to build trust by passing credible information to its potential customers. 1mg has
about 36% overall traffic in the medical app section in India. For generating the content, it
has a team of about 40 content writers comprising doctors and pharmacists. 1mg claims to
have 40% conversion from content besides strong word of mouth effort in driving
transactions.

Pharmarack:
Pharmarack is for all the nodes (suppliers, manufacturers and retailers) of pharma retail
supply chain. It is among India's largest integrated B2B healthcare tech platforms – offering
SaaS Solutions, Delivery Enablement, Financing Solutions, Market Access, Analytics
Solutions, and Digital Solutions. It mainly aids in digitization of interactions across the
pharma supply chain. This helps in improving visibility, simplification of business process
and reduces scope for errors in business.

Retailio:
Retailio is B2B Pharma “Marketspace” with a presence in over a hundred cities with a
network of thousands of Healthcare/Pharma Companies, Pharmaceutical Distributors, fifty
thousand plus Pharmacies, Hospital, Nursing Homes and SKUs. Retailio aims to ensure
delivery of quality products, on-time during the Covid-19 scenario.
Advertisements in social media:
1. Aazadi- A tribute to the unsung heroes of Pharma Industry
Retailio is a resourceful app that is creating a high digital impact on supply chain
management of Pharma industry across India. It offers a digital platform for the Chemists,
Retailers, Distributors, Pharmacists and Hospitals ton place their orders. Retailo is a mobile
application that provides a web interface between the supplier and his customer, thus
reducing communication gap and building on quick response.

Netmeds:
Netmeds App, connects patient to doctors instantly through a call or a chat. It permits
booking pathology and/or radiology tests. Some of its promotional campaigns are as follows:

1. Health tips campaign

2. Shape of you campaign
Medscape:
Medscape is a leading online platform for physician and healthcare professionals. It offers
medical news, point-of-care drugs, disease information, professional education and more. It
helps doctors to know all advancements in medical science and drug information.

Curofy:
This is a popular app among communities of specialist doctors. It provides good insight and
suggestions to understand and review complex cases for the right diagnostics. Doctors may
have access to real-life patient conditions from many categories with access to the latest
medical rules and journals. This app is gaining great popularity in the doctor’s community as
they get a chance to discuss the cases of many real-life patients.

Doctor C app.
Doctor C app helps customers to compare prices and opt for the cheapest 2. It permits their
customers to gauge their decisions on medical diagnostics and lab testing with a trade-off
between quality and cost. At special rates including 15-50% rebate3.

Content marketing and management in digital media is sensationalizing promotional

strategies.
There is enough room for every enterprise to explore, experiment and go digital.

Impact of digital promotion of Practo on Instagram suggests that Practo’s advertisements

earned it around 8485 followers as on date4. Instagram audience analysis shows that the
audience demography consists of 66.7% female and 33.3% male followers. Average
engagement rate on a post is around 0.4%. The average number of likes per post is 32 and the
average number of comments is 4.
Audience developed interest in Practo based on posts on the following themes5:

 Fitness & Yoga 69.54 %

 Restaurants, Food & Grocery 68.49 %
 Music 68.49 %
2
https://getreferralmd.com/2013/09/doctors-social-media-uses/
3
http://startuphyderabad.com/doctorc-helping-cure-monetary-pandemic/
4
https://www.instagram.com/practo/reels/
5
https://starngage.com/app/in/influencers/practo
  Children & Family 62.13 %
 Travel & Tourism 57.85 %
 Entertainment 56.83 %
 Art & Design 36.95 %
 Business & Careers 26.89 %
 Pets 26.89 %
 Tobacco & Smoking 26.89 %
 Movies and TV 26.89 %

Surely digital marketing has contributed to the success of Practo. The company has over ten
thousand doctors connected to around thirty thousand monthly appointments. It has around
7.5 million patients and ten million patient records to take care of every year. In terms of
revenue the company has been growing at the rate of 50 to 100% quarter over quarter6.

Based on the above discussion, it may be concluded that digital marketing is the new age
marketing strategy which is changing the way consumers behave.

Refernces:-

1. Jai Vardhan, Content is king: How 1mg leverages content to drive commerce,
September 12, 2017, https://entrackr.com/2017/09/1mg-leverages-content-drive-
commerce/

2. Sarah Edney, Svetlana Bogomolova  Jillian Ryan, Tim Olds, Ilea Sanders, Carol

Maher , Creating Engaging Health Promotion Campaigns on Social Media:
Observations and Lessons From Fitbit and Garmin, DOI: 10.2196/10911,
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30530449
3. https://www.india.com/technology/reliance-jio-launches-new-medical-and-fitness-
app-jiohealthhub-for-the-health-conscious-1763282/
4. https://inc42.com/buzz/reliance-outlines-healthcare-mission-with-jiohealthhub/
5. https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/reliance-jios-health-and-fitness-
app-goes-live/56595479

6
https://startuptalky.com/practo-success-story/