Humans have several needs for their survival. One such need integral for longevity is healthcare. Timely access to medicines, health checkups, and hospitals can save lives.
One such initiative of making healthcare accessible to all across India was started by the successful e-commerce business PharmEasy.
The idea for PharmEasy was created by Dharmil Seth and his friend Dhaval Shah.
And in the year 2015, the two friends along with the other co-founders Siddharth Shah, Harsh Parekh, and Hardik Dedhia got together and started the company.
Their idea for PharmEasy was to make medicine and other healthcare facilities easily accessible all across India through doorstep delivery. Their most powerful tool for making this a reality was to digitalize the Indian healthcare system.
Many startups with a similar objective at hand, revolutionized the Indian healthcare system at an unprecedented rate. And this revolution was further enhanced during the pandemic.
As of 2022, PharmEasy has acquired Medlife, Thyrocare technologies, and Aknamed and has become the country’s largest online pharmacy and online diagnostic entity.
They are catering to the needs of over 2 million customers a month across 1000+ cities and towns. They deliver to more than 22,000 pin codes (98% of pin codes) including major cities like Bangalore, Noida, Vadodara, Howrah, Jaipur, Lucknow, Chennai, Hyderabad, and so much more.
Their inventory houses over 1 lakh products including medical equipment and OTC products.
PharmEasy also provides affordable diagnostic tests which include blood tests, full body checkups, and any other health checkups. These services can be booked from the convenience of your own home.
All of these facilities blended with a dynamic marketing strategy have led to a profitable jump of over 220% bringing in annual revenue of 2.3k crores towards the end of 2021.
PharmEasy – Company Highlights
| Company | Pharmeasy |
| Industry | Healthcare, E-commerce, Information technology Retail |
| Headquarters | Mumbai, Maharashtra, India |
| Parent Company | API Holdings Limited |
| Founders | Dharmil Sheth, Dr. Dhaval Shah |
| CEO | Siddharth Shah |
| Founded | 2015 |
| Number of locations | 1000+ cities in India (2021) |
| Area served | India |
| Products | Medicine Supply, Healthcare Products |
| Website | www.pharmeasy.in |
Now, let us dissect PharmEasy’s dynamic and innovative marketing strategy to understand its importance and impact on growth.
Before we jump to that, let us quickly discuss the advantages of learning digital marketing strategies and how one can benefit from analyzing the marketing campaigns of different businesses.
Why Should Marketers Study Digital Marketing Strategies?
The only way through which businesses can continue to generate revenue and grow is through effectively marketing their products and services. Over the last few years, advances in technology have led to extensive marketing on digital platforms.
Hence, the growing demand for digital marketing and those well-versed in it has steadily increased.
Digital marketing helps to promote businesses and their products on digital platforms. This facilitates better brand awareness and also generates more quality leads and sales.
Learning about the latest marketing case studies, and strategies of brands will provide you with an edge over your competitors. And this edge is extremely beneficial in the long run.
Those who practice these strategies and help businesses grow are digital marketers.
There are several benefits associated with learning about the latest digital marketing techniques and strategies. It provides insider knowledge about the workings of any business.
Contributes immensely to building an indispensable portfolio that attracts better opportunities, roles, and salary packages.
Digital marketing is a dynamic and fast-paced domain and staying updated with the latest trends and practices facilitates the implementation of successful strategies.
And finally, possessing knowledge and experience is what will set you apart from your competitors and help in the creation of a brilliant personal brand.
These are some of the many advantages of learning digital marketing.
Let us now discuss PharmEasy’s ideal target segment to understand the vision and aim behind successful marketing campaigns launched by them.
PharmEasy’s Target Segment
The business module of PharmEasy contributes significantly to bringing in leads from various demographics.
PharmEasy’s target audience includes 57.92% men and 42.08% women.
Men and women of 25-34 years create 35.75% of the engagement on their site. Those in the age group of 18-24 are a close second with a traffic contribution of 25.92%.
Those in the age group of 35-44 are responsible for 16.59% of the traffic and those in the age group of 45-54 are bringing in 9.46%.
Their ideal customer base consists of those with chronic illness, working professionals who are running short of time, regular pharmacy visitors, and anyone in need of medicines. Especially those who are unable to visit a regular medical store.
During the pandemic, those hesitant to try out e-pharmacies were motivated to explore due to the convenience and safety that came with online delivery.
Hence, over the last two years, PharmEasy’s client pool has significantly expanded contributing to increased revenue and growth.
Look at Successful Marketing Campaigns Run by PharmEasy to Expand its Presence and Growth
PharmEasy Campaign 1 – DanceEasy Campaign
PharmEasy has always been a consumer-centric brand and hence, they needed their marketing campaign to reflect the same. The Dance easy campaign, created by Leo Burnett India was launched in December 2020.
It highlights apprehensions that arise in the consumers and innovatively resolves them with a tone of humor.
They focus on three particular issues associated with buying medicine online. The affordability, the accessibility, and the skepticism surrounding the whole concept
These three concepts are termed hilariously as three different dance forms, Kharachnatyam, Bhatak Nritya, and Shakakali respectively.
3 video ads were created for each of the dance forms with the BGM being a slightly modified version of the famous track “Urvashi”.
It shows the arc of emotions and convenience that develops, before and after using PharmEasy through a unique sequence of dance moves.
These ad films were broadcasted on television and different social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
This campaign is the perfect blend of relatability, creativity, innovation, and a consumer-centric approach. It answers important questions that often trouble consumers in a light-hearted and humorous way.
This approach is great for establishing a genuine relationship with consumers, encouraging loyalty and sales, promoting brand awareness, and reflecting brand value.
PharmEasy Campaign 2 – Aapki health aapke haath main hai
This campaign was launched in April of 2021 to encourage consumers to take health matters into their own hands and stop misplacing faith in the “uperwala.”
This campaign was conceptualized and created by Leo Burnett India and talks about the advantages of shopping on PharmEasy. The video ads are created innovatively and uniquely with their signature quirkiness and humor.
The campaign consisted of a series of video films that involved the characters expressing their concern over the affordability and accessibility of medicine and placing their faith in the Almighty or the “uperwala” to help them out.
And the “uperwala” is hilariously depicted as the upstairs neighbor who advises them to opt for PharmEasy.
He continues to establish that it’s the most convenient and foolproof way to have access to genuine medications at affordable prices.
The ads were marketed throughout the IPL season on digital media outlets, social media platforms, and television broadcasting networks too. They opted for an omnipresent approach to maximize reach and generate leads.
The main agenda of the campaign was to simplify the process of buying medications, provide amazing discounts and deals, and also inform consumers that PharmEasy is a one-stop destination for all their medicinal and healthcare needs.
This ad encapsulated PharmEasy’s brand image and value perfectly and successfully managed to generate quality leads through its promotional offers and deals.
PharmEasy Campaign 3 – Ghar baithe baithe take it easy
Launched in April of 2022, this campaign highlights the reasons why one should consider PharmEasy over a regular pharmacy store.
This campaign was conceptualized and created to introduce Aamir Khan as their brand ambassador and to blend his versatile acting with the versatile inventory and benefits that PharmEasy provides.
The ad films were created by FCB India and have quirkiness and humor in their storyline which has become a statement for PharmEasy.
It involves Aamir Khan playing a character who is eccentric and convinces consumers to try PharmEasy by emphasizing factors like affordability, accessibility, and versatility.
These ad films were promoted on television, digital media platforms, and social media outlets like YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook to maximize reach and lead generation.
This was an extremely clever and innovative way of introducing Aamir Khan as their new brand ambassador while still staying true to their style of conveying it.
This campaign reflects their brand value, promotes awareness, encourages loyalty of regular customers, and generates new leads for conversions.
Let us now dwell further into the different digital marketing strategies that have been optimized by PharmEasy to improve its growth and reach.
PharmEasy’s Social Media Strategies – Case Study
Social media can help to reach and build a loyal consumer base. It is great for building brand awareness, and brand value. It facilitates keeping loyal customers engaged in between their purchases and allows a business to gain access to a wide demographic.
Social media marketing can help to promote the goods and services of a business on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, and so on.
| Platform | No. of followers | |
|---|---|---|
| pharmeasy | 144.8K Followers | |
| pharmeasyapp | 71.1K Followers | |
| pharmeasyapp | 10K Followers | |
| YouTube | PharmEasyApp | 282K Subscribers |
Based on the ideal target group, the kind of products and services, and what they wish to achieve, businesses opt for 1 or more specific channels to market themselves.
About 0.43% of PharmEasy’s traffic comes from social media platforms. It may seem like a minute contribution but when you factor in that PharmEasy is catering to over 2 million customers a month, this social media traffic is significant.
PharmEasy has optimized 6 social media networks out of which YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, and Quora occupy the top 5 positions in that particular order.
YouTube generates 56.41% of the traffic. PharmEasy’s official YouTube channel was created in July of 2017 and has almost 282K subscribers and a total of 60.8 million views.
They also have a highly optimized description with relevant tags and links to maximize their reach.
They create and upload content on healthy food recipes, common medical issues and how to address them, and guides on how to book their services. They also create content on how PharmEasy can ease their stress by making genuine medications affordable and accessible.
Twitter is the second largest contributor and generates 23.39% of the traffic. With 10K followers, PharmEasy creates relatable, engaging, and meme-like content for its Twitter demographic.
They cover concepts like Consumer apprehensions and misdiagnosed medical conditions. They also make filler posts to keep the customers engaged and make their brand memorable.
They create similar content for their Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit but modify the tone and structure of the presentation to stay cohesive with the algorithm of that platform.
Meme Marketing, & Moment Marketing is other highly trending practice that PharmEasy has adopted to make its content more relatable and engaging.
PharmEasy’s Influencer Marketing Strategies
Influencer marketing is a great strategy to directly market to a highly specific narrow pool of consumers. It refers to the process of social media personalities promoting your business in exchange for benefits, rewards, goodies, or monetary benefits.
Influencer marketing reduces the gap that exists between businesses and consumers. They market to their loyal fan base who rely on the influencer’s word-of-mouth and credibility.
Hence, the consumers are already engaged with the content and this facilitates quality leads and conversions.
PharmEasy has a holistic Influencer marketing strategy in which the content created by influencers is utilized to keep their ideal consumer base engaged and generate new leads. By collaborating with lifestyle, fitness, health, and wellness influencers PharmEasy has created relatable, funny, and engaging content.
They have collaborated with creators like Viraj Ghelani and Sapan Verma for creating marketable content.
These include YouTube videos, Facebook and Instagram posts, reels, and edited videos which have managed to establish their brand identity and reflect their brand value.
PharmEasy’s Website Strategies
A website is a face or the first impression of your business. It reflects your brand identity and your business objectives.
A fully optimized website helps generate quality leads, improves organic and paid traffic, and ultimately contributes to revenue.
PharmEasy has a mobile-first approach to its website. This ensures a smooth customer experience and allows the business to tap into a wider consumer pool, basically anyone with a smartphone.
They have optimized their website for search engines to quickly crawl through them and retrieve their data as and when any keywords are searched.
They have a total of 74 technologies embedded within them to make the entire process of health checkups and medication delivery seamless.
These technologies include Payment and currencies, mobile, advertising, conversions, analytics, and so on.
The website is clear and simple with categories and filters arranged for easy access. The use of pictorial representations for different categories is a smart choice.
They appeal to the consumers visually and clearly. Their categories include health food and drinks, COVID-19 essentials, beauty, skin, and Ayurvedic care, healthcare devices, and so much more.
PharmEasy also has a dedicated section for their blog content, reviews, testimonials, and even an exclusive section containing reasons to order from them.
Overall, they have a fully optimized website that is generating immense traffic for their business. This is getting converted to revenue and growth.
PharmEasy’s SEO Strategies
Search Engine Optimization or SEO can help increase the online visibility of a business by optimizing its website to generate more organic traffic through the latest tools and practices.
The main aim of SEO is to improve the online rank of a business and stand out from its competitors.
SEO audits are great for increasing the visibility of the brand, establishing its credibility, generating high-quality leads, and improving brand value. PharmEasy has fully optimized its website due to which 71.24% of its engagement is generated by organic keyword searches.
PharmEasy occupies the 3rd position in the list of health and pharmacy categories. With a total of 12.9 million visits every month and an average visit duration of 1:30 minutes, it is steadily climbing up the rank ladder.
They have optimized around 14.6k keywords that are generating over 94.11% of organic traffic and 5.89% of paid traffic.
The top keywords of Pharmeasy attracts traffic includes:
- PharmEasy
- PharmEasy login
- Pahrmaeasy
- Pharmacy
- Shilajit benefits, and many more
PharmEasy has a quick-loading, mobile-first website, an engaging social media presence, high-quality blog articles, accurate links and backlinks, and a unique brand identity that has propelled it miles ahead of its competitors.
PharmEasy’s Organic Competitors
E-commerce is one of the fastest-growing industries. This creates a heavily saturated market of similar businesses in which the only way to stand out is through innovation and a stellar marketing strategy.
PharmEasy has several competitors in the healthcare sector due to the ease and accessibility of technological resources.
The top 5 organic competitors of PharmEasy are
- 1mg
- Netmeds
- Apollo Pharmacy
- Medplus Mart
- Myupchar
PharmEasy’s Paid Ad Strategies – Case Study
Paid advertisements are a great strategy to generate traffic for your business. It refers to those ads which promote a business on different digital platforms in exchange for monetary compensation.
These are known as PPC or pay-per-click as the business or client pays the service provider every time someone clicks on their ads.
These ads provide immediate results, are easy to measure, and are extremely flexible in terms of budget and concept.
PharmEasy has launched several paid ad campaigns to tap into the ideal consumer base. One of their earliest successful campaigns was sponsoring the IPL.
This established the consumers’ trust in them and enhanced their brand value.
Several of the ad campaigns are marketed on television to reach every nook and corner of the country that may not have easy access to the internet.
The top paid ads competitors of PharmEasy are
- Suburbandiagnostics
- Meditest
- Healthians
- Metropolisindia
- Lalpathlabs
Their PPC ads are strategically placed at different online sites, partner businesses, and social media platforms to generate high-quality leads that have the highest probability of getting converted to sales.
Overall, PharmEasy’s paid ad strategy is extremely well-rounded and simple. They rely on their unique brand image and identity and market exactly that to the consumers.
Here is some of the amazing ad copies of PharmEasy targeting different audience
They create consumer-centric ads and content to appeal to the ideal target segment through areas of high engagement.
PharmEasy’s E-commerce Strategy
PharmEasy does not have any offline stores as such as they are a service provider. They connect consumers in need of medications with the nearest medical store.
Once the order is placed, the medications are packed and a delivery agent picks up the order and delivers it to the consumer. This makes them an e-commerce service provider.
It is integral for e-commerce businesses to optimize their marketing strategies to ensure that they are not missing out on the ideal consumers.
Hence, PharmEasy has audited and created an engaging and holistic e-commerce strategy to help with its revenue generation and reach.
They have established a clear brand identity and have created marketing campaigns to highlight the same.
They have fully optimized their website and app to meet the different requirements of their business. They have a clear understanding of who their ideal target audience is and specifically create content to engage them.
PharmEasy is a consumer-centric brand and focuses on improving the customer experience every step of the way.
From the look and feel of the website and app to the accessibility and affordability of quality medication and health facilities, they have it covered.
They have an impeccable online presence due to their dynamic social media marketing strategy and frequently audited SEO.
The absence of physical warehouses is a great money-saving strategy and allows the allotment of capital to other domains in need of a budget.
And finally, PharmEasy is aware of its competitors and always ensures to stay one step ahead without compromising its mission and vision.
PharmEasy’s App Strategy
PharmEasy has optimized its app to create a seamless experience for its customers. From the login and registration to ordering and delivering on the app, every step of this process has been simplified.
A clean and engaging UI that allows customers to navigate through the app hassle-free. A mobile-friendly design that has compressed files to ensure small size and fast speed, without losing out on any feature. A visual inventory with CTA buttons is great for generating sales and new leads.
Flexible payment facilities and an easy tracking system with an optimized contact base have encouraged more and more people to download and make their purchases from PharmEasy.
PharmEasy has separate panels for the consumer, admin, and delivery executive to ensure smooth tracking and processing of orders every step of the way. An AI feature that allows customers to upload their prescriptions directly to PharmEasy’s database and generate their orders is a great application of the latest technology.
Product comparison features, reward system, refined search and retrieval, official blog access, and the accessibility of expert medical advice on the application have revolutionized the features of an app and skyrocketed its traffic and sales.
Pharmeasy’s Content Marketing Strategy
Content marketing is the process of creating and promoting valuable content for a business to attract new leads and retain loyal customers. It is a cost-effective strategy to keep your customers engaged in between their purchases.
There are several benefits of content marketing. It is a budget-friendly strategy that helps create brand awareness. It also reflects the brand value and is great for generating high-quality leads.
Sound content is the core of a successful marketing strategy. It also functions as a reliable center for profit due to its reach and ability to engage new leads.
PharmEasy has a great content marketing strategy. Relatable blogs, videos, filler posts, food content, pharmacy other exciting and innovative content are shared on their social media platforms and website.
They are actively mobilizing meme marketing to attract the general public and reflect their brand identity as a new-age healthcare startup.
Conclusion
PharmEasy has been a top player in the field of e-pharmacy and healthcare. By providing quality medications at affordable prices and by simplifying health checkups, they have pioneered a new wave of trust and belief in e-commerce platforms.
Increased use of the internet and smartphones have created the perfect opportunity for the growth of e-commerce businesses. And this puts PharmEasy in a very beneficial position, especially post the pandemic.
They have a convenient and user-friendly website and app which facilitates easy lead conversions. Medicines are available at a lower cost due to the elimination of middlemen who always cut a commission.
And finally, they provide a flexible payment system and create engaging health content. All these are factors that have strengthened PharmEasy’s presence and brand value.
The skepticism that comes with the affordable medication, lack of safety protocols during delivery, and a genuine lack of trained pharmacists are areas that still need to be improved and optimized.
Digital marketing is highly significant in the fast-paced and constantly evolving world we live in today. It is essential for marketing enthusiasts to have a comprehensive understanding of the field to stay competitive.
To explore and improve your knowledge in digital marketing, you may consider enrolling in the 4 Month Advanced Online Digital Marketing Course offered by Digital Scholar.
PharmEasy is an all-inclusive business that provides many healthcare facilities and this provides a unique platform to grow and expand its demographic. Healthcare businesses are on the boom and hence, adds leverage.
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FAQs
1. What is PharmEasy and what services does it offer?
PharmEasy is an online pharmacy platform that connects patients with local pharmacies and helps them get their medicines delivered to their doorstep. The platform also offers healthcare products, diagnostics, and teleconsultation services.
2. What challenges did PharmEasy face in the Indian pharmaceutical market?
PharmEasy faced several challenges in the Indian pharmaceutical market, including the lack of trust in online pharmacies, the dominance of traditional brick-and-mortar pharmacies, and regulatory restrictions on online pharmacy operations.
3. How did PharmEasy leverage digital marketing to overcome the challenges?
PharmEasy used a variety of digital marketing channels, such as search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, influencer marketing, and content marketing, to build brand awareness, drive website traffic, and engage with its target audience. The company also offered discounts, referral programs, and cashback offers to incentivize users to try its platform.
4. What role did social media marketing play in PharmEasy’s success?
Social media marketing played a significant role in PharmEasy’s success by allowing the company to reach a wider audience, engage with customers, and build brand loyalty. PharmEasy used platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to share health-related informational content, promote its services, and interact with customers. The company also leveraged influencer marketing to reach new audiences and build credibility.
