How AI Transforms Healthcare Marketing: Insights & Innovation

Jasrita Dhir: – First of all fight for marketing to have a seat at the table because many tables don’t offer a seat to marketing that’s also true right today the consumers of today are all online and on different mediums, I was to talk about Healthcare per se, then there are two kinds of audiences that we have to interact with right there is the consumption audience could be older people who are on more on Facebook or more on YouTube right so people in that age group say 35 to 45 to 50 in that age group you know you try and get them on if they’re professionals on LinkedIn you know if they’re otherwise on Instagram, etc.

Mehul Ashar:- Hello ladies and gentlemen welcome to yet another episode of the Growth Genius podcast where we bring to you growth stories in marketing and business powered by Infidigit the SEO specialists in today’s episode we have a growth genius who started a career from entertainment but then moved on to healthcare and has spent a considerable amount of time in the healthcare industry she is also passionate about cost-based marketing and CSR initiatives please join me in welcoming Miss Jasrita Dhir who is the director marketing and Communications at Karkino healthcare thanks Jasrita for coming on to the podcast the growth genius we are truly grateful to you for taking out the time.

Jasrita:- Thank you so much thank you Mehul for inviting me I’ve been wanting to be on this podcast So yeah thank you for inviting me.

Mehul:- Let’s start with this wanted to know more about your role at Karkino’s Healthcare, so tell us about that first.

Jasrita:- Sure so Mehul my role at Karino’s Healthcare entails creating a preference for brand Kino to create preference for the brand we have to first understand what what the brand is trying to do Karkinos what it is trying to do is democratize the space of Cancer Care um build access and affordability in tier three tier four cities so that people do not have to a you know burn a huge hole in their pocket and second also are assured of better outcomes you understand while the human body nobody can ensure an outcome in healthcare we know that but we also know for a fact that if Cancers get picked up in stage one and stage two or even in pre-cancerous stage then the outcomes are that much more better than stage three and stage four whereas the reality is that whether it’s Bombay or bilaspur cutting across genders cutting across income groups cutting across your propensity to pay all of these um you know parameters 70% of the cancers come up in stage three and stage four and that’s what we are trying to change so my role entails creating preference for brand Karkinos amplifying the message um ensuring that attitudinal and behavioral change comes and I know that not one campaign would be adequate for that one has to keep chipping at it you know month and month on and month on and year on and year on but start somewhere to be able to have people having more positive disposition towards cancer screenings towards Cancer Care and towards being more cancer literate.

Mehul:- Yes I think that is the need of the hour to nip it in the bud if I may say but yeah I mean that is very important today across geography so thanks for sharing I want to understand more about you know how do you you know to personalize this experience for you know the end user because at the end you know not every case is the same so how do you ensure that you do that?

Jasrita:- Yeah so I’ll take two or three examples um the first is that that um we have a digital app called you know the the digital risk assessment app and in which any individual you can download the app and take a digital risk assessment and because it’s the digital risk assessment of that individual um the report that you get is not of a person like you but the you know so so it’s tailored to one each one everyone depending on that individual’s risk profile the family history etc etc so I think there’s personalization at that level where the digital medium comes at play but also at a More far-reaching Level we do have our Command Center um and the customer support Executives we call them care mitras so our Command Center is fluent in 18 different languages so if there is a person you know who’s taken a community risk assessment let’s say in Kerala then the Care Mitra will talk to that person in Malayalam and tell that person that listen in your taluka or in your District or in your Village whatever it is here is the nearest hospital that you can go to you’re you’re highrisk and because you’re high risk you need to go to this facility so try and get those people into the treatment funnel at whatever stage that they need to get into the treatment funnel right so that’s a second example that I can give you and so on and so forth there are many such examples but that’s how we try to personalize it because each human body is different true each one’s risk profile is different how they interact with the environment is different and therefore we try and personalize it as much as possible.

Mehul:- That’s amazing I mean you can at every stage you can you know ensure getting people at different levels of the funnel wherever it can be because the sooner the better of course but I mean it starts from there and at every stage you have those I would say like points where you can probably know get these patients to access healthcare so to say so that you know the treatment starts earlier right that’s wonderful great.

Jasrita:- Absolutely.

Mehul:- Coming to the you know the changes that we have seen in marketing you know there has been a lot of change how do you get to your consumers in today’s digital age?

Jasrita:- Since the consumer has moved digital the core marketing fundamental doesn’t change mle right I mean you and I have been marketeers for long enough and as a marketeer you’re told that go and show your product or service where the consumer is so if you know taking a us examp example if people are at the Super Bowl then you put out a Super Bowl ad right um there are Brands full are brands for which IPL is important so there are ads which are being made for IPL okay there was one point in time not now when in cinema marketing was big so you make something tailor for that right the point I’m trying to make is that as marketeers we are trained to follow where the consumer is right and today the consumer of today is all online and on different mediums if I were to talk about Healthcare per other there are two kinds of audiences that we have to interact with right there is the consumption audience could be older people who are on more on Facebook who are more on YouTube right um we know that postco the amount of YouTube content whether it is recipes whether it is old songs that the elderly generation is consuming is serious is is it’s quite serious the amount of the copious amounts of content that they consume on WhatsApp on Facebook and YouTube so obviously you have to be there for the consumption audience were taking decisions for themselves still in a healthy stage and then there are people like you and I who have you know at at a life stage where um you know the children are young but also the parents are aging right so people in that age group say 35 to 45 to 50 in that age group you know you try and get them on if they’re professionals on LinkedIn you know if they’re otherwise on Instagram etc etc so really we try and make the brand relevant for them across all these mediums and across all these touch points right so again to take some specific examples January was the cervical cancer awareness month so we did have different experts from within our system and experts from outside you know doing joint Facebook live sessions Etc or ask me anything sessions Etc right um so so on and so forth we try the consumer has moved there they’ve made it easy for us so wherever the consumer is FL talking we just ensure that we present the brand but present the brand in a clutter breaking way so that they’re able to you know appreciate what the brand has to say um and at the same time um you know we also be able to take action on what we expect them to take action.

Mehul:- Wonderful so very nicely put very simply such a complex question so thanks for that and I want to know your views on you know what is the future of healthcare marketing.

Jasrita:- The good bad and the otherwise well um yes the the future of healthcare marketing if you look at it from purely from a statistic standpoint the demographic dividend that we keep talking about India is going to lose that in about a decade and a half we know that starting 2030 2035 we going to be an aging Nation right and lot of diseases of comorbidities and you know complexities come along with it with an aging population as we as we are seeing with us as we seeing with Japan with with Germany with traditionally aging populations so I think first of all from if I look at it from only a statistical standpoint then the future of healthcare marketing is that it’s I don’t see it losing relevance anytime soon if there going to be more people sick if people are going to live longer but less healthier Lifestyles because you know there is a twin Factor at play that the lifestyles have become the lifestyles have become poorer but the lifespans have become longer so people are living longer but not necessarily Healthy Lifestyles thanks to our food choices the cities that we live in polluted air etc etc so I think from a from a standpoint of relevance Healthcare marketing would be relevant and more relevant so that’s Point number one that I can speak about second point that I can talk about is um as at least in cities or in smaller towns right if not so much Villages as people are becoming more and more Health aware and again there are two factors at play one is the urban populations who just want to stay healthier for to be able to see their children’s Milestones etc etc so so there is a there is a more of a you know a pull mechanism at play and the second Trend that’s happening is that we are seeing that what non-communicable diseases are on the rise right so people are having more diabetes even in even in smaller towns at one point in time at least when we started out maybe a decade and a half ago it was said the diabetes is the disease of the elite of the rich right it’s afflicting rich and poor alike um so so as more and more people in smaller towns get Afflicted with diabetes with heart diseases with strokes and with Cancers right there is this fear to say I don’t want to be caught unawares okay so let me be more conversent with it and therefore Healthcare Marketing with the digital Revolution post the GE age with the spot and vernacular that is happening vernacular marketing video marketing that’s happening people everyone is on video video everyone is seeing in down you know age whatever iike right so therefore a healthcare marketers Avenues right and also Market a geographical expansion would happen but of course they have to make it more bite-sized more snack sized information rather than to longterm make it simpler um and make it reach out to people in vernacular languages use the video medium a lot right stuff like that so I think therefore there is there is that’s the second thing that I can talk about in healthcare marketing the third and that is more for devices and that’s more for pathology if I would say as a market I think the risk is that already the sectors are becoming very very commoditized right so also a thing that Healthcare marketeers have to figure out in the future is that how to decomod it right because today it’s already come to a stage where it is said um so many tests in 2499 and then there is a red cross on it more number of tests and less money right it’s already being sold like a saree sale no disrespect right so how do you decomod it in the future is also a challenge it’s not all hunky dory um that’s the third thing and fourth for healthcare marketing another thing that has not changed these are obviously Change changes that has not changed is um a healthcare marketer always always has to ensure that it is for profit I’m talking about those who are in the non- NGO sector that it’s while it is for-profit but it cannot be profiteering right so we cannot just be profiteering of people’s misery and I think that is something that this is something that stays as a ground rule across um those are three or four things which I think are the future of healthcare marketing.

Mehul:- Thanks you have covered a lot of spe Bas in that thank you so much coming to the next question where do you see the organic search in the Journey of building a brand in the digital space?

Jasrita:- Very much I think this is um organic is what drives trust and trust is synonymous with Healthcare as a category I I think for most categories um you know you first buy the individual buy into the promise of the individual or the brand then you buy the products and the service right like the say whether it’s a salesperson or it’s whatever it says first I need to buy into your promise your personal credibility and then I’ll buy off you okay so trust is important for any transaction but more so when people have to trust their life and limb so to say okay it’s it’s not something where you have a redo option so therefore if trust is so much more important in this category then trust we know gets built more from the organic roote than the non-organic route because you can get people paid media somehow doesn’t have it has its utility I’m not saying it doesn’t have its utility it has has its utility you have to when reach is of importance when you want to reach people onas then you have to use paid marketing that’s fine but we cannot expect lead generation to do the job of building trust with the brand you know who the brand is what they do why you should care with them that job is done by organic whether it is through the testimonials route you know or it is through very well- written blogs which are well indexed in SEO Etc so um the the the life of um you know and the importance of organic is indispensable when it comes to healthcare and I see I only see this growing with more and more content and content marketing coming in both the short form and the long form.

Mehul:- Great that’s pretty interesting thanks Jasrita for that this question I have to ask because this is the buzzword today so what is your take on it?

Jasrita:- Let’s guess it AI now is the time that AI will make an entry into the podcast no question no podcast no panel discussion is complete without a discussion on AI.

Mehul:- True so what’s your take on AI in marketing?

Jasrita:- Lot of benefits to it you know I don’t know we see that it simplifies many tasks um and not every task in marketing is creative let’s face it right not everything people tend to see if look at marketing as a field where only Creative Marketing is done AI helps it in that kind of tasks you know so when we have to do translations or into different vernacular languages or putting together a press release right by no means am I saying that just get AI to write the draft and then push it off right, of course, human intervention is required but that job for which you would have to labor a lot some of those things I think AI has made very very um time effective if I may say very very time effective and very very cost effective um and those are the efficiencies and the effectiveness that I think we have to sort of acknowledge so for comms for PR for Content Etc um the possibilities are boundless.

Mehul:- Wonderful thanks and coming to the next question in AI do you use AI in your marketing activities and if so please share a few examples for our audience.

Jasrita:- Exactly the things that I just spoke about you know so whether it is um you know we use that a lot in our translations we’re using that to put together the first draft of a press release which then obviously goes changes Etc um we’re also trying to use that to figure out you know what’s your traditional AB testing that we used to do for creatives um you know which images are resonating with our audience um you know the placement of the logo where um which headline or which sub-headline Etc we using AI for that as well so these are some of the areas but also I think for us these are early days um so this is just the tip of the iceberg um and if you were to do this podcast maybe six months later or a year later I’ll have many more examples to give.

Mehul:- Wonderful thanks you have already started your journey in AI as we speak that’s wonderful just any specific growth stories that you would like to share from your professional Journey?

Jasrita:- Yes um I think Mehul won um that I don’t Tire ever of telling people because that’s really the impact of marketing and and and the proof of the pudding especially for us marketeers except for lead generation one doesn’t get to see so soon right um so that’s a story that I don’t Tire of telling anyone I’m happy to sort of recm that story here also um so this is year 2015-16 where you know at Fortis I was at that time with Fortis and what we were thinking of is that what is a higher purpose that the brand can stand for the brand brand cannot just stand for saving and enriching lives that’s the business that we are in when you are a tertiary healthcare provider in that space whoever it is us or our competition people will come to you to fix their knees to fix their spines to fix their hearts and to do that is the business that you are in that’s the service that you render that cannot be the higher purpose so what’s the higher purpose that one can stand for and at the same time we thought that how about the higher purpose of at that time the you know second largest Healthcare brand of the country private healthcare brand of the country which also helps the country standing in some way so therefore we took on this very lofty outcome of trying to change the organ donation rate of the country so so for those who might be uninitiated with it a little bit um you know there is like there there are Health indices that we all see that who puts together with the infant mortality rate or the maternal mortality rate or you know defecation free etc etc in such things there’s also an organ donation rate which is the deceased or the um you know organs that we Harvest from people who have died you know so the deceased organ donation rate of the country simply that what’s the population of the country the measure the unit for it is per million population um and we looked at some of the countries like Brazil and Spain who were the table toppers at and I’m talking about 2015 their numbers were they had 35 donors per million population they had 40 donors per million population and for us as a country in India we realized that for a country of a billion we didn’t even have one per million population one donor per million population billion people the organ donation rate at that point in time was 0.45 as we speak let’s do something about it and and we also knew that you know you cannot be phous enough to think that even though you’re the second largest Healthcare brand of the country this is something that we’ll be able to do all by ourselves no we had no such hubis to you know dwell into so um what forus did is put together a platform where other private healthcare providers could come but also spoke to ases spoke to Noto Soo rotto Noto is the National Organ to show transplant organizations Soo is State and rotto is regional Etc these are all government bodies right so there is a there’s a sort of a tripartite you know you know engagement going on with other private providers with the government and all the NGOs who are working in that space right so we put together this platform and while there was some serious work happening in this area which is the training the nurses and having the protocols and and going to States and say ratify to the you know organ donation act so that organs can be harvested in the State Chennai or Tamil Nadu is a model state in India for that perspective and you might have heard that a lot of people do go to Chennai and take up residence there to get a organ right so all of this was happening but from a brand standpoint from a communication standpoint we had to tell people that this is a problem everyone can sign up to be an organ donor age no bar anyone can be a pledge right it it’ll only come to the stage that if in the unfortunate event you know whether you are a eligible donor or not right but at least everyone should pledge they should carry this card with them which says that I’m a proud organ Doner okay so in the unfortunate event that it happens God forbid then the police the First Responders the ambulance the hospital and your family everyone knows that you know you’ve signed up for this noble cause other lives can be saved so in marketing we said that no one thing will cut it and therefore you know we did a special project with NDTV at that point in time and the NDTV fought is more to give initiative and and I think beautifully termed more to give because the idea was that no matter who you are everyone has more to give right so in the first year we did have army veterans War veterans who had lost a limp um Coming forward and saying I have done this for my country but I still have more to give I lost let’s say an arm in in a war but I still have more to give and I’ve pledged my organs right the second year we had organ donors organ recipients who were on weight list them talking to others and saying that you know I’m on a weight list for a liver I’m signing up to donate my kidneys you know that’s like that’s like a jab in the gut which makes us healthy individuals feel what’s wrong with us you know why aren’t we doing it if they can do it why can’t we and in the third year we had spots persons do that whether it was Skits whether it was nuker natak whether it was getting you know celebrities to speak about it influencers walkon that we did on Organ donor day across simultaneous wathon walking the streets of India raising awareness you name it and we did that for 3 years um and I would not say that it was only us it was a effort that was being done by lot of other like all the people that I mentioned in the ecosystem but with that combined effort in 2018-19 um and post that in 2020 you know with covid you know the priorities for everyone change but in 2018-19 we crossed the one donor per mil million Mark you know so so when you see that or or you have a campaign and in two months you get a call from somebody who was the face of the campaign saying listen we put this out on TV and now my father has got a liver or a kidney um I think there’s nothing more goosebumpers than that there’s nothing more gratifying than that so for me this stops it all that you were able to create a little Ripple in the system give a platform where everyone’s efforts sort of compounded and and the some of the part is much bigger than the individual parts put together.

Mehul:- True very true I mean this was something that made a lot of news and I mean thanks for sharing that because you know people want to know you know what is the kind of impact that it has made thanks for that inside the because this was a big initiative and it ran for a couple of years and there there were so many of so many stakeholders who joined had because this is something which is you know which looks simple but it is a complex address you know the complex problem to address so so thanks for sharing your insights on this.

Jasrita:- Thank you Mehul.

Mehul:- Coming to our last question any takeaways that you would like to share for budding professionals before we sign off?

Jasrita:- I would say one because that’s guided me always um be the voice of the consumer on the table first of all fight for marketing to have a seat at the table because there many tables that don’t offer a seat to marketing that’s also true right sales has a seat on the table and finance has a seat on the table but oftentimes marketing has to rest its way so I think first of all um fight your way for that seat on the table but once you have the seat on the table always remember that you are the consumer’s voice right like Finance they have to ensure the financial health of the company the task is very cut out for human relations it is the internal stakeholders for employee always always remember we not there to make campaigns which please the powers that be right it’s very easy to become that indolent lazy marketeer very easy very convenient reap some Revenue itself but the one who’s paying for the services is nobody on that table we have to remember that the CFO the CEO the COO nobody’s paying for the services who’s paying for the services and therefore paying for each one of our salaries and the bills is the consumer is the customer and since a customer doesn’t have a seat on the table marketeer is the voice of the customer so always way even if it is unpopular even if it’s a little not political you know I mean not the best thing politically correct to say but always say what you hear from your research what you hear from the street and what your customer is telling you.

Mehul:- And rightly so because you started with yes marketing has to have a place on the table in the first place and you know in many Industries you know this is still something which is you know building up now fortunately and obviously what marketing stands for is something which you very nicely put of course the consumer because at the end of the day, he pays for everyone’s salary and keeps the company yeah you or she know pays for everyone’s salary and keeps the things going so yeah absolutely on point I would say so thanks a lot Jasrita for all these insights anything else you would like to share.

Jasrita:- Thank you Mehul for having me this is a wonderful podcast that you do and quite a lineup that you’ve had so more power to you and thank you very much for having me here I enjoyed my time talking to you.

Mehul:- Wonderful so nice of you thanks so ladies and gentlemen we come to the end of yet another exciting podcast on the growth genius platform and this podcast is slightly more I would say interesting because we normally don’t get many help healthcare marketeers on the podcast and Jasrita addressed a few very important points in this podcast where she spoke about how healthcare per se is though for profit but not for profiteering that is something which is very insightful and also she talked about her passion and one of the best projects that she has handled that was on organ donation which actually helped us to move the needle on organ donation Across the Nation so I would not talk talk much about the podcast here I would like you to go through the entire podcast and as you know all our podcasts are available on all the platforms be it video or audio The Links of these platforms are mentioned in the description below so enjoy the podcast and keep learning and keep inspiring thank you.