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19DIGITAL MARKETING AND E-BUSINESS MANAGEMENT: PRIVATE HEALTHCARE SECTOR IN UZBEKISTAN
Azimakhon D. Yusupova
Graduate Admissions and Marketing Counselor, Webster University in Tashkent https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10477972
Abstract. This research examines the transformative influence of digital marketing and ebusiness management on Uzbekistan's private healthcare industry. As the country's demand for quality healthcare services rises, the incorporation of digital solutions emerges as a vital success component. The paper attempts to explore the Digital Marketing and E-business Management and focuses on the strategic deployment of digital technologies customized to the demands of Uzbekistan's private healthcare environment, from the use of social media marketing to the adoption of e-business solutions. As the country strives to build a strong online presence, improve operational efficiency, and increase patient involvement, the research attempts to provide light on the problems and possibilities that come with such a dynamic environment in the private healthcare sector in Uzbekistan.
Keywords: digital marketing, E-business management, Private healthcare sector in Uzbekistan, Internet marketing, Marketing analysis, 7Ps analysis, Business model, Design analysis and Krug's law, TETO principal, E-audience, Digital marketing strategy, Content marketing strategy.
Introduction
The revolutionary influence of the digital sphere on numerous businesses is clear in an era where technology has become a fundamental part of our everyday lives. With the introduction of digital marketing and e-business management, the healthcare sector, particularly in private establishments, has undergone a paradigm change. Uzbekistan, a country with a thriving private healthcare industry, is at the intersection of tradition and innovation, offering a distinct environment for study. Nowadays utilization of digital marketing strategies such as establishment of websites and social platforms is developing all around the world. This progress leads to facile and comfortable communication as well as provides opportunity to establish stronger relationships between customers and businesses 5. Furthermore, with the help of internet marketing consumers may communicate with businesses instantly and reduce time and money spent to purchasing process. Moreover, companies benefit and develop from implementation digital marketing tools as they can widen audience, raise brand awareness, and increase sales simultaneously 12. In order to examine the e-marketing of private healthcare in Uzbekistan and provide the recommendations upon the results achieved, the extensive research is conducted and interpreted in this work. In this document the 7Ps Analysis, Business Model, Design Analysis and Krug's Law, TETO principal, E-audience, Digital Marketing Strategy, Content Marketing Strategy will be analyzed and the recommendations for improvement in terms of digital marketing for private healthcare sector in Uzbekistan will be provided.
7Ps Analysis
The framework used in marketing strategy called 7Ps is a tool to help to determine businesses offering 14. 7Ps framework tends to examine company's features such as: product, place, price, people, promotion, process, and physical evidence. The website and social media
platforms of the private healthcare sector companies contain information regarding 7 Ps of a company. The websites along with social platforms describe companies' products by listing services provided by them as well as indicates the location of the company and map with the help of which the customer may easily get to the medical center. Most of the private medical centers are in the city as the target audience of them are people who live in the city and have above average salary as the companies adopted premium pricing strategy 4. The information about staff is also included in the content of both website and social platforms by underlining the professionalism and high qualification of doctors operating in the medical centers. The promotion strategy of the medical clinic includes digital marketing strategy: website and social platforms implementation. The information about the process of being treated in medical centers can be attained through social media's posts or via online dialogue with the company.
Business Model
The business model of private medical centers is based on Matching Supply and Demand as the business has been created due to high demand of high-quality medical centers in Uzbekistan. According to 1 there is an essential problem with quality of health treatment so the health sector should be improved and there is a high demand for medical clinics of high quality and professional staff employed.
Design analysis and krug's law
According to the research work conducted by 11 one of the most essential aspects of website which plays an irreplaceable role in website brand equity building is the design of the website. In order to examine the website in a professional and proper manner Krug's law analysis can be implemented. Krug's law is a system of rules, which helps the website to be attractive and effective 2.
The first rule of the Krug's law states "Don't make me think" by this the rule strives to make the website to contain easy-to-understand, self-evident and obvious information. Moreover, the visitor of the website should "get in" instantly while looking at the screen 2. The medical centers' website complies with the rule "Don't make me think" because the website composed of easy and self-evident data only.
The second rule stated by Steve Krug is "Design for scanning, not reading"; by this law one assumption can be drawn as to decrease the number of words and make sure the website does not contain too much information because the visitor of the website just scans information rather than reads it. The picture of the visitors' involvement in reading the information provided by the website is demonstrated below:
According to the finding of Simpson the visitor of the website reads only 20% of all information, so it is reasonable to contain less texts on the screen to keep customer involved with website 13. The private medical centers' website fulfils this rule, as it does not contain huge portions of texts so the reader will not be confused. Moreover, the website has universally accepted convections, visual hierarchies and it is easy to understand what clickable on the website is.
The last but not the least important factor influencing customers' involvement with websites is making clicks mindless. The clicks should be mindless and unambiguous as a thumb rule consider three mindless clicks equal to one click demanding thought. The customer should be able to reach the destination in three clicks so the information should be easy to achieve 2. The website of private medical centers is designed in accordance with this law as well.
Figure 1: "Design for scanning, not reading" by Simpson, 2015. (https://econsultancy.com/why-visitors-only-read-20-of-your-web-page/)
TETO PRINCIPAL
According to Steve Krug's law the website should be tested early and often to make the website an effective tool to communicate with customers 2. The website should be tested frequently to examine possible issues and try to avoid them. Moreover, the website designer should focus on the most crucial challenges with which visitors to the website face. This principle of frequent testing should be implemented to avoid problems with operative and both-sided communication and keep the effectiveness level of the website at high position for a long period of time 2.
The website of private healthcare clinics in Uzbekistan is designed professionally and it complies with Krug's Law, which can assure low level of bounce rate. Bounce rate is percentage of people who visited the website and leaves it without interacting further 3.
E-AUDIENCE
The target audience is a group of people whom the business hopes to sell their goods to 16. The target audience can be categorized into segments by geography, demography, psychology, and behavior. With the help of demographic segmentation, the target audience of private medical centers can be established. The target audience of the medical clinic are both males and females of any age, as the medical clinic provides services for males and females of any age range. However, as the company has higher prices than other medical clinics the customers of the company are people above average income level 4. Geographic segmentation enables us to determine potential customers by geography 16. The customers of private medical clinics are people who live in the city as their income level is higher than the income level of people who live in the village. Moreover, the potential customers of private medical centers are foreign tourists who visit Uzbekistan and have health issues.
In addition, this analysis can be justified by website design and social platforms design and content. The prices are indicated on the website; moreover, social platforms enable customers to discover photos of the clinic and to come to the decision that the clinic has implemented premium-pricing strategy. Furthermore, the website permits customers to read the site in English language, which is convenient for foreign visitors. In addition, according to the feedback of foreign customers provided in social platforms it is very convenient to be treated in the medical clinic because of high level of professionalism and knowledge of English language as well.
DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY
The social platforms are introduced to reach more audience and raise brand awareness, which may lead to higher sales. As it is true nowadays adults spent majority of their time (54%) on social media which is significant number to consider for businesses while preparing strategic marketing plan 17. The graphic below demonstrates the daily usage of media time:
Figure 2: Total daily time spent on media by Ugur, 2014. https://wearesocial.com/blog/2014/08/daily-media-time-spent-online
Moreover, according to the research works conducted in order to determine how people spent their time being online out of 54% of people who spent their time online 28% of them spent their time on social platforms: such as Facebook, Instagram and etc 17. The chart below exhibits the time spent online:
Network i
Figure 3: Daily time spent on online activities by Ugur, 2014.
(Ugur, 2014)
Those findigs are accaunted by the marketing team of private medical clinics and the digital marketing strategies have been emplimented accordingly. In social platforms of private medical centers the content illustrates the aim to reach more audience, to inform people about the services provided by the medical clinic. Furthermore, by reaching more audience online the brand awareness will increase simmultaniously.
CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY
Nowadays traditional marketing strategies are becoming less effective as customers are now getting online active. Content marketing strategy is a set of approaches and tools focused on establishing appropriate and relevant content to attract a defined target audience 9. Furthermore, content is the most essential attribute of the website and social platforms as it is a reason the customers interact with the company. To create effective content several principles should be implemented while considering the virality of the content at a time 10.
Virality is a social phenomenon that is related to interpersonal communication. The term virality investigated from medical science and was first implemented to designate the ability of viruses to be spread among community. Furthermore, marketing researchers examine virality of a content as it essential to create viral marketing as "networking-enhanced word of mouth" 10. The virality of a content is defined to examine how widely and quickly the content diffuses. Consequently, number of adopters is also defined as popularity of a content, and rate of adoption are traditional tools to measure the virality in power model implemented by Juverston to measure content virality in his research work 10. To survey the virality of a content a model that was used by Guerini et al can be implemented. As it is stated, the popularity of an item is only one indicator of virality, other factors are:
Table 1: Virality aspects (Guerini et al. 2011) Appreciation Indicates the number of people who like the content
Spreading Designates the likelihood the content will be shared
Buzz Defines the likelihood the users will leave a comment about
the content provided
Raising Discussion Expresses the volume of discussion about the content, e.g.,
comments replying to another comment. Controversiality Articulates the ability of the item in dividing people into
several groups of different ideas and views, e.g. People who like and dislike the content.
Content marketing can also be characterized by implementing a framework developed by Hanna Spence 15. According to the principle of the content marketing strategy, content is the most essential instrument to communicate with customers so the media content should be as effective as possible. For this several criteria should be counted:
Table 2: Content criteria (Spence, 2017). Criteria Definition
Keep it simple The content should be simple and easy-to-understand.
Know your customer The content should communicate with the targeted audience
effectively.
Give customers what The content should be useful as majority of website visitors they want look for basic information such as phone number, address,
location map.
Video tells your story
The content of video form become popular as it is a leading channel to inform people.
Establish a strong foundation Aim for consistency Stay young
The content should be of the best quality to make a positive first impression about the company.
The content should tend to build relationship with customers. The content should illustrate new technological opportunities implementation
Moreover, the content is aimed for consistency as the option to write a comment is delivered to the customers. The drawback of the content is the low possibility of becoming viral and acquire huge volume of word-of-mouth. The recommendation for further improvement of content marketing employed by private medical centers in Uzbekistan would be to generate more viral content to make it wide-spread and leave customers with positive and powerful emotions.
RECOMMENDATIONS
According to the analysis conducted in the paper private medical centers' needs some improvements including the integration of the digital marketing strategy:
Extensively analysing the target audience in Uzbekistan's private healthcare industry. Determine their online behaviour, preferences, and requirements. Create a comprehensive digital marketing strategy that incorporates a variety of online channels, including search engine optimisation (SEO), social media marketing, content marketing, email marketing, and paid advertising.
Improve the website and user experience: Ensure that private healthcare organisations have a well-designed and user-friendly website with pertinent information about their services and facilities. Build the website mobile-friendly and make it simple for consumers to request appointments or view medical records online. Integrate live chat to improve customer service and engagement.
Hence the company enables to write a message to the company; the website should also contain chat-box or forums where consumers may communicate with each other, see feedbacks,have online dialogue or communicate with company directly in order to serve them effectively.
The response rate should be evolved as the company response to the cusomers during a day which may negatively impact on customers experience.
Provide online consultation services: Extending digital services into online consultations that can increase patient accessibility and convenience. Invest in video conferencing tools and provide safe platforms for medical communication.
Content marketing strategy should be modified as the contents examined in the paper have low level of virality
The website page file size should be decreased as well as server response time. Moreover, there should be implemented several keywords mentioned in the document in order to increase traffic.
All above mentioned recomendations are made on the basis of digital marketing models, frameworks and research results. Yet, private healthcare organisations in Uzbekistan may build a strong online presence, attract more patients, and improve the entire digital experience in the healthcare industry by adopting these recommendations. Furthermore, the private medical companies may increase sales, growth brand awareness, gain popularity of the content, build strong traffic strategy and acquire loyal customers as well.
CONCLUSION
To conclude, the website of private medical centers' and pages on social platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Telagram have been examined with the help of several models, frameworks and research analysis. Marketing research implementing 7P analysis has been established as well as business model of the company. The website has been analyzed using Krug's law and target audience of private medical centers has been recognized based on company's website interface. Moreover, the digital marketing strategy of the company has been discovered in line with content marketing strategy of the medical clinics. Due to the investigation established in the paper the recommendations for further improvements have been made accordingly. As a final point, digital marketing and e-business management have become critical for Uzbekistan's private healthcare industry. By implementation of above analyzed digital techniques, healthcare providers may improve patient engagement, increase efficiency, and gain a market advantage.
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