How Bear Little Baby Capitalizes on the Maternal & Health Digital Marketing Niche Amid a Booming Market

Digital marketing is no longer a novelty in the healthcare and wellness industry.

When the wave of digital marketing by foreign pharmaceutical companies reached China around 2015, Chinese healthcare-related enterprises ushered in the era of digital marketing competition.

To date, digital marketing has long become an integral and indispensable component of healthcare marketing. Driven by concerted efforts across various stakeholders, the market size for digital marketing surged from RMB 1.5 billion in 2016 to RMB 15.2 billion in 2020, representing a more than tenfold increase over the four-year period.

Meanwhile, the division of labor among stakeholders in the digital marketing industry has become increasingly clear, and the industrial chain is gradually maturing. Nevertheless, we must acknowledge that, beyond tightening regulations, digital medical marketing in China still faces numerous challenges. For startups seeking to enter this sector, addressing this issue appears as critical as navigating strict regulatory compliance: while the substantial growth potential of digital medical marketing has attracted a wave of new entrants, as previously noted, with an increasingly refined industrial chain and many niches already occupied by established players, where can a startup truly carve out its sustainable competitive advantage?

One morning in October, VCBeat connected with an organization named Xiong Xiaoying. Unlike many medical digital content marketing solution providers that choose to serve numerous niche medical sectors, Xiong Xiaoying has anchored itself in the maternal and infant health sector, accumulating a resource pool of over 20,000 experts and more than 50,000 key opinion leaders (KOLs). It has established partnerships with companies such as Yonghe Hair Transplant, By-Health, Centrum, 999 Pharmaceutical, and Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Holdings.

In the interview, Zhang Dalong, founder of Xiong Xiaoying, explained to VCBeat why the company has been firmly committed to digital marketing in the maternal and child health sector since its inception. He also shared the strategic initiatives and considerations driven by its positioning as an “integrated marketing enterprise for the maternal and child health ecosystem,” revealing how this five-year-old company has emerged as a leader in the digital marketing arena for maternal and child health on social media platforms.

“The consumer base has shifted from a fragmented mass audience to a reconvened, high-value niche audience; the continuous segmentation and personalization of consumers have ‘given rise’ to community-based and verticalized user groups. Therefore, brands need to identify and cultivate the specific circles that resonate with them,” said the founder of a consulting firm at an international digital marketing festival in 2019.

This means that at least four years ago, professionals in the digital marketing industry had already recognized the importance of audience segmentation for brands’ digital marketing efforts. At that time, awareness of implementing digital marketing strategies tailored to vertical sectors began to emerge.

Around the same time, a company specializing in integrated marketing for content within the maternal and infant health ecosystem was officially established. Zhang Dalong, its founder, elaborated on the rationale behind focusing on the maternal and infant health sector, citing factors such as market prospects and market dynamics.

In Zhang Dalong’s view, maternal and child health represents a sector with inelastic demand. This is because childbirth is an unavoidable theme in the course of human social development, exerting profound influence on numerous fields such as consumption, manufacturing, and culture and arts. Therefore, amid low fertility rates, China has successively introduced corresponding incentive policies that not only stimulate an increase in the fertility rate but also boost consumer demand in the maternal and child sector.

Therefore, driven by the essential demand inherent in the maternal and infant sector and supported by the continuous release of favorable policy signals and related measures in recent years, China’s maternal and infant consumption market reached RMB 3.4591 trillion in 2021 and is projected to reach RMB 4.6797 trillion by 2025, according to iResearch.

As the market scale continues to expand, subtle changes are taking place. Among the numerous niche sectors in healthcare, maternal and child health stands out as one of the most receptive to digital marketing.

According to the “2023 Insights into the Unique Journey of Contemporary New Mothers” published by Analysys, new-generation maternal and infant users have demonstrated a pronounced reliance on online content and high engagement stickiness. Furthermore, the “2023 Digital Marketing Report for the Maternal and Infant Industry” indicates that over 50% of maternal and infant brands maintained or increased their marketing budgets in 2022, while the total volume of maternal and infant-related content and user interaction willingness on platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu saw significant improvements. This suggests that not only is the maternal and infant sector experiencing rapid growth and substantial scale, but the development potential of digital marketing within this sector is also considerable.

Moreover, Zhang Dalong revealed that the cyclical nature of the industry was also a key factor in his decision to launch a startup in the digital marketing sector for maternal and child health. “In fact, the maternal and child consumer base undergoes a three-year iteration cycle. This means that even in the worst-case scenario where entrepreneurial outcomes are suboptimal in one cycle, lessons can be drawn to make a comeback in the next cycle,” said Zhang Dalong. He noted that the maternal and child health sector is more conducive to startups.

Therefore, after comprehensively considering market size, growth prospects, and market dynamics, Zhang Dalong selected the maternal and infant health sector as his entrepreneurial focus. As a founder who has worked sequentially in traditional media, internet media, and new media—witnessing firsthand the evolution of China’s media landscape—he has developed his own unique “approach” to mastering digital marketing in the maternal and infant health industry.

“More, Faster, Better (Professional), and Cost-Effective” are the hallmarks of Xiong Xiaoying.

The term “extensive” primarily carries two implications: first, it refers to the vast network of influencers, physicians, and experts connected with Xiong Xiaoying. According to Zhang Dalong, Xiong Xiaoying has currently accumulated a resource pool of over 50,000 influencers and established collaborations with more than 20,000 physicians and expert professors.

Second, Xiong Xiaoying offers a wide variety of collaboration models, which underscores its professionalism. “In fact, companies at different stages require distinct marketing strategies. Our role is to accurately identify client needs and deliver tailored, high-quality professional solutions,” said Zhang Dalong.

Broadly speaking, Xiong Xiaoying’s service offerings can be divided into four major segments: strategic consulting, content operations, influencer procurement, and brand empowerment.

Among these, strategic consulting primarily involves clarifying brand strategy and strategic positioning for clients, as well as formulating social media content marketing strategies; content operations mainly refer to account IP incubation, creative direction, and co-creation of KOL marketing content; influencer procurement primarily entails purchasing KOL content on mainstream platforms, along with KOL screening, collaboration, and execution.

It is worth highlighting the brand empowerment segment. According to Zhang Dalong, many maternal and infant products are currently introducing new features and concepts at a rapid pace. To strictly comply with national laws and regulations, maternal and infant brands that focus on a specific new feature or concept must collaborate with relevant institutions and associations to validate the efficacy or value of such features or concepts.

Therefore, in response to the growing demand from clients, Xiong Xiaoying has established a brand empowerment division to help maternal and infant health brands connect with top-tier IPs, industry associations, and expert resources. This facilitates collaborations such as the development of industry white papers and SCI-indexed publications, providing authoritative endorsement for new product concepts and features.

“Speed” is achieved through connections between client brands and key opinion leaders (KOLs), industry associations, and expert resources. Just as brands at different stages of development adopt distinct marketing strategies, maternal and infant products with varying concepts and functions seek different types of authoritative endorsements. Xiong Xiaoying’s role is to rapidly match clients with appropriate industry resources—whether KOLs, expert professors, industry associations, or research institutions—based on their specific needs.

This speed is also derived from Xiong Xiaoying’s professionalism. In this process, Xiong Xiaoying must accurately grasp client needs, assess whether the concepts clients intend to promote are pseudoscientific or outdated, and then achieve precise and rapid matching based on a comprehensive understanding of various resources. “This actually requires us to understand not only client needs but also the collaboration restrictions imposed by industry associations and research institutions,” explained Zhang Dalong.

From strategic positioning and the formulation of content marketing strategies to guidance on content operations and the precise, rapid matching of resources such as key opinion leaders (KOLs) and industry associations, Xiong Xiaoying’s service ecosystem meets the diverse content marketing needs of both startups and industry leaders. By leveraging various combinations of services across its four core segments, startups and industry giants alike can identify the most suitable content marketing solutions and quickly access the industry resources tailored to their specific requirements. This truly embodies the promise of “saving time, effort, and worry.”

With this, the four key capability pillars of “comprehensive, efficient, high-quality, and cost-effective” for Xiong Xiaoying have been fully assembled. Looking ahead, Xiong Xiaoying will continue to deepen its roots in the maternal and child health sector, pursuing both horizontal expansion and vertical deepening.