IhreApotheken.de, or iA.de for short, is building the digital infrastructure for local healthcare and making pharmacy services accessible online: users can redeem e-prescriptions at a nearby pharmacy directly through the iA.de app, order medications, book appointments digitally, and access new services. More than 7,500 pharmacies across Germany have already joined the platform.
Together with socialPALS, iA.de is now developing a communications model that allows these health services to become locally visible through thousands of pharmacies.
In this interview, Maike Hohmeyer, Head of Marketing at IhreApotheken.de, talks about the goals of the partnership, the role of the pharmacy network, and why local health communication is becoming increasingly important for the industry.
Maike Hohmeyer
Head of Marketing| IhreApotheken.de
Maike, tell us a little about your role at IhreApotheken.de!
Sure – I lead marketing at IhreApotheken.de. Together with my team, I’m responsible for communicating with our more than 7,500 connected pharmacies, making their services more visible, and continuing to grow the user base of our iA.de app.
At its core, it’s about how we bring digital demand and local healthcare together. Many people search for health services and information online – but trust and the best healthcare are found locally. That’s exactly where iA.de comes in.
IhreApotheken.de stands for "local and digital". What does that mean in practice?
For us, that means: the pharmacy remains the trusted local point of contact – but access also becomes possible digitally, and as simple as people expect it to be today.
Through the iA.de app, users can redeem e-prescriptions at a pharmacy in their neighborhood, order medications, book appointments, or use new services such as lab tests. But there’s more to it than technical infrastructure: through collaboration with partners and other healthcare providers such as medical supply stores, we are developing new services – a cooperative approach in the interest of patients that strengthens local healthcare.
That users appreciate this offering is also reflected in the iA.de app’s recognition by the SZ-Institut: in the “Apps with Added Value 2026” ranking, iA.de was awarded “Top App | Very High Added Value” – and achieved the highest rating among apps connected to local pharmacies.
Which services offered by local pharmacies are many people unaware of? And why is communicating about them so important?
Pharmacies can do far more than most people realize: in addition to newer services around lab tests and medical supply, they offer vaccinations and pharmaceutical services such as blood pressure monitoring. They also ensure acute care through emergency pharmacy services and offer home delivery. The list is long – in short: local pharmacies are the foundation of our healthcare system.
A communication gap exists here, partly because mail-order pharmacies advertise with large budgets, wide reach, and simple messages, while individual local pharmacies with their wide range of services often don’t get enough attention.
This is where we come in: we can communicate services nationwide while advertising in a locally relevant way at the same time. People respond much more strongly when they see: “This service is available at my trusted local pharmacy nearby.”
A glimpse behind the scenes – socialPALS Team:
You are now launching a campaign together with socialPALS to communicate these services – the first campaigns focus in particular on the new lab test offering. Why was this collaboration important to you?
When thousands of pharmacies are supposed to participate in a shared communications effort, implementation needs to be extremely simple. We want to make everyday life easier for pharmacy teams while simultaneously making new services visible, generating additional demand, and strengthening digital customer loyalty.
With socialPALS, we have the right partner by our side: campaigns are prepared centrally by us, and pharmacies can participate in just a few steps. The content is then automatically distributed through their digital channels such as Facebook and Instagram.
For me, this is not just a social media service: it’s a scalable communications model. The pharmacy is the sender, the face, and the anchor of trust. We provide the infrastructure and the content in the background.
What specific role does socialPALS play in the setup?
socialPALS allows us to develop campaigns centrally while simultaneously distributing and promoting them locally across many pharmacies. In addition, we provide organic posts through the platform as an additional service for pharmacies, which are published automatically.
This means: the pharmacy remains the local sender of the communication and doesn’t need to worry about anything else – but can step in at any time if they choose to. This level of flexibility is another major advantage for us.
What pharmacies are saying:
“The campaigns we’ve run through socialPALS so far have shown us how important simple and professional digital communication is for pharmacies. It’s helpful for us to be able to make our services and offerings more visible with minimal additional effort.
That’s why we also see the upcoming campaigns in the IhreApotheken.de environment as a great opportunity to position our pharmacy even better digitally in our region.”
Apotheke von Hirschhausen
Jana Scherf
You're talking about potentially thousands of pharmacies. Why is this scale so important?
When thousands of pharmacies become visible at the same time, a completely different kind of leverage emerges: pharmacies become locally visible under their own brand while simultaneously benefiting from strong shared communication that is integrated with our other centrally managed marketing activities. We also provide additional support through point-of-sale marketing materials: this way, customers see the services in the pharmacy that they already discovered online beforehand. This concentration increases recognition and therefore advertising effectiveness.
From the very beginning, you have placed great importance on dedicated support and personal outreach to pharmacies. Why is that so important?
What are your expectations for the first campaigns?
Looking at the healthcare industry: what should manufacturers, for example, rethink today when it comes to communicating through pharmacies?
Pharmacies are an extremely powerful environment because they combine trust, expert advice, and local proximity – and are at the same time the place where purchasing decisions are made. That’s why the spaces in and around pharmacies are highly sought after – for example when it comes to window display placements.
Many brands rely on centralized marketing activities – which is understandable, as they are predictable and scalable. But for me, scaling doesn’t mean centralizing – it means building an efficient setup that makes many local voices visible.
Especially with an eye on AI and changing communication behavior, trust, authenticity, and relevance to people’s own life situations are becoming enormously important in my view. Building a structure that orchestrates local touchpoints with centralized measures is key.
What pharmacies are saying:
Especially in the day-to-day running of a pharmacy, it’s a huge advantage to be able to maintain a digital presence without having to manage campaign delivery ourselves.”
Dirk Homann
Owner
To wrap up: what is your vision for the months ahead?
We want to show that we can create real added value together when we intelligently connect pharmacies, partners, and digital infrastructure – and make healthcare services more accessible.
In marketing, that means for us:
Central campaigns remain important for generating awareness of our services around iA.de and for efficiently managing performance-driven activities.
Trust and relevance are built locally. What will be decisive, therefore, is connecting our brand with credible, local touchpoints and digital distribution.
Conclusion:
The collaboration between IhreApotheken.de and socialPALS is creating a setup that is becoming increasingly relevant for the healthcare industry. Centrally produced communication becomes locally visible through thousands of pharmacies – easy to implement for pharmacies and scalable at the same time for platforms and manufacturers. When many pharmacies run digital health communication simultaneously, a new form of reach emerges: local, trust-based, and close to people.
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