Main Subject - Business

The online world is constantly evolving. You may be thinking about outsourcing your Web promotion to an expert who is immersed in this world as their fulltime occupation, rather than trying to acquire this knowledge yourself, and cope with the pace

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

of change in-house.

So, what should you look for in a consultant, and what guarantees can you expect?

Choosing The Consultant

The consultant should ask a lot of questions about your business and your objectives. They need to be very clear a

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

out the specific goals of your site. Do you want as many visitors as possible (as in: "We get millions of hits on our Web site"), or are you more interested in attracting qualified leads? Are you selling products? Are you looking for new customers

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

, sign-ups for your newsletter or events, media coverage, etc.

It's possible that there could be different markets for each of your objectives. The consultant should show that they clearly understand the demographics of the audience you want to a

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

tract. This includes whether your markets are currently online, whether they are comfortable using e-mail, etc. It's also important to clarify any restrictions on your marketing - for example, if you're only targeting specific locations.

The key

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

to effective Web marketing is to have a comprehensive, integrated plan that focuses on where your markets “hang out” online. It’s absolutely not enough to concentrate your efforts on search engines - that’s a passive rather than an active approach.

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

You want to reach out to your potential visitors, not wait for them to come to you. And, you want to ensure that your offline marketing includes your Web site - up to a third of your traffic can now come from real-world sources.

So, the consulta

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

t should propose to you a wide-ranging plan (assuming that’s appropriate for your goals) that includes:

* Search engine strategies
* Paid (bid for placement) listings
* Review sites and directories
* Linking with other appropriate sit

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

es
* Advertising / e-zine sponsorships (depending on your budget)
* Online public relations opportunities
* Integration with your real-world marketing

Effective Web marketing must also include an e-mail strategy. The consultant should

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

include in their proposal some ideas for targeted, personalized (and fully opt-in) e-mail that is compliant with all State and Federal laws. This requires a contact database that you can use to select out the different audiences that you might have

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

or these messages. The consultant should also be able to help you create this, if required.

And finally, the consultant should explain how they propose to evaluate the success of any marketing campaign against your goals and objectives. Marketin

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

g is an ongoing process, during which you’ll learn a lot about your site and about your visitors. This knowledge should be analyzed and used to tweak your site and refine your business strategies. A good consultant will be able to work with you to

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

chieve this.

What Guarantees Can You Expect?

Let’s be very clear - there is a distinction, which often gets blurred, between sales and marketing. The job of a marketing consultant is to bring qualified traffic to your site (or in other words,

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

into your storefront). Completing the sale is then a separate challenge.

Marketing is also a very gray area, in which it’s difficult to provide cast-iron guarantees of results. This is particularly true in the area of search engine optimization,

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

since the search engines are so unpredictable. In my opinion, if a consultant promises you "top ten placement" you should be very wary - it's possible that they are using tactics that could be classified as spam - soon if not now.

And that can re

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

lly hurt you - I have a colleague who was banned from Google because he hired "experts" who used this type of approach.

Obviously you do want to check that the consultant has a good track record, and that they can provide references from other cli

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

ents. I believe that good Web knowledge and proven online marketing tactics are as important as an in-depth familiarity with your industry.

In setting your contract with the consultant, it's important to have a mutual comfort level with your goal

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

, expectations and budget. There are many opportunities for free promotion online, but if you're prepared to spend some money, you can potentially build your traffic faster. Since building awareness of a site takes time, perhaps a minimum six-month

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

period would be advisable, but with appropriate get-out clauses for both parties.

Conclusion

Good Web marketing is a team effort! Hire a consultant who you feel very comfortable with, who asks lots of questions to really understand your busin

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

ss and your goals, and who seems genuinely interested in promoting you. But then be prepared to work with them - respect and consider their suggestions, and allow them to be creative in their approach.

© Philippa Gamse, 2003. All rights reserved

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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Many of our clients have a hard time finding and retaining top sales talent. So we’re focusing on helping them through that process as an engine for growth of their companies. On the other hand we also have found that lots of top candidates are having a difficult time finding great job opportunities, and so the mission of helping people to find great work is one that’s important to us – we like helping people find great jobs.

If you need to raise some sizable funds for your favorite organization or charity then a fund raising auction is one of your...

Many times our jobs don’t require us to think in order to do them. Sometimes, our jobs require us NOT to think in order to do them. It is my experience that people know more about their jobs than their jobs require of them. They know more than what they do. In getting people to do more of what they know, leaders need to recognize that the people in their organizations are more than what their jobs have permitted them to become.

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