Main Subject - Internet and Businesses Online

In my previous article (Using Forums To Improve Customer Relationship Management) I covered the learning/information aspect of forums, as well as how you can use forums to positively impact your lead generation efforts and customer r

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

elationship management initiatives. Unfortunately, forums can also have a dark side - in that they can seriously impact your other forms of marketing if you choose to ignore or abuse them.

The negative impacts forums can have on you

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

Examples of combination products may in

r marketing efforts are in part, the flip-side of the positive actions I recommended you take:

* Dissatisfied Customers Voice Their Complaints

Aggrieved customers who are web-savvy can damage your reputation with a few postings sta

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

ting their dissatisfaction.

If these are isolated incidents, your satisfied customers will often come to your defence, which should offset the negative comments, and may even earn you some unexpected positive publicity.

However, if

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

others also start empathising with them, and provide feedback of similar incidents of poor service or product quality, your market reputation will suffer. There's not much point in merely increasing your sales efforts. You need to im

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

Combination pro

prove your product quality, and also improve your customer relationship management and service.

* People Recommend Alternative Products To Yours

Questions are sometimes asked in forums regarding which product or service is best for

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

a particular business need. While customers may not be at odds with you, if your product fails to keep abreast with the competition, your customers will not continue to recommend you. In fact, postings about other products could cau

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

e a customer retention nightmare.

* You Display Your Lack of Professionalism

The quality of your postings - regular poor spelling, grammar, lousy sentence structure, and posts in poor taste can significantly downgrade readers' impr

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

essions of you. Infrequent typos are not a big issue, but business-promoting posts that show a consistent disregard to quality could give your prospects some clue as to how you approach the rest of your business.

* Your Postings Rev

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

eal Flaws In Your Personality

Some forum members seem to forget that snide or intolerant postings can be viewed by a large audience in the forum. These postings can also linger for quite some time as well as get unwanted negative pu

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

licity in the forums (members use the posting as an example of how not to behave on the forum).

Your testy or ill-conceived comments can often be seen by non-members. If the forum has been spidered by the search engines. web searche

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

Following aspects would a

rs can also stumble across these postings. If they are carrying out market research or due diligence on you and your products, you can probably kiss those prospects goodbye.

A recent incident where my wife Gill asked me to investig

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

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

ate an emailed 'business opportunity' illustrates the negative impact a couple of forum postings can have.

Gill was reluctant to surrender her contact details to get more information without knowing a little more about what the oppo

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

rtunity was all about, so she asked me to see if I could find out more details. The email address gave away the website, which was a mini-site with a compelling sales letter. I did my standard Google trick of 'website name' + 'scam',

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

and found several forum postings. One posting stated interest in the site/opportunity, and what the poster wanted to know was whether it was legitimate, or merely a scam.

The first response was from the website owner. Rather than pr

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

oviding some reassurances, emphasizing guarantees and refund policies, or even testimonials from satisfied customers, he started berating his prospect for not contacting him directly (rather silly, as the enquiry wanted to get impart

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

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

ial feedback, not another sales pitch).

A forum member tried to smooth things over by stating that all the prospect was doing was due diligence - which was his right. The website owner then started attacking this member. At this poi

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

t several other forum members - several of whom were actually interested in the advertised opportunity - all posted that they had seen enough to decide to have nothing to do with this irritable individual.

Forums can be a useful add

.

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

ition to your marketing toolkit. You do, however, need to avoid some marketing minefields. Used intelligently, they can help with both lead generation and customer relationship management. Abuse them, or use them carelessly, and they

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

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

will drive away prospects and customers.

© 2005 Intellinova (Pty) Ltd. - All Rights Reserved This article may be reprinted, provided it is published in its entirety, includes the author bio information, and all links remain active

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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