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What if you've taken the time to create a marketing plan but now you're so busy servicing your current clients that you're having a hard time keeping on track with your plan?

Is it okay to set the plan asi

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

de for awhile? After all you've got enough business to keep you busy. And, you're not sure you could handle additional clients right now anyway.

While marketing may not seem like a necessary activity when

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

Examples of combination products may in

your business is going gang-busters, it’s only a matter of time before your lack of marketing starts to impact your business.

Staying on top of your marketing plan, even when you're busy, ensures you alwa

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

ys have a pipeline full of prospects and clients into your business.

While you may be busy right now, if you stop marketing for the next three months, you may find yourself high and dry when it comes to c

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

ients, because you've stopped the flow.

As an independent professional myself, I can totally relate to being too busy to market. It seems the days are never long enough to get everything on my to-do list d

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

Combination pro

ne. But as a marketing professional I know I can’t afford to NOT get my marketing done.

So what’s a busy gal (or guy) to do?!?

Here are 5 suggestions ─ these are things I do and recommend to all my

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

clients in my 10stepmarketing System.

(1) If you haven’t already, create a marketing calendar. Schedule all of your marketing activities in the calendar according to how frequently you planned to do them

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

in your marketing plan.

If you planned to do something monthly, enter it on the calendar once each month. Weekly? Enter it four times per month. Do this for every planned activity.

(2) Hang your marketin

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

calendar over your desk on a bulletin board or on the wall. Make a habit of looking at it every morning. This way you won't have the problem of “out of site out of mind.”

I can’t tell you how many client

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

s I’ve had whose marketing plans have ended up in a file folder in a drawer. You're certainly NOT going to grow your business that way!

(3) Try incorporating your marketing activities into your weekly and

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

daily to-do list. Enter the activities as to-do tasks in your calendar or PDA just like all your appointments and other business activities.

I do this with all my marketing activities. I use Microsoft Out

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

Following aspects would a

ook and a Pocket PC and it’s the only way I know I’ll keep myself on track. If something’s on my calendar, I treat it like any other meeting or appointment and I do it.

For example, every Wednesday, a lit

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

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

tle notice pops up to remind me to write my weekly ezine. If that didn’t happen I’d either be writing it on Monday’s at midnight, or it wouldn’t get done.

(4) Pick one day per month to review your marketin

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

calendar in detail and to look three months ahead. What’s coming up that you need to prepare for now? What do you need to transfer into your to-do list or PDA to make sure you don’t forget to do it?

I u

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

ually do this at the end of the month when I’m doing all my month-end work ─ things like running sales reports, doing billing, and updating my marketing tracking reports.

Make it a habit to review yo

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

ur marketing at the same time you do these tasks. After a few months you won't even have to think about it anymore, it'll become a habit.

(5) Consider hiring an assistant or support person to help. If the

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

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

can take some of the tasks off your plate that really don’t require your expertise, it will free you up to focus on what I call “revenue producing activities.”

These are things like working with clients,

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

reating products and services and marketing. I couldn’t believe the difference it made when I hired some help.

I didn’t think I could afford it, but now I don’t see how I lasted so long without help!

Whe

.

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

n you find a way to get back on track with your marketing and you do it on regular basis, it really does become a part of the way you do business.

Suddenly it doesn’t seem like marketing anymore. It’s just

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

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

what you do to run your business. That’s when it becomes effortless.

And, that's when you know your business will be continue to be busy and profitable for the long-haul.

(C) Copyright 2005 Debbie LaChus

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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It can cost twice as much to get a new customer than it does to keep an existing one. And that doesn't even factor in the destructive cost of suffering from the negative word-of-mouth publicity that results from unresolved complaints. So it's well worth doing all you can to get the customers you've lost, back.

It's easy to get focused on just your part of the company. But if you pay attention to the connections among the parts, you can make 1+1=3. Read this article to discover how.

Strategic management is a process, an approach to addressing the competitive challenges an organization faces.

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