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Marketing planning must be really difficult and complex, otherwise why would there be so many books written on the subject … right?

Well, I’m just enough of a skeptic to believe that many of these books were designed more to make mon

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

ey for their publishers and authors than to make marketing planning simple and understandable.

I spent more than 30 years working with very successful small business people who never wrote a single marketing plan. Why didn’t they nee

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

Examples of combination products may in

complex, 100-page marketing plans chock full of statistics, charts and graphs like the experts recommend? It’s because they knew exactly where they wanted to take their companies and how to get them there and they were universally su

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

ccessful.

The fact is they basically carried their product “marketing plans” around in their heads. That’s how simple marketing planning can be. In fact, if you strip marketing planning down to its most basic elements, you could jus

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

about write your plan on the back of a napkin.

Okay, that might be a bit of an oversimplification, but let’s look at the six basic things you need to know for successful marketing planning.

1. The situation. Is this a new or existi

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

Combination pro

g product or service? If it has competition, how is it better than the competition? Bigger? Lasts longer? Easier to use? Offers more features? Priced better? You should be able to sum up your situation in a couple of sentences. If not

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

, maybe you don’t really understand the situation.

2. The market. How big is the market for your product or service? This can be defined in terms of total dollars, number of units sold or any other quantifiable number. The important

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

hing is to know the size of your market because only by knowing this can you define a marketing objective. You also need to define what the market looks like -- Males, age 25-45? Soccer Moms? Working mothers? Seniors? Childless coupl

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

s? A market isn’t just numbers, it’s people. And it’s important to understand where they are economically, what’s important to them, and what problems you can help them solve.

3. Strategy. Now that you have defined your situation an

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

d your market, it should be easy to develop a marketing strategy. For example, if your product is footless, control top panty hose, your strategy might be to “focus sales efforts on figure-conscience women age 34-45 during the spring

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

nd summer months.”

4. Tactics. If “strategy” is what you intend to do, “tactics” is what you need to do to accomplish it. In the case of the strategy example above, the tactics might be:

- Begin sales efforts against distributors by

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

Following aspects would a

Feb. 1

- Have products in distribution pipeline by March 1 for delivery to retailers no later than April 1.

- Begin concentrated radio advertising in 12 key markets by April 15 …and so on

5. Objective(s). You can frame your object

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

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

ives any way you want but you have to assign a number and a date. It’s no enough to say, “Successfully introduce the new product by year’s end.” In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you might end

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

up somewhere else.” If you don’t include a number and a time, you will never know whether or not you were really successful. Write objectives like “sell 5,000 units by December 31.” Then, on January 1, you can count sales and determin

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

how successful you were. Best case, you will find you sold 5,000 or more units and will know your marketing planning was right on. And if you didn’t meet the objective? You should be able to at least learn a lesson and do better next

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

time.

6. Budgeting. The final thing you need to consider is how much money you can spend to meet your objective. The best way to do this is break down your budgeting by tactics. If you need to reach 100,000 women to sell 10,000 unit

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

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

of your product, do you have the money to do this – in terms or radio, newspaper, TV or direct mail? Do you need collateral materials such as brochures or in-store displays? How much will these things cost? Depending on your product

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

or service, you may also have to hire a PR firm or an advertising agency. Be sure to budget for this expense.

Can you add more elements to your planning? Of course. Just go buy one of these marketing textbooks and you’ll find pages a

.

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

nd pages of information that could be incorporated into your plan. The point here is that maybe you don’t have to make your marketing planning a huge and laborious project. Do what many of my clients have done – keep it simple, someth

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

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

ng you can just carry around in your head if that’s your style. The important things are your situation, your market, your strategy and tactics, your objective and your budget. Know these things and you’re well on your way to success

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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There are very few careers in today's working environment which can safely be thought of as being 'permanent'. Shifts in world trade, competition from Third World countries, the decline of manufacturing and traditional industries in the UK, and the rise of the service sector have already made an impact on the range of careers and jobs available.

Marketing and promotion expenses are one of the bigger outflows that you need to contend with. Because you will spend a lot of money you need to track the dollars you are spending on marketing and promotion.

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