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It used to be if you were a small business, you were at a distinct disadvantage with your marketing compared to the bigger companies.

No more. Small business owners will actual

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

ly have an edge over bigger companies thanks to the emerging marketing model.

Yes, you heard right. Emerging marketing model. The old ways of marketing are dying. And a new r

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

Examples of combination products may in

egime is coming of age.

To understand how marketing is changing, it's important to start with a bit of history. The image most of us have of marketing is based on an old comm

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

nications model, one that was popular in, say, the 1970s. That was when we had three broadcast networks (ABC, CBS and NBC -- no FOX either) a public station, one newspaper and

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

a handful of magazines and radio stations. Trade magazines and newsletters were few and far between, we had no Internet and no e-mail.

Because consumers had so few choices,

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

Combination pro

it was fairly easy to market to them. Chances were pretty good they were watching, reading or listening to one of a handful of mass media sources.

In fact, to be successful i

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

this marketing model, all you really needed was money.

Here's how it worked. A business created a good product. The business hired an advertising agency. The agency spent th

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

ousands of dollars placing ads on the three network television stations and national magazines. Perhaps it also bought a few spots on local radio stations and newspapers. And

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

if the ad budget was big enough, success was practically guaranteed.

There was no mystery to marketing. Mostly it was a numbers game. Spend the money and get a return. Busine

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

ses were selling products. Mass media businesses were selling advertising space. Advertising agencies were buying space. Everyone was making money. And everyone was happy.

Fa

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

st forward to 2004. Now, instead of three television channels we have hundreds. Instead of a handful of magazines we have dozens, including about a million trade publications.

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

Following aspects would a

On top of that, we have the Internet and e-mail just begging for a piece of our time.

Never before in the history of communications have audiences been so fragmented. Just fin

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

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

ing your customers has turned into that old adage of finding a needle in a haystack. But that’s not the only challenge -- even if you do locate your customers that’s no guaran

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

tee they'll listen to you.

Wherever we go, we are confronted by marketing message after marketing message. It's been estimated that we're bombarded with over 3,000 messages a

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

day...and that number keeps going up. How have we responded? By learning to shut most of those messages out (which of course makes it even harder for marketers to get us to

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

ct upon their message).

But the woes of the traditional marketing model don't end there. The Internet has also introduced a little thing called accountability

When you marke

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

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

t online, you can track what people are looking at and, even more importantly, where you lost them in selling process. For instance, you can check your Web site stats and see

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

which pages people entered your site and which pages made them leave. You can track what people clicked on in your e-mail campaign or if they clicked at all.

With traditional

.

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

or offline marketing, you only know if it worked (a customer bought something) or didn’t (a customer didn’t buy something). You don’t know if they saw the ad, read the ad or w

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

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

hat happened.

All of this is bad news for those who have built their business on the traditional marketing model. But, it could be good news for you. How? Find out in part two

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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Is your business holding a customer business meeting, seminar, or trade show in the near future? If so, it may be wise to consider promotional conference folders to not only keep the agenda and informational papers together, but as a business gift giveaway.

Once you've made the choice to promote your business with engraved or printed keyrings, you have to start looking at keyring materials.

Multiple factors encourage the global brands to enter into master franchising arrangements for India including benefit of acquaintance of the master franchisee with local environment; local sales and marketing expertise of the master franchisee; ready availability of sales and marketing channels; reduced investment; sharing of expenses; negligible government approvals; no requirement to recruit local workforce and consequently lower financial risk.

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Digg It - The Future of Marketing Part 1

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