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Business owners often find it difficult to know whether their marketing tactics are working. This can be especially tricky when you use a combination of marketing activities simultaneously, or if using personal

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

-contact tactics such as networking.

No matter what business you're in, your marketing should be accountable. So here's a few ways to evaluate how well you're doing.

1) Look at your sales (or fee

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

Examples of combination products may in

ncome). They should be going up! But be careful about what you measure. Some firms have a longer sales cycle than others. To get an accurate picture you might need to also measure the number of new lea

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

s being generated, or the number of appointments, or the number of billable hours achieved. Remember discounts or variances in fees will affect total sales values.

2) Ask your clients. Check

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

to find out where they heard of you. Most businesses never ask this question and miss out on gleaning valuable insights into how clients select a service provider.

3) Does your advertising and/or pro

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

Combination pro

otional activity produce direct responses?
It should. If your answer is "I don't know" then you've got some work to do. In addition to 2) above, there are some things you can do to improve response

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

rates.

-- Firstly, make sure you are advertising in the right media. Choose media to suit your selected audience. Be as specific as possible. And avoid rejecting options just because they don't look "excitin

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

", such as trade journals that might have relatively small readership. Importantly, check with your audience to make sure they actually do read the publication.

-- Use a strong headline that asks a pertinent

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

question, or gives a solution-oriented statement.

-- Include a clear call-to-action. Tell people what they should do. For example: Ring today for your free appointment; Ask for our free information sheet.

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 multiple methods of contact. Phone, email, and web site are all important. Give prospects a choice of how to contact you.

4) Do your networking activities create new opportunities for you?

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

/STRONG> One of the major principles of effective networking is to "give" rather than "sell". That is, you should look to help others as you spread word about your services. But this softly, softly approach can

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

Following aspects would a

make it hard to measure effectiveness.

To measure your networking activities make sure you track the source of incoming enquiries. Then see if any of your visible/tangible tactics can be credited with gener

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

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

ting the enquiry. If not, then maybe you can safely say it was a referral generated by networking. This is made a lot easier if you're a member of a lead-generating club such as BNI or Leads. You'll get specifi

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

feedback each week from these groups.

5) Do your marketing tactics make it easier to sell your services? To do this your marketing activities and/or material should do the following:

--

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

ttract qualified prospects (who have shown a specific interest in your services).

-- Anticipate and diffuse potential questions/concerns from prospects.

-- Be easy to use when personally selling to prospe

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

ts. For example: material should be relevant; images/charts easy to understand; and be presented in a format the prospect will be likely to keep.

-- Focus on your client needs and your points of difference (

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

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

Unique Selling Proposition).

6) Check your sales conversion rate. The best approach here is to look at your historical records and determine whether your conversion (or closure) rate has imp

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

oved. "Selling" is an important part of the "marketing" function, so make sure you assess your success at closing the sale, rather than just focus on generating new leads.

7) Does your plan have a po

.

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

itive return on investment (ROI)? Does it bring in enough new/repeat business to justify the expense? Rather than just look at the "marketing budget" as one total, you really need to evaluate the cost

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

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

ffectiveness of each specific marketing activity. Even if you think you're getting a great ROI overall, maybe you can do even better by changing or eliminating unproductive tactics.

(c) 2004 Stuart Aylin

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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Digg It - 7 Ways to Evaluate Your Marketing Plan

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