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Hello again

Today we want to talk about how you generate traffic – how you collect names to add to your list. In Article Three we talked about the importance of your list. If, God forbid, your entire operation were destroyed by fire or flood on Sunday and th

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

e only thing you saved was your disk with your list on it, you could be back up and running by Monday.

Traffic

Traffic, quite simply, is what you use to build your list. Traffic consists of the names of people who visit your website, see yo

; 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 classified ad or otherwise look at what you have on offer. This is such an important subject we will need a number of articles to cover it well. Today we can only talk about the basics.

There is something very important you must remember when thinking abou

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

traffic. In Article One we talked about conversion rates. These are the numbers of people who buy from you compared with the total number who view your offer. Conversion rates are expressed as percentages.

Direct marketing is built around targeted traffic:

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

e place our classified ad in the ‘Business Opportunities’ section of the Sunday paper, or we rent a mailing list of people who have already bought products similar to ours. We do this because conversion rates for targeted traffic are higher, often much higher

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

Combination pro

, than for non-targeted traffic. This is what direct marketing is really all about.

Targeting is something you need to think about when looking at ways to generate traffic. If you get a 0.5% (1/2%) conversion on a non-targeted mailing list of 10,000 names, y

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

u end up with 50 names on your list. If you get a 2% conversion on a targeted list of 5,000 names, you end up with 100 names on your list.

If you paid ?750 for the 10,000 names, your cost for conversion is ?15 per name. If you paid ?500 for the 5,000 names,

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

our cost for conversion is ?5.00 per name. ?750 for 10,000 names might look like a better deal. In fact, it is not (sorry for all the numbers, but this is important).

When you are looking at traffic, think about your cost per name for every name you add to y

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

ur list, not just about total numbers on a list you are planning to rent.

There are all sorts of ways to generate traffic, some of which depend on your business model (we are not going to discuss these in detail. We shall leave this for later articles):

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

Classified advertising - Article Twenty-Eight

Press releases – Article Thirty-Two

Articles you write for publication – Article Thirty-Three

Rented mailing lists – snail mail – Article Twenty-Nine

Rented mailing lists – ema

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

l – Article Twenty-Nine

Viral marketing – Article Twenty-Five

Free reports and newsletters – Article Thirty-Four

Search engine placement – Article Thirty-Five

Pay-per-click search engines – Article Thirty Five

Speaking

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

Following aspects would a

t other marketers’ seminars – Article Twenty-Six

Advertising in newsletters – Article Thirty-Six

Discussion boards and forums – Article Thirty-Seven

And probably a few more we haven’t thought of

Probably the most interesting

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

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

thing about traffic generation is that if you ask 14 experts about it you’ll get 14 different answers. Here is another example of a situation where you need to identify one model and go with it. What does your guru do?

Some on this list will cost you some mo

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

ney, but some are free. I want to say just a bit about two of these:

Press releases are a form of free advertising that can generate traffic for you. Browse through any magazine on your newsagent’s shelves. Here you will find articles about new products and

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

eople who have done things of interest to readers. These are the result of press releases. Writing press releases is a special copywriting skill that some marketers have turned into an art form.

People who publish newsletters are always looking for good cont

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

nt. If you enjoy writing, you can produce articles for publication by others. At the bottom of each article you include your copyright and your ‘signature’. Here your signature includes your name, your website, email address and a bit about what a great direc

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

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

marketing guru you are.

It’s important to remember you must write informative articles full of useful content. There articles are not blatant advertisements for you or your products. When your name is out there and you are recognised as somebody who produce

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

s good content, word will get around. Your signature is your invitation for people to visit your website or contact you.

Finally, stay away from SPAMMERS (we shall talk about SPAM in detail in Article Thirty-One)! When you are new in the business, it’s tempt

.

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

ng to go for an offer such as ‘Buy this DVD with 7,500,000 email addresses on it for only ?47’! Don’t. DVDs like these are produced by SPAMMERS for SPAMMERS. Reputable people in this business, especially the big players do not SPAM. You shouldn’t either.

Tha

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

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

’s all for this time. See you soon.

Next time we shall talk about duplication and fulfilment: how your products actually move from you to your customer.

Thanks for listening :-)

Copyright © 2006 Mary Rice-Johnston & Golden Goose Direct. All rights reserved

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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Recently I was at the big rodeo and I noticed on the back of the pooper scoopers that are used after the bull rides, as sometimes there is shall we say droppings from the big bull on the ground someone has to come out and scoop it up. Did you know that the pooper scooper cruise are actually in the arena 20 to 50 times longer than the bull rider?

Nowadays, prototypes are made of practically all new machines, and prototypes are more commonly referred to as test machines. They are invented with the intention of demonstrating the qualities of a new product to clients and stakeholders. These people know that the prototype is an incomplete model of the final product, and is manufactured just to show the potential attributes of the final product. It can be said that no idea can actually be sold without having a prototype.

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