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Business-to-business direct mail marketers have learned through testing that a letter in an envelope will usually generate more sales and pull more inquiries than a self-mailer will.

Why is t

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

hat? And on what occasions are you wise to use a self-mailer instead of a letter?

A self-mailer, of course, is any flat piece of mail that arrives at its destination without an envelope. It m

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

Examples of combination products may in

ils “by itself,” and so has no need of an envelope. Postcards, strictly speaking, are self-mailers, but the kind of self-mailers I am talking about here are the ones that have a fold in them.

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

A classic self-mailer is a sheet of card stock, 8 ? X 11 inches in dimension, folded in half to make four panels, and sealed at the edges for mailing. On the two outside panels, the ones you s

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

ee when the piece arrives at your office, are the mailing address, return address and stamp on one side and (usually) a promotional message or teaser on the other.

ADVANTAGES OF SELF-MAILE

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

Combination pro

S
1. Cost: The primary advantage of self-mailers is their lower cost. Because they mail on their own, they are cheaper to print, are easier to assemble (no need to match addressee on

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

etter with envelope with reply card), and require less handling (no envelope and lettershop inserting costs).

2. Simplicity: Self-mailers are usually easier to design. A graphic artist does n

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

ot have to design a mailing envelope, letter and brochure, but instead designs one sheet of paper front and back.

3. Space: Self-mailers are a cost-effective way to present a lot of product p

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

otos, graphs, charts and other images.

4. Flexibility: Self-mailers can be as simple as a sheet of stock folded in half or as complicated as a large sheet of stock folded in ingenious ways, w

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

th tear off coupon, order form and pre-formed business reply envelope all in one.

DISADVANTAGES OF SELF-MAILERS
1. Performance: The main disadvantage of self-mailers in business-t

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

-business direct mail is that they hardly ever outpull the same information enclosed in an envelope.

2. Appearance: Self-mailers also yell “promotional message inside.” They are, by their ver

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

Following aspects would a

y function, promotional. No one sends a personal message to friends in a self-mailer.

3. Tone: That brings up the third disadvantage. Self-mailers look less personal than envelopes do. And wh

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

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

n you are writing to businesspeople, you want your correspondence to be peer-to-peer, not vendor-to-customer.

These are some of the reasons that self-mailers perform poorly compared with enve

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

ope mailings. Particularly in business-to-business lead generation, you want your direct mail piece to be perceived as professional and personal. If you are mailing to prospects in the C-suite

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

(chief executive officer, chief financial officer), a letter in an envelope is the method that has proven most effective over the years.

WHEN TO USE A SELF-MAILER
Self-mailers ar

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

still effective at selling products and services and generating leads, though. Business-to-business direct marketers have found self-mailers to be effective in the following cases:

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

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

seminar invitations

event announcements

trade show booth traffic generation

software upgrade offers

mailings to prospects who do not have a mailroom scr

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

een their mail (barbershops and factory foremen, for example; my thanks to Dick Hodgson for this tip)

mailings where you want the prospect to pass along the mailing to colleagues

.

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

So how do you decide if a self-mailer is better than a letter and an envelope? You test. Create a cost-efficient format, find a good printer, and test the self-mailer against a standa

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

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

d envelope mailing. If you are doing a first-time mailing for a new product or service, I’d go with an envelope, letter, brochure and reply card first. Then test a self-mailer against it later

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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