Digg It - Internet and Businesses Online

The best website I use doesn't have the most spectacular Web 2.0 backend. The design is clunky and scattershot. It won't ship orders overnight. It doesn't have to. It became compelling as a quality source of content. It's a forum.

Although many companies are adopt

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

ing blogs to make their internet offerings more of a two-way communication, businesses often hesitate to adopt forums. Sadly, they're avoiding one of the most powerful enhancements they can add to their sites.

Always Hold On To A Customer
Stickiness is a key

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

Examples of combination products may in

to effective web marketing. You may think you only want customers coming to your site when they're ready to purchase. Wrong! By making your site appeal to customers throughout the buying cycle, it establishes your reputation and builds brand recognition well in adv

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

ance of the purchase cycle.

Some companies have known this for a while. You've seen the corporate blog, the "send a friend a email postcard of our new product" and the promotional sweepstakes, all of which are intended to pull traffic from people outside the immed

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

ate pre-purchase phase. Forums are another tool in this arsenal, but they provide so much more-- credibility and targeted content.

Forums for Business

Businesses often fear forums because their uncensored nature could lead to dissatisfied customers venting

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

Combination pro

in public. Even this "problem", if properly managed, can become an opportunity to improve your site. It's all about credibility. Customers will immediately disregard tables of glowing testimonials and happy clients. They were obviously cherry-picked. On a forum, u

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

sers expect to see a cross-section of the community. Having a small number of dissatisfied customers posting (and getting their problems solved quickly) actually shows that the 99% of customers who are happy aren't the survivors of a censorship purge, giving their

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

ositive statements more credibility.

Forums for SEO

Search engine optimization experts have recently noticed the importance of avoiding "diluted" content on sites. If you build 30 pages on hats, then add five on ties, you've diluted the original hat conten

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

t, which will probably cost you PageRank.

Forums are an excellent source of targeted content. People usually seek out forums explicitly for their targeted content, and their general attitude towards dismissing, or at least setting aside, off-topic content, provide

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

s a "self-policing" system which tends to produce a continually on-target supply of content.

Furthermore, a quality forum attracts inbound links, which will benefit your page's ranking. Search engine optimization often relies on buying or exchanging links in order

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

to get your site onto well-regarded pages. The goal is to emulate the appearance of a site trusted third parties find useful. A forum which has become full of quality content will provide the real thing, without the risk of being caught on an unscrupluous SEO firm'

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

Following aspects would a

s "link farm" sites.

Building A Quality Forum Resource

To maximize the return on your forum investment, you need to ensure there's a flow of regular visitors. One way to ensure this flow is to provide a continual supply of new content for discussion. Somet

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

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

hing as simple as a "tip of the week" article series or a "What should we offer next?" discussion, or as elaborate as early access to product information and the development process, can give people a reason to start coming to your site regularly.

Providing this "

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

teaser" information, however, is only a start. A forum dependent on an external source of content will die without constant, potentially costly, feeding. A good comparison can be seen in forums which discuss TV shows: once the series, the main source of discussion

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

odder, gets cancelled, the forum quickly wanes. Your real goal is to develop a "critical mass" of users and posts that will make the site compelling in its own right. A strong community can keep a discussion going far longer than a weak one.

Some forum operators h

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

ave taken to offering contests with restrictions like "entrants must have 20 posts on our forum." While this looks like a solid way to build a base, it must also be recognized as what it is: a pay-per-click system. If you're giving out a $100 gift certificate in a

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

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

contest that draws only 15 new posters to your site, odds are, direct pay-per-click advertising would have been cheaper. Conversely, if your business gives you access to desirable prizes cheaply, such as wholesale merchandise, or review samples, you may be able to

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

buy" participation with prizes for less than if you paid cash.

Believe it!

I've drawn a rosy picture of what forums can do for your site. But I can back my boasting. Consider the following example: Computer hobbyist site pcapex.com has numerous partner lin

.

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

ks and a wide variety of relevant news articles. Their main site earns a PageRank of 3 and about 4,500 backlinks on the 3 major search engines. However, their well-trafficked, lively forums have a PageRank of 5, and over 42,000 backlinks. As a side benefit, they ha

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

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

ve acquired registrations, including email addresses, of almost 14,000 users, providing a ready base for informational email campaigns. It's obvious that the forums are an asset to this site. Your site could experience similar benefits by developing a quality forum

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

HTTP = HTML link (for blogs, profiles,phorums):
<a href="http://www.diggit.org.ua/article/63741/diggit-The-Power-of-Forums.html">The Power of Forums</a>

BB link (for phorums):
[url=http://www.diggit.org.ua/article/63741/diggit-The-Power-of-Forums.html]The Power of Forums[/url]

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