Advice You - Business

The balance of power has shifted. In the bad old days, suppliers were the purveyors of knowledge and customers were at their mercy when making purchase decisions. Nowadays, thanks to product review websites, supplier forums, blogs and socia

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

l networking sites, customers are much more knowledgeable about products and services. Their expectations have also increased because if you can’t satisfy them, with a few clicks, they can find someone who will.

Knowing this, we spend a to

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

Examples of combination products may in

of money on our websites. We get everything on there that the customer could possibly want and then some! To further drive traffic and sales to our sites, we might even do some online advertising. However, in our dogged pursuit to acquire

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

more customers, we often forget that we have existing customers who already know us, who have bought from us and who might be willing to buy again.

A Bird In The Hand Is Worth Two In The Bush

In fact, the cost to keep an

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

xisting customer is far lower than the cost to acquire a NEW customer. We all know that “retaining an existing customer is only about 10% of the cost of acquiring a new customer” but some of us still seem to place our efforts on acquiring

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

Combination pro

ew customers. According to a report by the Harvard Business School, a five percent increase in customer retention can boost profits by 25% to 85%. So why don’t we focus on our existing customers?

Existing customers are known to spend more

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

per sale, buy more often, and refer other customers – yes that’s right, they do your marketing for you! All this at a lower cost per sale! And the longer they keep buying, the more valuable they become. This is known as the lifetime custome

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

value (LCV).

LCV = (sales per customer) x (estimated number of times the customer will reorder) x (number of referrals) x (percentage of referrals that become customers) – (cost of sales)

As you can see, focusing on existing customers an

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

ensuring that you provide long-term customer satisfaction is well worth it. When you get repeat business, its money in the bank!

Five steps that you can take to maximize your share of your customer’s wallet:

Be A

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

Packrat

Capture data on your customer. Know who they are and how they got to your site. Record what they bought and when they bought it. Keep everything just in case you need it later. You may not initially know what’s useful so don’t dele

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

e anything.

CSI: Customer Retention

Like the forensic scientists on CSI who solve crimes by studying the evidence, you can study your sales data to determine what types of products were purchased by the customer in the past. Use

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

Following aspects would a

this to forecast what they would most likely buy next. Did they purchase a particular genre of DVD? Track that. Did they make smaller purchases during the week and larger purchases during the holidays? Knowing what they did in the past will

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

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

help predict what they might do in future. Of course, you can influence the behaviour by offering an incentive.

Dangle That Carrot

Create unique offers to get your existing customers to buy again. Don’t just give a discount; offe

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

something that benefits not only your customer, but their referral as well. Create sample opportunities. You can even do this with services – offer a special consultation or provide added information. If you’ve updated your site with cont

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

nt, products or services that your customer might find useful, let them know.

If You Liked That, You’re Gonna Love This!

According to a Deloitte and Touche study, the odds of selling a product to a new customer are 15%, whereas t

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

e odds of selling a product to an existing customer are 50%. Unless you are content with being a mere order taker, you should take the time to understand your customer and their needs. You can then offer related products or services – they’

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

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

ve bought from you once so it would be relatively easy for them to buy from you again. If you don’t have related products or services that you can use to cross-sell, refer your customers to companies that offer complementary products or ser

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

ices.

Would You Like Fries With That?

Don’t wait until the customer has already checked out – offer them an opportunity to purchase another item or better quality product or service at the time they are placing their order. Upsel

.

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

when you've got them ready to buy. Maybe a special price that is only available at the time of checkout. We all love a bargain don’t we?

Instead of spending time and resources trying to acquire more and more

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

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

new customers, we should focus on keeping our existing customers happy. We will retain them longer and they will reward us by buying more. Understanding the lifetime customer value can result in repeat sales.

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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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Nowadays, with identity theft rampant and possibility of data entry errors it is a high probability that your credit report contains entries that do not belong to you. Incorrect items on your credit report will negatively impact your overall credit score which in turn will cost you thousands of dollars of interest when you get loans for your car or house.

Who is John Chow? Well, as far I know he's a pretty successful entrepreneur and dot com mogul from Vancouver, Canada. While reading John's blog for a couple of months I've learned a thing or two. Here are five of those lessons. Some are new, some are good reminders. Most are principles that apply not just to blogging but to many areas of life.

You can make an extra 10 to 20 % profit without increasing the price. Your customers won't object and you can increase the price when you really need to. This is possible by cost reduction. But this has to be achieved without compromising on quality of product and without resulting in deficiency of service.

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