Advice You - Business

Foggy or undefined business goals - your web site needs a purpose. For example, the purpose of my web site is: "to support word-of-mouth and classified advertising of my web design services to small businesses and sole traders in the CBD and southern suburbs of Brisbane. I will know if it is successful if it generates

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

an average of at least five enquiries or three sales per month."

A Bad Business Model - a great web site will not save a bad business model. If you cannot state in one sentence what you have to offer, or why you are different to your competitors, then you have major marketing problems. Remember, your web pages are c

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

Examples of combination products may in

ompeting 21 billion other web pages on the Internet. Without a good business model and marketing and PR support, your business will have difficulty in succeeding.

Focusing on style rather than substance - it's easy to waste a lot of money on fancy Flash pages, Java script, music, graphics and other techniques that ad

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

d little to your sites value and make it slower to download and harder to navigate. When in doubt - don't do it. Your web site should be designed so that even people with older versions of browsers and slow old modems can still get the information they need quickly.

Trying to be all things to all people - getting fou

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

nd on the Internet means a focused approach to marketing. Pick one product or service offering and build a web site around that one offering. By appealing to different markets with unconnected products means that your search engine rankings will suffer. Pick a profitable niche and focus on that niche.

Using a generic dom

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

Combination pro

ain name - the more unique and memorable your domain name, the better. Domains like pets.com or computer.com describe the product category, not the brand. google.com, dell.com , yahoo.com are easy to say, easy to remember and excellent brand names for the web. Do what they do, choose your online name carefully.

Not h

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

aving a domain name at all - the use of a web address like ispname/~fashionshop looks unprofessional and "small-time". Invest the $40 or so it costs to have your own domain name.

Not thinking like a customer - your web site should anticipate your prospects' questions and be designed with them in mind. What do the

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

want to know? What's the best way to tell them? What proof can I offer? Consumers don't necessarily want to make the best buying decision, they are usually happy just avoiding a bad one.

Not listing prices - the second question all prospects ask after "have they got what I'm looking for" is "how much is it?". If you

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

can give straight pricing, do so. Prospects are looking for value, not necessarily the lowest price. Value = offer/price. If you have a strong offer and your prices are reasonable you will represent value to your prospects. If you don't state your prices then the value can't be calculated. If you charge by the hour, state y

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

our rates for the type of work you do and a typical project cost.

Bad spelling, punctuation or grammar - there's no excuse for typos, bad spelling or bad grammar. Always get your web site proof read by an independent party. If you do find an error, fix it promptly.

Not allowing for growth or updates - your we

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

b site design should allow for growth in content and easy changing of content. New product lines, additional locations, extra consumer information should all be catered for without the need for a major site redesign. This website uses what's called a content management system.

Not considering search engines - The pri

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

Following aspects would a

mary way people will find you online is via search engines like google, altavista and sensis. By adding key words to the header of your web pages, using paragraph headings, linking to related sites and other techniques, you can improve your ranking in search results.

Investing too much in electronic order taking systems<

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

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

/b> - if you expect to receive less than 10 orders per day from your web site, it's probably far easier to use a simple order form and manual credit card processing using your EFTPOS machine than building real-time electronic payment processing systems. For low to medium volumes, another option is the range of merchant tools

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

from PayPal. It takes about 5 minutes to insert a Buy Now button on your web page that allows customers to pay immediately by credit card.

Investing too little in online marketing - in most cases it pays to invest in online marketing. Unlike traditional media, with online marketing you can choose your daily budget a

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

d the cost-per-click of your marketing campaign. With good reason, Goggle Adwords is the leader in pay-per-click advertising. Learn about Adwords or hire a consultant who does. For about $5 -$10 per day you can get yourself a source of steady, qualified leads.

Not responding quickly to inquiries that come via the Interne

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

t - the Internet works very quickly. It takes less than a second to send an e-mail from Australia to Europe. Internet users are impatient. They want immediate results. If you take a few days to answer and e-mail there's a good chance you've already lost the sale to someone who understands this and acts quickly. Check you

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

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

r e-mail twice a day and once a day on weekends if possible.

Unreadable pages - your pages should be clean, simple and readable. Red writing on a black background may look rather funky, but it is hard to read and will lose visitors quickly. Similarly with fonts. Only use fonts that you would usually see in a mainstre

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

am newspaper or magazine.

Unprintable pages - if you use lots of graphics and coloured text on coloured backgrounds it my be difficult for prospective customers to print out your pages. Black on white/cream works well. It's easy to read as well as cheap and fast to print.

Using stock photos and graphics - pho

.

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

tos can really ad impact to a web page, but don't be tempted to use the same stock photos that everyone else does. You know what I mean, "man with briefcase running" or "business meeting" or "close-up of pen on table" or even "business handshake closing a deal". These are the sort of cheesy images a 12 year old would put in

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

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

a school project. If possible, use original photos of you and your business.

Bad site navigation - it should take a maximum of three clicks for your reader to find the information they are looking for. 40 seconds is the average time a person will spend scanning your web site to see if you have want they want. Deliver

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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