Advice You - Business

What happens when control of your nonprofit's message (frankly, always an illusion) passes from your organization, and the traditional media, to your audiences? Well you better figure it out quick, because it's happening right now.

Every nonprofit I kno

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

w has centered its communications strategy around a brand (whether defined as such, or not), expressed through a graphic identity and a narrative one -- positioning and key messages. We've trained our leaders and staff members to keep on message, and ens

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

Examples of combination products may in

red that our print and online content does so as well.

That's the right way to start. But it's only a start -- now more than ever.

The shift is all about decentralization. In the past, your audiences have gathered their news from you (via direct commun

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

cations) and the media (your conduit). Not that message control was completely in your hands. Journalists and letters to the editor often reframe, or even dispute, your messages. But that could be addressed, as long as you tracked (and responded to) cove

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

age.

Now these approaches are being superceded by what's happening at the edges of increasingly ubiquitous networks. As your audiences combine powerful online tools and innovative "social networking" approaches (peer-to-peer information sharing), they c

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

Combination pro

eate online content on your nonprofit and its programs. While the audiences for this content are still relatively small, it is likely they will become mainstream. For many 18-30 year olds, they already are.

Two Key Alternative Info Sources
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
g>

Here are the two core genres of alternative news and information sites that have evolved outside of traditional media, and, in many cases are driven by a self-defined community.

Aggregators: • Sites such as Google News and Huffi
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
ngton Post are aggregating news produced by nonprofits and traditional media, and repackaging it by topic or point of view.

• Alert services such as Google and Yahoo Alerts deliver links to online content on user-defined words and phrases, directly t
nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically
users' email boxes.

I have Alerts set up on the following words and phrases:

Nancy E. Schwartz

nonprofit communications

nonprofit marketing

Getting Attention

Nancy Schwartz & Company

I use this input to shape blog and e-ne
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 content, track coverage of Nancy Schwartz & Company and Getting Attention, and see what's going on in the world of nonprofit (and broader) marketing. And I respond (via a comment to a blog post or an email to an e-news editor) when it makes sense to sh
ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi
re my point of view or correction.

• Blog readers (I use Bloglines) that allow your audiences to easily aggregate content from a variety of sources (but mostly blogs at this point).

I use Bloglines to track bloggers who write in the marketing and no
ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a
profit marketing arena, so that I can keep up, and join the conversation with a comment when it makes sense.

• Email mailing lists that enable any self-defined group of individuals to discuss your organization, and to post this conversation online. O
dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod
r block (Owen Drive) has an active mailing list where neighbors talk fast and furious on everything from school board elections to the forced eviction of old-time small businesses at the local strip mall.

Participatory Communities – Thi
cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin
k Idealist.Org, TechSoup, Nonprofit Blog Exchange...

Broadband networks, wireless access and new online- publishing tools all contribute to the emergence of audience-generated news, information and opinion. Blogs and message boards are the most visible
tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen
form right now, serving to connect folks with common interests and sometimes perspectives. Email and IM (instant messaging) also accelerate audience-to-audience information flow.

Picture:

• A program participant blogging about the s
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
rong facilitator, or the sloppy handouts.

• A frustrated online advocate complaining about the glitch in your nonprofit's system that prevented him from easily registering his protest on your key issue of the moment.

• A satisfied donor with the
ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust
nformation she receives about your nonprofit's new programs, and related use of recent gifts, shares that information on a community bulletin board.

What's happened is that audiences -- starting with teens through 30s -- have become dissatisfied with tr
y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products
ditional media and are becoming more active participants in the exchange of news and ideas. So the dissemination model of marketing and communications is transformed to conversation.

Why Your Nonprofit Should Care

Very simply…

1. Your
.

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
audiences are now participating in shaping the way your nonprofit is perceived via joining in blog and message board conversations, among others.

2. Their content may be viewed as being just as valid as yours is, and is just as easily found via online s
elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip
arch engines and links.

3. As a result, your nonprofit has less control than ever before -- on how the organization is perceived.

4. Your communications model has to change.

What You Should Do About It

Lots. Scan. Listen. Participate

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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Advice You - Everybody's Talking About You - Why Your Nonprofit Needs to Listen, and Listen Hard

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