Advice You - Internet and Businesses Online

As Internet marketers we all know how important it is to have a successful newsletter to help us keep in touch with our customers. But it can be pretty frustrating to spend all those hours developing content and campaigns only to have the program flop. Open rates can dive into the single-d

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

igits and click-through rates can fall to mere fractions of a percent.

So if this happens, what do you do?

First of all, don't panic. Usually, if you spend a few minutes looking at your data you can identify the problems pretty easily.

Determine Which Problem to Fix

Take a look at wher

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

Examples of combination products may in

your leads are coming from. If you are purchasing lists from other websites or publishers, make sure you segregate each source in your reporting so you can measure the quality of each list. You want to make sure you have a way of determining the quality of a list source before you merge t

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

he purchased group into your master list.

Also, if it has been around for a while, try segregating your opt-in list into three groups by age:

* Under 6 months
* 6 months to 1 year
* Over 1 year

It is normal for open and click through rates to be highest for the "Under 6 Month

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

category, and lowest for those who have been on your list for over a year. However, there should not be a significant drop off as people move from one category to the next.

Look for anomalies in the data. Here are a few things I look for when I'm troubleshooting a client's campaign:

* I

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

Combination pro

s there a significant drop-off behind the first mailing? If the first mailing that a recipient gets typically achieves a 35% open rate, but the second has a 7% open rate, then the problem is not with the list source, or the header information (subject line, "From" address, etc.) it is with

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

the content of the newsletter itself. If the drop off is 35% to 29%, then one might consider that to be normal.
* Has there been a change in frequency? We all get busy, and one of the first activities that can get forgotten is the newsletter. Unfortunately, absence in the Email marke

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

ting realm does NOT make the heart grow fonder. In fact, a prolonged period of non-communication is one of the leading causes of opt-outs.
* Are your articles relevant to the demographic? It is a good idea to survey your house list periodically to test your assumptions about their le

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

els of expertise and interest in different subjects.

Wake Up Your Sleepy Optin List

Look at how you approach the people who have subscribed to your list. Remember that with email newsletters the permission your subscribers have given you to send email to them is not permanent; they can o

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

pt out at any time if they lose confidence or interest in your newsletter.

More often than not, however, people don't actually opt-out. They simply stop opening and reading your email. I call these "sleepy" subscribers. They are getting your messages, but since they are "asleep" they can'

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

read them. Although there's no way to know for sure, I would guess that your "sleep" rate is probably about 4 to 5 times the size of your opt-out rate. So your opt-out rate is an indicator of your "sleep" rate.

It is vital to understand what your subscribers think of your publication. Ag

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

Following aspects would a

ain, surveys are a great way to get feedback on your program. You can also provide an open link on each newsletter that asks for general feedback. Very few people will take the time to provide feedback on a feedback form, but you can bet that those who do represent a large chunk of your au

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

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

ience. Take their feedback seriously, and learn from it.

Five Steps to Improve Your Performance

Following are five steps that have always lifted the performance of my campaigns.

* Get in touch immediately – From the moment someone signs up for your newsletter, they start to forget you.

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

If you take three weeks to send something to them, then they won't remember signing up and they will reject your email as spam. Make sure they get an issue of your newsletter (or an ebook, or a free report; something that is relevant to them and has value) immediately after they sign up.

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

> * Make it personal and entertaining – Email marketing is a one-to-one communication, it is almost always best to keep the tone personal and entertaining. Try telling a few stories about yourself or your company. Let people get to "know" you, and feel like an "insider" with your company

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

. This increases their personal equity in your brand.
* Make all emails "high-value" – Every time you send an email it should be valuable to the recipient, not just to you. Straight sales letters with no "meat" can dampen open rates for future mailings. Train your recipients to view

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

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

ach email you send as a valuable piece of information they cannot afford to miss.
* Test multiple article types – You can write all kinds of articles, and depending on your industry and demographics of your subscribers, they may prefer instructional and how-to articles; others may pr

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

efer current industry events, or breaking news. Test these out and see what works best.
* Test different formats – Try splitting your list and send half your recipients an HTML newsletter and the other half a "text-looking" email. Make sure that the "text-looking" email really does h

.

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

ve HTML in it, or else you won't be able to track the open rates!

Keep Your Chin UP

All newsletters can experience a blow to their response rates. If this happens to you, it is important to identify the problems and fix them before you lose too much of your list to opt-outs and list fati

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

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

gue. Variety is the spice of life, and it can "wake up" a sleepy list by injecting some excitement. Make sure each communication you send is high value, and provides something new. And keep the lines of communication open so your subscribers can help you improve the quality of your content

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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