Advice You - Business

All You Need is Branded Email
Or
Always Branded Email There to Remind Me

For the past 75 years, almost every form of popular communication has transformed from black and white to color. Newspapers, television, and computers are only a few examples. (Well, some computers went from green and white to color…)

Tha

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

t leaves this question: Why hasn’t everyday email communication done the same? Think about it this way – your company probably spends quite a bit of money on building brand image. Billboards, newspaper ads, radio ads, jingles, TV commercials, logo creation, business cards, corporate letterhead, and websites are just a few of the pla

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

Examples of combination products may in

ces that corporate marketing dollars might be spent. Why leave out one of the most used (if not the most used) form of communication that you have?

Everybody Wants to Brand Their Email

Branded email can be classy enough for more conservative companies (legal, banks, medical, etc) and showy enough for businesses to highlight

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

products or services that have to have that graphical edge. Most companies can develop a template (or set of templates) that’s geared toward how you want to use them. The ability to choose from more than one template is also a nice feature to have, so you can vary the emails you send based on purpose.

Me and Branded Email Down B

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

y the Schoolyard

When you’re considering a branded email system, do your homework. And if the company has a free trial, take it. You don’t want to purchase something and end up hating it. Keep in mind, however, that most companies, however, won’t develop a custom design for you to use during your free trail, so you won’t get t

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

Combination pro

he full experience until after your purchase. But while you’re researching, here are some things to look for:

Spam Filters – See what they say about spam filters. A good system can get past most spam filters (with the exception of extremely strict filters). If you’re testing the system, can you send an email to yourself?

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

(If you test lots of systems and none of them get past your filter, consider getting a better one, or making yours less strict)

Email size – If the system embeds or attaches the images to the email, stay far, far away from it. You don’t want all of your emails going out at 300-1000k in size. That would be a long download even o

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

n a broadband connection. The typical plain text email is 5-10k; your emails shouldn’t go over 100k, and even that is pushing it. – Do note that Outlook, by default, will embed any image in an email when you click send. You have to turn this off through the Tools > Options > Mail Format > Internet Format > HTML Options checkbox (MS

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

Outlook 2002 and 2003)

Usability – Make sure the product is easy to use. The last thing you want to do is waste precious time trying to use a bad product while sending your email. You should be able to set your account up, and send emails like normal.

Functionality – If your email contains links to specific pages or areas

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

in your website, you can send traffic directly to your catalog, your affiliate/reseller site, your online video, anywhere you want them to go. This is a much better opportunity than “Hey, go check out my site at www.EmailAppeal.com!” As the old adage goes, on the Internet you’re always 1 clic

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

k away from losing a customer.

Dynamic Capabilities – Be sure you can easily change your contact information, picture (if the system allows you to upload one) and any other sensitive information on your template.

Control – Do you have control over the aspects of the design, or can the user change the design at will? Brand c

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

Following aspects would a

ontrol and consistency is a big deal in any business.

Security – Does the system require you to send your email through a different server or to a different email address? This is a security risk whether they say so or not, as your emails are all being routed through a third party server. A good system will work without requiri

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

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

ng you send your email through a third party.

I Want to Know What Branded Email Is

Branded email can fall into the following categories, each works a little differently than the next:

Stationary – Microsoft Outlook comes with its own stationary tool, and there are quite a few other stationary companies. Drawbac

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

ks – These systems typically provide little or no customizability, no functionality; no usability; can be email size issues

Mail Redirect – This type of branded email system can use (or allow you to develop) a custom template, then in order for you to send branded email, you send an email to second- or third-party servers, via an

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

email address like this one - your.recipient@company.com@MailRedirectCompany.com - which puts your message in the body of the branded email template, then send it to the recipient on your behalf. Drawbacks – low usability; not secure; hard to reply/forward email with branding

Web Based – Now we’re getting to the more advanced

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

systems. This type of system offers custom and/or generic templates that you can use with your email. You log in to their website and send your email through their site. Drawbacks – Most won’t allow you to use your own email address; not secure; hard to reply/forward email with branding

IT Department or Design Department creat

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

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

ed – If you have an IT guy/department or a design guy/department you can probably do this in-house. Create the HTML template that you want to use, and add it into your client. Drawbacks – it takes time to change the templates if your contact information changes; you have to duplicate the design and change it for every person in your

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

office; you have to host the images on your server, or attach/embed them to the email (size issue)

Integrated – This is the type of system you should be looking for. Integrated systems integrate with your mail client (Outlook, Eudora, etc) and allow you to send branded email just like you would any other email. Good systems al

.

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

low you to do this with as few clicks as possible, and the best ones don’t require you to start another program in order to add the branding aspects. Drawbacks – if you use an off-brand client, it may not be supported

It’s the End of the Article as We Know It… and I Feel Fine

Branding is alive and well in the world toda

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

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

y, and its next frontier is email. More and more businesses are switching to an email branding system, and plain text email is slowly losing its grip on business communication. Find a system that fits your business, and start branding today.

Copyright 2005 Jason DeVelvis – www.EmailAppeal.com

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

If you live or own a business in the Dallas area, there is a good chance that you have access to a Dallas phone book. You can use you Dallas phone book to find a number of Dallas carpet cleaning companies in or around the area. In the back of your phone book there is a section that is referred to as the yellow pages or the business directory.

Companies think if they got to now about their customer once, they do not have followed on them in future to get more selling and leadership. They become complacent. Read how these factors affect the bottom line of these businesses.

What is the golden rule of internet advertising? Give, so you may receive. It is as simple as that. Most people desire to receive, but never give!

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Advice You - Branded Email: Email Branding is the Next Generation of Email

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