New FTC Rules for Bloggers, Internet Marketers & Any Online Promotion or Selling
***DISCLAIMER*** This is NOT legal advice. I am not a laywer, and am not qualified to give legal advice. ALWAYS check what people write. The points below are a summary of Frank Kern’s Blog entry on the new FTC rules.
America’s Federal Trade Commission has, at long last made it very clear where Bloggers, Internet Sellers & Affiliates need to come clean with their tactics in inspiring people to part with their hard-earned dollars (or whatever currency is local to the country you’re in if you’re not reading this in the States).
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In summary, as far as I can tell, the FTC is demanding that you don’t put any a-typical testimonials on your website, because it might suggest the idea that other people could get similar results. If you do put any testimonials on your site that make claims, you have to be VERY clear what the TYPICAL AVERAGE results are. In all likelihood, you probably won’t know what those are, unless you make it a point to get results from your clients/customers. This seems like a Catch-22 then. |
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Well, no, it’s not. Here’s why:
Instead of quoting statistics/numbers (which people never believe anyway), the BEST testimonials are from satisfied clients/customers who really like your stuff &/or really like YOU, and are happy to say so via video/audio/text. They DON’T have to say ANYTHING about the monetary success they’ve achieved.
These ‘character’ testimonials are ALWAYS better anyway, as you can quickly tell if they’re genuine or not by the person’s body language & expressions/voicetone etc. Now, I’m not asking you to become an observational psychologist here…just use your common sense.
There’s obviously a whole heap more than I’m highlighting here, so PLEASE do visit the FTC or Frank Kern links above to dig deeper.
Oh yeah – I nearly forgot. Try to give great value to your customers and they’ll be happy to say nice things about you. It’s the hardest thing to be successful in, but at the end of the day, the only long term sure-fire way to running a great business, is to produce very happy and enthusiastic ambassadors for what you do. And that’s priceless if you get it right.
Dez.
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