Abridged with the author’s permission. For the full flavor, visit the original post on Copyblogger.
If you’ve read the FTC’s new 81-page Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising you might think the FTC is a really nice bunch of guys trying to do the right thing by consumers. For the most part, that’s true.
And yet, I just don’t think they give most consumers enough credit.
Maybe fifty-odd years ago, a bit of paternalistic condescension might’ve been advisable.
But today?
Today, we are a nation of cynics, skeptics and disbelievers. Do we really need to tell the average adult TV viewer that, yes, they’re being sold a bill of goods in an advertisement?
On the brighter side…
Thanks to the FTC your competitive landscape, along with the Internet and your mailbox, won’t be so cluttered.
Bushels of one-dimensional-thinking fly-by-night marketers will simply stop marketing—because they’re unable or unwilling to tell the truth.
No longer permitted to manipulate facts in their favor or influence perception by playing fast and loose with various forms of social and statistical proof, they’ll seek less-regulated fields to till.
For example, marketer’s who rely on spectacular testimonials—enthusing extraordinary results, albeit true, must now clearly state the substantiated generally expected results, too. Not just the one, two or three superlative results.
Affiliate marketing comes out of the closet, too.
Slapping up a sales page and posing as an impartial interlocutor for goods and services won’t be so easy anymore.
Affiliate marketers, including paid bloggers, who rely on a fast and easy click to make a living, will probably disappear.
Not only will such affiliate marketers be required to disclose their business affiliations—i.e., that they’re getting paid or compensated to review, represent or endorse a product—they must actually be a user of that product, too.
Of course, if you’re an adept and capable marketer you’ll thrive!
First off, there won’t be as much “marketing noise” emanating from your nuisance, unethical, and noncompliant competitors.
Hype in all its empty guises will disappear. Deceptive manipulation of facts and statistics will hopefully disappear. Promulgation of unrealistic claims and results will hopefully disappear. Undisclosed partiality and compensation will hopefully disappear.
The threat of an FTC imposed $16,000-a-day fine will see to that.
And with less competition your market share should grow, if only by virtue of being the last, or one of the last, businesses in your niche to survive the marketing shakeout.
However, increasing your market share is far from guaranteed—even if you satisfy the new FTC guidelines and are indeed the last man standing.
Adjust your creative accordingly
Merely deleting testimonials or substituting less impressive ones, or stating generally expected results as if they were a flashing warning sign—will obviously not increase your market share, much less your sales.
Marketers, to survive and thrive, will need to return the selling discipline to what it should’ve been all along: an honest and transparent offering of a true and widely accessible benefit. Marketers will need to employ sales copy that is truly unambiguous, transparent and realistic—yet still be compelling and persuasive.
Barry A. Densa is a freelance marketing and sales copywriter. You can reach him at 805-236-4801. To view samples of his work and sign up for his FREE ezine Marketing Wit & Wisdom! visit WritingWithPersonality.com.
