Use New Ftc Guidelines To Increase Your Sales
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 consumerswhich, for the most part, is true.
And yet, I just dont think they give most consumers enough credit.
Maybe fifty-odd years ago, when most people were born in Iowa, and all good ol' folk believed everything they read or saw on TV was the gospel truth, a bit of paternalistic condescension might've been advisable.
But today?
Today, who believes anything anybody has to say?
We are a nation of cynics, skeptics and disbelievers.
For example, does anyone believe Presidents, Senators and Congressmen will keep their promisesabout anything?
Would anyone stake their life on what they just read in the NY Times, the Washington Post, or saw on CNN or FOX?
Would any man trust Tiger Woods with his wife?
And how many adults at football games really wear blankets with sleeveswith their butts poking out the back?
Whatever happened to Caveat Emptor?
Whatever happened to personal responsibility? Do we really need to tell the average adult TV viewer that, yes, they're being sold a bill of goods in an advertisement?
Just because some people believe in Santa, must we put a warning label on every Christmas tree that reads: Presents beneath this plastic tree DID NOT come from the North Pole.
You know, a little bit of natural circumspection goes a long way in defending against someone blowing smoke in your ear.
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 marketingbecause 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 testimonialsenthusing extraordinary results, albeit true, must now clearly state the substantiated generally expected results, too. Not just the one, two or three superlative results.
And if marketers can't substantiate their generally expected results, well, they're now limited to testimonials that dont quantify results but merely display a common level of customer satisfaction. Of course, if those testimonials are not exactly awe-inspiring and motivating, many marketers will simply forgo including testimonials altogether.
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 they're business affiliationsi.e., that they're getting paid or compensated to review, represent or endorse a productthey must actually be a user of that product, too.
Obviously, affiliates who advertise hundreds or thousands of products will either have to limit themselves to a personally manageable handful or hire a huge back office.
Either way, their free lunch is over.
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 non-compliant competitors.
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 guaranteedeven 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 it were a flashing warning signwill obviously not increase your market share, much less your sales.
Marketing is not so black and white, so cut and paste, that you can treat it as if it were nothing more than a series of mix and match templates. New approaches to sales and marketing will have to be created, or old ones brought to the fore and refined.
Creative marketers and copywriters will still be the one's getting rich in this new and evolving FTC environmentthough they may not be the same creative geniuses from before.
Creative, as always, must go far beyond design, interactive technology and gimmicks.
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.
So, if the FTC is successful, hype in all its empty guises will disappear.
In other words, 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.
Indeed, marketers will now have to converse candidly and honestly with their target market about their product, and their business affiliations.
In short, marketers and copywriters will need to work, maybe not harder, but certainly differently, on a more open and higher level to acquire new customers.
Marketers will need to employ sales copy that is truly unambiguous, transparent and realisticyet still be compelling and persuasive.
This will require an inordinate amount of marketing skill and savvy.
Of course, this type of required, evidenced and earnest devotion to the craft, art and science of selling will force many to exit the building.
Yet, the buildingthe medium of delivery, whether it's the venerable sales letter or the rich and interactive web 2.0 platforms of todaywill not change... only the messages delivered will.
Transparency's net effect: better products, better communication
Clearly, confessional or transparent sales copy will not rescue products that can't stand the test of inherent and proven value. By virtue of their insufficient differentiation or quality, these products will simply disappear from push and pull marketing.
Yet, creating a compliant and viable marketing and sales approach, even for a quality product, given the new FTC environment, will not be accomplished merely by acceding to or embracing the guidelines.
Desire or willingness does not easily translate into ability.
The bar for effective marketing and sales communication has risen. Those that can rise to it will succeed and thrive.
Those who cannot find the means to lift themselves and their messages to fit the new standard... well, there'll be many of those indeed. And many of those will be searching for loopholes to keep old practices alive.
by: Barry A. Densa
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