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How to Make Sure Your Website is Complying with the New FTC Guidelines

At the end of 2009, the FTC announced new laws governing endorsements of products and services online. These new regulations apply to blogs, websites, email, etc., so if you are using any of those, you need to pay attention to how the laws will affect you.

Now, I’m not a lawyer, nor do I play one on the internet… but I have done some research about the new guidelines and here is my take. For details, see the links under ‘Where You Can Learn More,’ below, and of course, if you have questions about your specific business practices, you should consult your attorney.

First of all, you can probably relax. Most businesses following ethical business practices and delivering real value to their clients won’t need to be worried about being fined or shut down, and the FTC has promised that anyone they feel is violating the new laws will be given a warning, and the opportunity to correct their marketing before getting any fines.

When You Are Endorsing Products or Services

If you recommend other people’s products and services via your marketing, website, blog, emails, etc. – especially for affiliate relationships, you need to include information which alerts your readers to the fact that you have a vested interest in your recommendation – that you might be benefitting financially if your reader purchases the product/service or that you have some sort of personal or business relationship with the recipient of your endorsement.

I have added a disclaimer to my e-zine for this purpose, you should consider what information you need to disclose to be lin line with the new regulations.

When You Are Publicizing Your Client Testimonials

When publishing testimonials or the results your clients have gotten from your products or services, you need to make sure they are not only accurate, but also that they are realistic. For instance, if you feature one or two clients who made a million dollars from your consulting advice, when 98 other clients only made $1,000, you need to specify that these “results aren’t typical” and it would also be a good idea for you to make clear what special resources your clients had to use, as well as what work they did to achieve those results.

This is going to really affect a lot of internet marketing “gurus” and “make money in your underwear” schemes. They now have to disclose that their client who “made $10,000 the first month!” after reading their new eBook, started with a viable business that had been operating for 5 years and a mailing list of 350,000 customers and prospects to work with.

This also means that magical diet aids need to specify that Sally “lost 55 lbs taking XYZ special supplement!” while also eating only 1,500 calories and exercising 30 minutes every day.

This doesn’t mean you can’t feature your clients’ success stories – it just means you can’t leave out details pertinent to their success. If you want to feature a success story, explain it more like a case study: provide the before, during, and after information. This will actually make your marketing more compelling, since people are getting more and more suspicious of “too good to be true” products and services.

Where You Can Learn More

The FTC – in their own words: http://www.ftc.gov/multimedia/video/business/endorsement-guides.shtm

Mike Young is a lawyer specializing in Internet Law. His blog covers the new regulations with lots of examples: http://mikeyounglaw.com/internet-lawyer/page/2/?s=testimonials

Michael Fortin, a copywriting and internet marketing expert has a great blog post exploring the concept of case studies: http://www.michelfortin.com/give-testimonials-reality-check/

Web Action Steps

  • Go over your online – and offline – marketing materials with an eye out for potentially misleading testimonials, recommendations, or endorsements.
  • Post whatever disclaimers seem necessary
  • Consider whether your more amazing testimonials should be given some context or converted into case studies.

These regulations are actually good news for ethical business people who are really working to bring value to their clients because consumers will be less skeptical of your marketing message. If you don’t yet have a website, blor, or e-zine to worry about testimonials for, you should contact me asap, since you shouldn’t be missing out on these great marketing tools for your business.