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Product Affiliation
As head of the support team of a prominent legal document software company, I get emails daily from our customers asking questions about their websites, the FTC requirements and what they mean to them.
1 of the more frequent questions I get is:
Why do I have to divulge my connection to products or services I am reviewing for my customers?
As of December 1st 2009 the FTC has mandated that all reviews, promotions and testimonials must be accompanied by a statement of affiliation so that your readers can make an informed decision on whether or not you are biased.
In other words, they are now demanding that you tell your readers exactly how you came by the product you are reviewing, why you are reviewing it, and how you might prosper by doing so.
Even if you are not selling the product, the lack of this type of disclosure
could lead to an investigation and therefore it is prudent to disclose your affiliation or lack of affiliation as the case may be.
Its always better to be safe than sorry!
On the face of it, this might seem to be a dampening practice that might hurt your sales. But done properly, it could actually boost sales.
As marketers, we are words smiths, and as such need to use our heads and talents to put these disclosures in a way that can help us, not hurt us.
For example, you could say something like...
"John has repeatedly come up with one good product after another, and as an loyal affiliate of John's for many years, he was gracious enough to give me a copy of XYZ software to test, so I could review it for you and tell you whether it was worth your while. And once I tried it, I could hardly believe
how well it worked. It saved me DAYS of boring repetitive work, allowing me to concentrate on the more important areas of my business, like..."
A statement like this gets in the fact that you are an affiliate of John's and
therefore would get paid commissions should your review results in sales. And you also got in the confession that you didn't buy the [product, but in fact were given a review copy.
But by putting it this way, you haven't jaded your audience with the required confessions.
So although I believe that the FTC has once more gone overboard with their new rules, it doesn't have to be a bad thing, if you just use a little gray matter and turn it to your advantage ;o)
