{"id":1845,"date":"2009-04-15T15:02:18","date_gmt":"2009-04-15T15:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/?p=1845"},"modified":"2009-04-15T15:02:18","modified_gmt":"2009-04-15T15:02:18","slug":"ftc-kicks-marketers-in-the-testimonials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/ftc-kicks-marketers-in-the-testimonials\/","title":{"rendered":"FTC Kicks Marketers In The Testimonials"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Have you heard the latest FTC hoopla?<\/p>\n<p>The gummint &#8220;chatter&#8221; about how they are reviewing the testimonial laws and (from what I&#8217;ve seen) making them so tight, it won&#8217;t hardly even be worth using testimonials anymore?<\/p>\n<p>Well, nobody really knows what&#8217;s coming down the pike.<\/p>\n<p>But a lot of marketers seem pretty <em>freaked<\/em> out by the idea.<\/p>\n<p>Me?<\/p>\n<p>I rarely rely on testimonials (even if I have them) to do my selling for me.  They are, in my opinion, one of the <em>weakest<\/em> forms of proof out there right now.  They are easily manufactured and most sound completely canned anyway.<\/p>\n<p>Hey, don&#8217;t get me wrong.<\/p>\n<p>I LOVE using testimonials.  <\/p>\n<p>And I have them on my own ads when possible.  <\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m always, for example, using them to sell my <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.CopywritingGrabBag.com\">copywriting book<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>But this lame idea that you &#8220;need&#8221; testimonials is a myth.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I remember at least one time where testimonials HURT my response.  <\/p>\n<p>And you know what? <\/p>\n<p>If you can&#8217;t sell without testimonials, you got bigger problems.<\/p>\n<p>Probably with your positioning, story-telling or (and this is always the biggie) with your message to market match.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, here&#8217;s my point:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Don&#8217;t let the FTC&#8217;s latest brain fart shake you up.<\/strong>  <\/p>\n<p>If you focus on learning to sell using the natural (never changing) laws of human behavior and basic sales psychology, you got nuttin&#8217; to fear from the FTC boogeymen.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, since so many other marketers tend to rely on testimonials (instead of learning how to SELL), you&#8217;ll be <strong>WAY<\/strong> ahead of the game.<\/p>\n<p>Just use their ignorance of selling to your <em>advantage<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Ben Settle<\/p>\n<p><strong>P.S.<\/strong> For dozens and dozens and dozens of ways to write ads that pull mucho response &#8212; whether you have raving testimonials or not &#8212; scootch on over to <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.CopywritingGrabBag.com\">www.CopywritingGrabBag.com<\/a><\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you heard the latest FTC hoopla? The gummint &#8220;chatter&#8221; about how they are reviewing the testimonial laws and (from what I&#8217;ve seen) making them so tight, it won&#8217;t hardly even be worth using testimonials anymore? Well, nobody really knows what&#8217;s coming down the pike. But a lot of marketers seem pretty freaked out by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-copywriting-and-sales-letters"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1845\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}