Give Your Testimonials a Reality Check

After read­ing and re-​​reading the lat­est FTC guide­lines, I’ve come to some impor­tant con­clu­sions that I want to share with you. Par­tic­u­larly as they relate to testimonials.

Last night, my good friend and top copy­writer John Carl­ton called me up, and we had an inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion on this whole FTC thing and the hys­te­ria it has created.

I expressed to John my opin­ions about them, along with a very sim­ple solu­tion. And John agreed with me.

It’s a huge ben­e­fit to those who under­stand copy­writ­ing, because they can actu­ally turn around and use the FTC rul­ings to their advan­tage. Even make more sales as a result.

Part of the solu­tion is actu­ally sim­pler than you think. And it doesn’t involve tear­ing down all your tes­ti­mo­ni­als, plas­ter­ing a bazil­lion dis­claimers around them, or con­duct­ing painful, men­tal con­tor­tions to decide what is typ­i­cal or not.

You can start by doing this one sim­ple thing…

Now, before I give you my opin­ion, I must pref­ace this post with sev­eral key points.

First, this is my opin­ion only. I’m not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. Con­sult with a com­pe­tent, legal pro­fes­sional first. I encour­age you to check out attor­ney Mike Young’s lat­est FTC report, as well as attor­ney Kevin Houchin’s well though-​​out syn­op­sis.

Sec­ond, the guide­lines are still con­fus­ing to some degree. My opin­ions are not final and they may be wrong. But as more clar­i­fi­ca­tions are made pub­lic over time, and given that the FTC won’t pros­e­cute first-​​time offend­ers, we will see if I’m right. Eventually.

(After 20 years in this busi­ness, I’m pretty sure I am.)

My opin­ions are not made as a direct result of read­ing the guide­lines them­selves, but after read­ing, dis­sect­ing, and inter­pret­ing some of the exam­ples included in the report, as well as some post-​​publication inter­views given by FTC representatives.

In fact, the FTC’s exam­ple sce­nar­ios are far more telling than the guide­lines themselves.

Finally, this is going to be my last post on this issue. Enough has been said already. Since the FTC clearly stated they won’t pros­e­cute first-​​time offend­ers but rather give them a chance to com­ply, I’ll wait until they shed more light before I return to this topic.

OK, enough blather. On with the show.

The biggest gripe most peo­ple have is with the “typ­i­cal ver­sus atyp­i­cal” conun­drum, espe­cially because of the chal­lenge they have in ade­quately deter­min­ing, mea­sur­ing, and pub­lish­ing what is con­sid­ered typ­i­cal and what peo­ple can nor­mally expect.

In some cases, this is vir­tu­ally impos­si­ble to pre­dict. There­fore, my opin­ion in here will be par­tic­u­larly use­ful in those cases. Of course, all dis­claimers above apply.

First off, I think peo­ple are need­lessly freak­ing out.

Admit­tedly, my post, “Is This The End of Affil­i­ate Mar­ket­ing?” didn’t help as it stirred up the pot. So I’m just as guilty as the best of them. But my con­cerns are real and justified.

In my defense, I did add updates at the end of the post, includ­ing links to sup­ple­men­tal inter­views given by the FTC. It is from these updates and exam­ple sce­nar­ios from the FTC them­selves that I’m draw­ing these con­clu­sions in this post.

(Plus, aside from tes­ti­mo­ni­als proper, affil­i­ate mar­ket­ing still remains a prob­lem­atic issue as it relates to the guide­lines. It only takes one rogue affil­i­ate who doesn’t com­ply to cause you more headaches and grief than you can pos­si­bly ever imagine.)

Nev­er­the­less, tes­ti­mo­ni­als don’t nec­es­sar­ily need to be “typ­i­cal.” The point I believe the FTC is get­ting at is to ensure peo­ple have rea­son­able, real­is­tic expectations.

Since time immemo­r­ial, there have been truth-​​in-​​advertising laws. The lat­est FTC guide­lines don’t really change much, except that they’re catch­ing up to real­i­ties and tech­nolo­gies of today, such as blogs, social media, and the Inter­net in general.

Here’s what they’re say­ing, in a nutshell.

The truth is no longer good enough.

What the FTC wants is more than just telling the truth. Because, while some­thing can be tech­ni­cally true, it still can be mis­lead­ing. Decep­tive. Delu­sive. Even down­right false.

Until now, you can post a tes­ti­mo­nial that’s 100% accu­rate and true. But it might still be mis­lead­ing if it lacks enough con­text so that peo­ple can under­stand and appre­ci­ate what they can gen­er­ally expect from using your prod­uct. After all, expec­ta­tion is key.

From what I’ve read, it’s not about mak­ing sure the tes­ti­mo­nial is typ­i­cal. It’s mak­ing sure it doesn’t mis­lead read­ers into think­ing such results are typ­i­cal when they’re not.

For exam­ple, say you sell a mar­ket­ing pro­gram. Some­one tries it out and makes $5,000 in one week. This might be true, but what the tes­ti­mo­nial failed to include are the cir­cum­stances, which are unique, under which those results were achieved.

Specif­i­cally, if the per­son who made $5,000 is not your typ­i­cal user — such as some­one well-​​versed in mar­ket­ing, has an estab­lished busi­ness, and pos­sesses a list of 20,000 sub­scribers — then the tes­ti­mo­nial must insure that peo­ple know this from the onset.

Any new­bie, with­out any busi­ness or mar­ket­ing expe­ri­ence, and par­tic­u­larly with­out any list, may not achieve “$5,000 in one week.” There­fore, the tes­ti­mo­nial might be true, but it is still mis­lead­ing because peo­ple now gen­er­ally expect this result to be the norm.

See the problem?

You’ve heard of the say­ing “lying by omis­sion?” This is the case, here. While accu­rate, the tes­ti­mo­nial is inher­ently mis­lead­ing and false. Or false by omis­sion, to be precise.

So tes­ti­mo­ni­als need to be both real and realistic.

In other words, if the testimonial’s results are atyp­i­cal, it needs to be stated in the tes­ti­mo­nial itself or near it — not as a dis­claimer but as qual­i­fy­ing infor­ma­tion that puts the tes­ti­mo­nial in proper con­text so peo­ple know what to gen­er­ally expect.

So what you can do, which is that sim­ple solu­tion I was allud­ing to ear­lier, is some­thing I’ve been teach­ing for many years in copy­writ­ing. Even on this blog. And it is this…

Con­vert your tes­ti­mo­ni­als into case studies.

Case stud­ies are more pow­er­ful than bla­tant tes­ti­mo­ni­als. They give tes­ti­mo­ni­als clar­ity, con­text, mea­sur­a­bil­ity, and weight. And best of all, case stud­ies make tes­ti­mo­ni­als more believ­able and con­crete, which may even boost your sales.

(I know. I’ve tested this thoroughly.)

As John Carl­ton men­tioned on that call we had, when the FTC forced adver­tis­ers to put ‘this is an adver­tise­ment’ near an adver­to­r­ial in mag­a­zines and news­pa­pers, mar­keters rushed to denounce the prac­tice, say­ing it would kill their sales.

But in many cases, quite the oppo­site hap­pened. It actu­ally bumped up response.

I think the same thing is going to hap­pen here. In the hands of a skilled copy­writer, which is why good copy­writ­ing is going to be even more impor­tant as time goes on, these new require­ments will become pow­er­ful tools that will dra­mat­i­cally boost response.

Now, let’s use the FTC’s own exam­ples to illus­trate this.

In their doc­u­ment, the FTC listed a ton of exam­ple sce­nar­ios. I’m going to base mine on their “Weight­Away Shake” sce­nario (i.e., exam­ple #4 under guide­line § 255.2, titled “Con­sumer Endorse­ments”). Here’s a pos­si­ble tes­ti­mo­nial you might come across:

“I ate two Weight­Away shakes each day and lost 15 pounds in one week!”

First, the ques­tion to ask is, can some­one really lose 15 pounds in one week? Let’s say it is true. The tes­ti­mo­nial is not mis­lead­ing only if peo­ple can expect that to be the norm (i.e., los­ing 15 pounds in one week by eat­ing two Weight­Away shakes a day).

But let’s say that per­son did a bit more. More than what her tes­ti­mo­nial revealed. Let’s say she walked three miles every day and ate sen­si­bly (e.g., noth­ing fatty or fried) dur­ing that time. With the help of those two shakes a day, she lost 15 pounds.

There­fore, the tes­ti­mo­nial, while true, is mis­lead­ing because it failed to high­light that the per­son also walked three miles every day and ate sen­si­bly. The tes­ti­mo­nial lacks con­text, and can there­fore be inter­preted, by itself, to be real­is­tic when it is not.

So either the tes­ti­mo­nial needs to state that, or you need to have copy on or around it that says, “Along with eat­ing sen­si­bly and wak­ing three miles a day, Jan­ice had this to say: ‘I ate two Weight­Away shakes each day and lost 15 pounds in one week’.”

That, I’m gath­er­ing, is what the FTC really wants.

The adver­tise­ment accu­rately describes the woman’s expe­ri­ence, and such a result is within the range that would be gen­er­ally expe­ri­enced by an over­weight indi­vid­ual who con­sumed Weight­Away shakes, ate sen­si­bly, and exer­cised as the endorser did.

As the FTC notes within that exam­ple (I’ve edited parts to reflect my exam­ple above):

Because the endorser clearly describes the lim­ited and truly excep­tional cir­cum­stances under which she achieved her results, the ad is not likely to con­vey that con­sumers who use Weight­Away under less extreme cir­cum­stances will lose (15 pounds in one week). If the adver­tise­ment sim­ply says that the endorser lost (15 pounds in one week) using Weight­Away (or using Weight­Away together with just “diet and exer­cise”), how­ever, this descrip­tion would not ade­quately alert con­sumers to the truly remark­able cir­cum­stances lead­ing to her weight loss.

So by adding con­text, the ad is likely to con­vey that her expe­ri­ence is not rep­re­sen­ta­tive of what con­sumers will gen­er­ally achieve, unless they have those same or sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances. Sure, it might com­mu­ni­cate the prod­uct is effec­tive. But it’s not misleading.

In short, it’s about either set­ting up real­is­tic expec­ta­tions, or avoid­ing unre­al­is­tic ones.

Again, a tes­ti­mo­nial needs to be not only real but also real­is­tic.

At best, cou­ple your tes­ti­mo­nial with results one can real­is­ti­cally expect. This is what the FTC wants, as stated in their guide­lines. It’s what con­sumers want, too, I’m sure.

The goal is to con­vey what is gen­er­ally expected from using your prod­uct. To make peo­ple aware of what is typ­i­cal. If you can state what your pro­gram or prod­uct can rea­son­ably achieve in the hands of the aver­age con­sumer, then you must add it.

My ini­tial con­tention is that, in some cases, such as the case of a train­ing pro­gram, all results are arguably atyp­i­cal — as results vary tremen­dously with every individual.

Then the best way is to ensure those excep­tional cir­cum­stances are clearly delin­eated. Not with some blan­ket dis­claimer, which is no longer enough. But with a clear under­stand­ing of how, and under what cir­cum­stances, those results were achieved.

If there are no “typ­i­cal results,” then add con­text so peo­ple can under­stand the endorser’s unique or excep­tional cir­cum­stances, as to pre­vent them from com­ing to the con­clu­sion that such results are real­is­tic and expected in all circumstances.

Again, I might be wrong. I’m sure you will point it out to me, if you think I am. Remem­ber, I’m not a lawyer. But I think that, as time goes on, we’re going to see more and more tes­ti­mo­ni­als pre­sented in the form of case stud­ies. Mark my words.

It’s sim­ply com­mon­sen­si­cal. For one, con­vert­ing your tes­ti­mo­ni­als into case stud­ies help to cre­ate real­is­tic expec­ta­tions. Sec­ond, they make tes­ti­mo­ni­als far more cred­i­ble and believ­able. And third, doing so will, I believe, dra­mat­i­cally boost your sales, too.

Ulti­mately, in the hands of a good copy­writer, this can become poten­tially powerful.

About the Author

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