Income Claims, The FTC And Jail

Some of you might remember the wild west days of the Internet, where you could make ANY income claim and pretty much never have to worry about the feds coming after you.

“Bank 10 Gazzillion Bajillion dollars in 2.3 Seconds!”
Yeah, in some ways those really were the wild west days...

The days of people throwing up a website, creating a crappy product and ripping everyone off to the tune of hundreds of dollars apiece...

...and then disappearing down the rabbit hole from which they came.

No, we don’t miss those days a bit.
These days advertisers have to be...
(get ready for it, this is a lulu of a shocker) ...advertisers have to be HONEST.
Gasp! Shock! Oh, the horror!!
Wait a minute – isn’t that a GOOD thing?

So many times I’ve heard people moan and groan about the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) playing cop and being mean when someone makes income claims.

For example, legendary marketer Frank Kern was sued by the FTC because he advertised specific income results. Yes, he might have made 5 or 6 figures from what he was teaching, but the vast majority of people won’t.

To be fair, I’m sure there are cases where the FTC gets over- zealous or even spiteful and targets a marketer who means well.

But you have to admit, the trust level overall these days between product creators and product buyers is arguably higher than it used to be, because of the FTC regulations in place.

And this is a wonderful thing, because people are generally LESS skeptical when they read about a new product that doesn’t claim to make millionaires out of paupers at the press of a button.

Now then, if you’re new to marketing or you haven’t been paying attention to what you can and cannot do in your advertising, here are some guidelines to keep you out of hot water with the FTC.