Although advocate marketing—a strategy that encourages satisfied customers to promote your brand, product, or service—can be an effective and affordable tool, it does come with some rules. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sets requirements for advocate marketing and advertising to protect consumers from fraud, deception, and unfair business practices.
Read on to brush up on some of the best practices, laws, and consequences related to advocate marketing and advertising.
The basics of advocate marketing
Based on the concept of traditional word-of-mouth advertising but with the help of modern-day technology, advocate marketing is simply about your loyal customers publicly sharing their enthusiasm with others.
The marketing strategy is highly effective because it is authentic. It garners consumer trust, increases brand awareness and reputation, and has higher conversion rates than traditional marketing methods.
With promoters talking up your brand through reviews, testimonials, and social media posts, brands can not only save a more significant portion of their marketing budget but also use it to advertise these customer-created assets for greater reach.
Key advertising rules in advocate marketing
The advertising rules for advocate marketing are designed to protect consumers from being duped by bad actors looking to profit off false, exaggerated, misleading, or unfair claims.
Marketers with good intentions have little to fear in terms of consequences if they follow best practices and adhere to the rules of advocate marketing and advertising set by the FTC.
Although marketers need to familiarize themselves with these advertising rules, here are some best practices to follow to keep you out of hot water:
- Stick to the truth about your products, services, or qualifications and ensure that endorsements are honest.
- If you solicit incentivized reviews, don’t condition it on being positive, which could introduce bias. Learn more by reading the FTC’s guidance for marketers regarding “Soliciting and Paying for Online Reviews.”
- Insist on clear and conspicuous disclosure of relationships between brands and their endorsers, including any financial arrangement or compensation received. These disclosures should be made near the endorsement and should be easily noticed and understood by the average consumer. Even if the relationship has been previously disclosed, each post or endorsement should contain a disclosure to ensure transparency.
- Follow disclosure requirements specific to each social media platform. Some platforms and websites prohibit reviews from people with personal or financial connections to the seller or who received an incentive for the reviews, even if the connection or incentive is disclosed.
- Stay current on international laws and requirements for disclosure in advertising and advocate marketing, as these can vary from country to country.
While advocates are responsible for being truthful, disclosing incentives, and following the FTC guidelines on endorsements and testimonials in advertising, brands are ultimately responsible for ensuring that the rules are followed. This means educating your advocates about the importance of honesty and the methods of proper disclosure, as well as regularly monitoring campaign content to ensure compliance.
Adhering to these rules in advocate marketing is crucial, as the fallout from breaking them can hurt your brand’s reputation and result in fines and lawsuits. Disclosures maintain your brand integrity and the trust you’ve earned with your audience. Once these are broken, they’re hard to get back.
Adhering to advertising rules in advocate marketing isn’t just about protecting your company from legal or financial ramifications. Online reviews give consumers power through their ability to share and read about positive and negative experiences.
Likewise, businesses need this accountability to ensure they make quality products, provide good service and have a free means of attracting new customers. Manipulating and deceiving consumers harms consumers and honest companies.
Complying with the Consumer Review Fairness Act
Luckily, the rules for advertising and advocate marketing aren’t overly complicated. Start by reading the FTC’s guide for marketers, “Soliciting and Paying for Online Reviews.” Stripped down to its fundamentals, the FTC rules ask for honesty and conspicuous disclosure. Businesses that follow best practices will have little to worry about and much to gain with advocate marketing.
Ready to scale your advocate marketing efforts but unsure where to start? Check out Zuberance’s advocate marketing platform. By combining the expansive grassroots power of customer advocacy with the expansive reach of influencer marketing, you’ll quickly transform those positive customer experiences into powerful brand endorsements that grow your business at a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising.
