Rock Star Lifestyle Design

A lot has been changing in the Internet Marketing world in the last few months. I wanted to spend a few minutes going over some of the important changes that you should look into for your online business. Many of them are things that you should have been implementing already, however many marketers like to play on the edges to turn their biggest profits.

I have always stood by creating cool stuff that provides value to the people that need it and with this audience that reads RSLD, I think you are the same way. I follow many of your escapades and think you have the same integrity to give the most and only receive when people win with what you have.

So here are some things to look at in your online business.

The FTC

This is the subject that has been the most public as it has hit bloggers and affiliates equally hard. I am no lawyer and this should not be legal advice, but here’s what it boils down to:

• If you are given a free product to review, you must disclose it
• If you have affiliate links that you or your company stand to make money from, you must disclose them to
• This can be in blog posts, in emails and possibly even free reports/eBooks
• If you use testimonials in your sales letters or promotions, you must also state what the average customer experiences. This is giving marketers a very big thorn in the side as many have no way of telling what the average user does or gains. Most of the time its nothing, as the product sits in dust on a shelf.

What we are doing is taking numbers out of testimonials - like “I make a gazillion dollars in 2 days using your product” and now using “Greg’s product was really cool, I learned a lot and it has helped my business.” Again, I’m not a lawyer, I’m just showing what we are doing.

If you want to learn more about FTC stuff, I suggest you head over and read this post by Frank Kern, who knows a thing or 2 about the FTC and lawsuits.

Membership Sites

Here is a disclaimer, I love membership sites. I am a fan of creating really cool stuff and having people pay me every month to be a part of something special. I have even been recently speaking on the subject.

I am also a fan of free and “just pay shipping” trials to membership sites. If you do it upfront and ethically, its a great way to get people to see if they like the content you are producing and you only make money if you deliver.

As of last week - this is no more.

Memberships and rebills account for only 1% of all transactions for Visa and Mastercard yet are responsible for 30+% of chargebacks, refunds, disputes, etc. That is why merchant account (not the FTC) are putting the hammer to free trial and forced continuity offers (the type where they have to opt out before the time period or else they will be rebilled).

So, we used this type of a strategy with the Rock Star Business Series. We had a front end offer of $7 for 7 modules and 10 day access to the Backstage Pass, our membership component. If you didn’t cancel within 10 days, you were rebiled $47/mo. These types of deals are no more.

Since this hits close to home, here are some things to look at in your business, or in the structure you are setting up:

Offer the membership as the upfront product. With Label 2.0 it has always been a $50/mo product. No trials, no upsells. They get immediate full access and are free to cancel anytime, no questions asked.

If you were giving away a free product, like a DVD, CD, MP3 player, etc - use that as a bonus. Like, “Join our membership site and as a gift we will send you this DVD.”

Be as transparent as possible about the rebilling. Tell them they will be billed every “x” number of days for “x” amount as long as they are a member.

Give your members a very easy way to opt-out. Like super easy. In Label 2.0, the unsubscribe button is one of the first 3 links on the top right sidebar, in plain view. We are not scared of it. We put it there upfront, as to say - you are going to love this stuff so much that you are not going to care or need to use this button, but its here if you ever need it.

Some More Continuity Bombshells

Ryan Lee, one of the top teachers of online continuity, just received a few emails from his merchant account (the people that handle taking the money from the customers). You can read the letter in full, but I wanted to point out a few “shockers” and things that are of high impact to me.

Avoid a false sense of urgency - This means using those auto-scripts that add countdown timers, today only specials and other misleading  info on your sales page that is NOT true. Now if you offer really is only today or ends this week or something, then you have nothing to worry about.

The full price of products sold must be within reasonable “fair market value.” Honestly, not sure how they are going to assess this, but take a look at your market and be sure that your product isn’t a gazillion dollars more expensive for the same thing.

Consumers must be required to validate understanding of the terms of the offer twice during order submission. If you are rebilling someone, whether its a membership site or supplements, etc you need to have your customer acknowledge that they are paying monthly twice. Once can be on the initial offer and once at checkout. Pre-checked boxes must never be used, your customer must check them off once they understand the offer.

Up Sells with recurring charges are prohibited, regardless of consumer opt-in or acknowledgment of the offer. Ok this is the big one and it kinda sucks. I am a fan of upsells that make sense and align with what the buyer wants. If you offer a great front-end product, say some kind of training course - “7 DVD’s on How To Speak Spanish” an ethical upsell may be a monthly membership for one-on-one or group coaching where you will rebill them for as long as they want the coaching. Makes sense right? Not any more. With this rule coming from the merchant account, you can no longer upsell a membership. This just means you are going to see more memberships upfront attached to front end products. Will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Ok, enough with the scary tactics!

Essentially if you offer cool stuff, are upfront on the offer and over deliver to your customers, you have nothing to worry about. It you are selling teeth whiteners or acai berry, then you may want to rethink what you are up to.

What do you guys think about both the FTC rules and regs and the new membership guidelines from merchant accounts? Does this affect your business? Have you been affected? How do you think it will be enforced?

Talk to you in the comments.

-Greg Rollett

Photo above by RealEstateClientReferra ls