Affiliates and The Art of Fear Mongering

You know what makes super marketers good at what they do? A lot of them don’t hesitate to take advantage of their prospects’ emotions to sell them things. Whether you feel sad, insecure, depressed, or afraid of something, the fact that you feel those emotions makes you susceptible to some of the tactics used by affiliate marketers. Super affiliates don’t even hesitate to go after fellow affiliates, and you can easily see that these days with the FTC rules going into the effect on December 1st. I can’t tell you how many e-mails I have received from people who are just trying to help me out and keep me out of jail (by selling me a bunch of legal documents for $197).

That’s the classic method of spinning a bad news to your advantage to make some quick bucks. The FTC has come up with a vague set of rules that could potentially get a lot of affiliates and bloggers in trouble. People don’t like to be threatened with an $11,00o penalty per violation, which means many are looking for ways to protect themselves against any possible liabilities. Of course, not everyone can afford a lawyer, which is exactly the reason why promoting a $197 product in front of these folks makes sense.

I do find some of this fear mongering to be a bit dishonest. It’s OK to identify a need in the market and try to address that need by finding the right products to promote. What’s not acceptable is making up stories on how the FTC is going to put people in jail for not being compliant with their rulings. Don’t get me wrong. The FTC could come after anyone who is not compliant, but it has announced that its main targets are advertisers and not affiliates. And you can always count on a warning before getting penalized. As far as the jail time goes, you really need to be running a huge scam to get that kind of treatment.

Call me honest or naive, but fear mongering of this type is exactly what’s wrong with affiliate marketing today. There is a difference between marketing a product and using fear and lies to make sales. There is no question that you can use the fact and spin them to generate the sense of urgency in your prospects, but using lies and misinformation to promote products is a cheap way to get it done. Unfortunately, there are people who will fall for these schemes just like there are many who still think they can get rich overnight by just buying a $100 package.

Should affiliates be aggressive with their promotional campaigns? It’s tough to say. You have to define what constitutes being aggressive. At the same time, being honest with your prospects does pay in the end. We are living in the Internet age and all lies will be revealed one way or another. If you are a black hat affiliate, you probably don’t care about that. But if your goal is to make more money by building long lasting relationships with your leads, honesty is a must.