The Health Jerk
Part Thirteen: Guarantor Reliability In the American Health Industry
We're back...
If you think the FDA not reviewed statement is a significant pair of handcuffs to put on a marketer who is trying to do the diabetes to diabetes shuffle, here is the next prediction:
The FDA will not allow any mention of a symptom or disease unless both the safety and the efficacy of the product have been approved by the FDA.
Next...
Not to be outdone ... The FTC will set up two specific
departments as they relate to the nutritional supplement marketplace:
- 1. An unfair business practice department to deal with pyramid schemes. This will be aimed at the businesses which use the down-line as the consumers of the product. If you are new to the business, then understand it this way: the FTC will demand a certain percentage of all product sales are to consumers not marketers. I estimate that the percentage will be at least 50%.
- 2. A consumer protection department to deal with money back refunds. This will protect the consumer from guarantees which are either difficult to execute from the consumer side or mislead the consumer into believing that they can get their all their money back within a reasonable time frame if they are dissatisfied.
Back to how to market.
Customers are motivated to pull out their wallets when we move from the logical arguments to the emotional triggers. Most marketers are aiming at the impulse buy. Our attention span in today’s society is measured in single digit seconds. Look at the ads on TV. They have reverted to SEX to sell just about everything because it is the only thing that we will look at or listen to longer than a half dozen seconds. Even then he or she had better be hot.
OK, seriously, I believe there is only one valid offer remaining available to a ethical marketer of nutritional supplements. Furthermore it is only possible from a limited number of sources.
Let me explain myself with a fictional example…
If Mike's Snake Oil guarantees you that Mikes Snake Oil will give you 100% of your money back if you a not 100% satisfied with your purchase of Mikes Snake Oil, then you have a certain level of confidence in the product and Mike's Snake Oil's ability to make good of its promise of a 100% money back guarantee. Probably pretty low.
If Exxon gives you a 100% money back guarantee contingent on your 100% satisfaction, then you are very confident that Exxon will have the ability to make good on their promise of a 100% money back guarantee.
If the guarantor is strong financially, then you have confidence in their ability to fulfill their obligations – in this case – reimburse you, the customer, for 100% of the product cost if you are not satisfied with 'whatever the details'.
The next step is ‘whatever the details’. We will discuss the details of the guarantee in the next part of This Series by The Health Jerk.
Later sheep.