This is part of the Mac Book Pro Challenge where we show you how you could get your own Mac Book Pro or some cash. Why not see how and join the challenge.

Last time on the challenge I discussed the idea of creating a persona to appeal to an audience I have also covered some aspects of Email marketing and making lists safe but I want to cover your legal responsibilities.

Before we start two disclaimers

This article refers to British Legal system, why? I am a Brit, but also the UK has one of the most stringent legal systems when it comes to business online. Most of its laws and regulations are similar to those in Europe and so is a good basis for marketers, while your own country may differ particularly in the US where its very much dependent on the state you happen to be standing in.

Creating your Legal Notice paper work

I want to cover how to create legal notice paper work that will make even a lawyer be proud. So create a new page name it Legal Notices, Disclaimer Notices or something similar and lets get started.

Who are you?

Our first step is to determine who you are and how you are trading in the UK there are various levels of trader (similar for the rest of the world) but the basics are:

• Individual – some one who is perhaps a hobbyist makes and declares monies but also has an alternate revenue stream (pension/job)
• Sole Trader – A singular person who trades (has a business) which he is the sole person in charge of the finances and who’s business assets are owned by the person.
• Non Limited Partnership - As per sole trader but a group of people manage the company and its assets within an agreed legal agreement.

• Limited Company – A company that is registered with Company House, such companies are registered and must present their books to company house once a year.

Beyond Limited company there are several more levels but by that stage you are into high finance world and well beyond the scope of this article. Most people reading this and trying to make money online will be Individuals, you probably have a job and are after some additional money in which case legally all you have to do is report your additional earnings to the tax man. A Sole Trader and Partnership is legally required to inform the Tax man about individual earnings but nothing more. A limited company must report its finances as an entity to Company House and individual directors who draw money but not a salary from the company must record this separately. The big advantage of a limited company other then to protect a trading name is that the company debt is not always personal debt of the directors. If you are not a limited company debts accrued by the company are held against the individuals of the partnership.

One thing to hold in mind is the British tax system has perhaps one of the strangest laws attached to it.

“Under the UK’s Tax Avoidance Schemes Regulations 2006, it is illegal not to tell the taxman anything you don’t want him to know, though you don’t have to tell him anything you don’t mind him knowing.”

Basically this was designed to make it illegal to hide money deliberately, but to protect those who failed to make a complete tax return from harsh sentences but it is some what unenforceable but hey its worth remembering you don’t want to hide things from the tax man.
Before moving on it’s worth adding VAT a non limited business can be registered for VAT this is different from registering with Company House if the company is VAT registered it has implications as to what information you need to display.

Trading as…
Sole Traders and Partnerships often don’t use their names when trading, but in formal documents a trading name must be declared…

Tim Nash trading as CNMS

For example or in a partnership surnames are normally sufficient as long as the full partnership is named elsewhere so…

Nash, Hills, Johnson trading as CNMS

Owner of a web site

When you register a web site you can choose to register it as an individual, sole trader, partnership and limited company. With the exception of Limited Company the website domain name is the property of the person who registered it, unless it is agreed differently in a partnership agreement. The information on the Whois has to be correct, for a sole trader or partnership who are VAT registered this means the address you gave on the VAT return, a limited company your company registered address and for everyone else the mailing address of your business. Sometimes you may find you need to adjust these after purchase particularly if your address of your Credit Card was different.

Every web site should have contact information on it, apart from allowing people to contact you in nearly all cases as a trader it is required. However unless you are a VAT registered or Limited Company the amount of information needed is limited to a method of contact such as email address remember though this is purely on the web site itself the information is still needed in the Whois.

The Ecommerce Regulations require the minimum information to be kept:

• A Trading Name – example.com is the property of CNMS
• A contact Email – A contact form is not enough it must be a valid email address
• Registered Address if Limited or VAT registered – The complete address, plus the place of registration for Limited Companies
• VAT and Company numbers – If company has both then both need to be displayed.

Example Who Are You section

Sole Trader
Example.com is the property of Tim Nash trading as CNMS .
For more information please contact via info@example.com

VAT Registered Partnership
Example.com is the property of Nash, Johnson, Smith trading as CNMS
For more information please contact us via info@example.com
CNMS is VAT registered, number 00000000, Address: 4 made up street, PP33 SDK, UK

Disclaimer of Brands

Andy recently discussed some of the issues related to the UKs Consumer Protection Regulations which covers many issues including the not telling the truth or pretending to be something you are not. Given our last post was all about creating personas, people to sell our site we need to cover ourselves from the act. This section is also a good place to credit photographers and external brands even theme designers if its appropriate.

Example of Brand Disclaimer

Example person images, name and description are branding of CNMS, All images are the property of Joe Blogs Photographer and are licensed for use by CNMS all models are over the age of 18 and their images are used with permission. The site theme was designed by Joe Blogs and released under license.

This may not seem very fair and indeed it is only really dealing with the legality of the act, when designing personas it is important to make sure that potential buyers do not believe they are dealing with a specific individual unless of course they are.

Trademarks

This section would also be a good place to declare trademarks referenced and used. It is unlikely you hold trademarks so this section will be declaring their use on the site. Most Trademark use is when mentioning products which are owned by the company such uses are perfectly legal but you should declare the use of trademarks if you have not done so within Articles for example

Example of Trademark Disclaimer
Within the UK: Mac Book Pro, Apple, IPod are trademarks of Apple Ltd. Google Adsense, Logo are property of Google Ltd. Use of the respective companies trademarks is for product description purposes only. Other trademarks are used within guidelines of fair use when describing products or services and are the property of their respective owners.

Disclaimer of Facts

Do you know Lying is immoral right? Its also nearly always illegal to, the distance selling regulations along with unfair trading regulations pretty much make it illegal to misrepresent your product or service in anyway this includes but not limited to.

• Inflating earning potential
• not specifying sale length
• inappropriate description of services or product

One of the more problematic part of the regulations is that you are in breach if you attempt to mislead an average user even if you are factually correct. Put simply If you state the car is Green but in reality it is Green and Yellow you have breached the act as while you are correct it is green you have not fully described the product.

Example Disclaimer of Facts

CNMS takes every effort to accurately reflect statistics and products in a true manner, occasionally statistics and other figures maybe rounded or averaged to make them simpler to understand in such cases CNMS strives to notify the reader. Occasionally CNMS is unable for legal restrictions or other reasons to provide accurate figures in such cases the reason is given prior to the figures.

Descriptions and statements declared to be factually accurate are checked prior to release and every effort is made to maintain accuracy. If a statement appears not to be accurate please contact us via our address as stated.

CNMS can not be held responsible for misrepresenting a third party product or service if the description of the product has changed since the initial release of information.
The disclaimer is primarily to cover your interaction with third parties rather then your own products when it comes to your own products no declaimer page is going to help if you miss sell a product.

Disclaimer of Earning Methods

While not strictly required in every case most people are going to need to declare how the site earns money and in particular if you use affiliate links within reviews. This is also a good place to declare paid for links if you have any note this is not a legal requirement, it’s important to understand a company guidelines and requirements such as those from Google should not be confused with something legally binding. However a notice section is a good place to include such information

Example of Earning Methods

CNMS uses affiliate links (web links which associate sales of a product to CNMS) when linking to some products, offers and services on this site. In addition advertising in the form of images and textual links are bought such advertising are declared and the purchase of advertising does not influence the content on the site. CNMS may provide additional marketing and advertising methods to third parties.

If you are selling your user lists now is the time to declare it make sure you also declare it within your privacy policy and include opt out info there to.

Example of selling your users

CNMS from time to time will pass user’s details to third parties for use in statistical analysis and marketing. CNMS is not responsible for the content from third parties.

Links Policy

You can’t prevent people linking to you, and nor do you want to however its worth declaring you have no control on what they said about the site or product likewise you should indicate you do not have editorial control of external sites.

Example Links Policy

CNMS has no control over inbound links and will not honour prices, descriptions of products and services which are different from those stated on this site without prior agreement. CNMS links to external sites and does not have editorial control and is not responsible for their content.

Nice the good news is we are pretty much there now its time to add your Privacy and Accessibility policies.

Privacy Policy

I covered this not so long ago on WebDigity so will not go through the entire policy but to highlight it needs to match with statements here, including names, addresses. For more information please check out my sample privacy policy template.

Accessibility

UK and Europe have some tough anti discrimination guidelines but almost no one knows what an accessible site is though most agree it is probably a site that reaches WAI level 1 & 2 as set down by W3C. Most blogs should easily meet these requirements presuming your site does so your declaration should be fairly straight forward.

Example Accessibility Disclaimer

Where possible we try to maintain this site to WAI level 1 & 2 priority standard and well within the UK and EU disability guidelines however if you have a problem while reading or commenting on this blog please do contact us as described below.

Putting it all together, ok so this was a long post, but your complete policy should look something like our Legal Notice. This might seem like a lot of work and you may think that so few people read such documents why bother?

Two reasons 1) Ass covering, its the law and if its not where you are it will protect you against random law suits 2) Requirement, more and more affiliate and advertising companies are looking for privacy policies and declaring paid content.

Remember IAMNL (I am not a lawyer) any one making money should get a lawyer in their home country to read through any legal notice.

This post is part of the Mac Book Pro Challenge it’s not to late to get involved and start your journey to a shiny Mac Book Pro.

Email is on my mind

So with the Email Gathering Firesale which is continuing as I write this but will be over in a couple of hours, I noticed a couple of familiar email addresses of people who joined our challenge. So I think its worth throwing around some ideas around to help you get the most out of your potential new niche addresses without exposing yourself to a torrent of abuse and potentially your affiliate accounts shut down.

I do not approve of spam

Given I have spent yesterday telling you how to get clean, and verify your emails I strongly believe that if you are unsure of the legitimacy of how the address was collected then you never send more then a single introductory email.

Pressure selling via the first email never works

This I think is something that needs to be emphasised over and over again, and I know I covered it in the other article but throwing your affiliate links down peoples throats in the first email is not the way to convert them.

Instead try to build trust, given yesterday I managed to rewrite the Firesale opening letter 4 times and by the end it was a grammatical nightmare (sorry to the commentator who wrote the long comment on building trust with spelling at 7 in the morning you were deleted) to the point where people were questioning not only me but the information behind the letter. Suddenly after the initial rush people were holding back it is amazing but sometimes just spending time spell checking is enough!

Trust is getting close - trust is about persona

Remember our persona’s post from a few days ago? Well let’s put them to good use, the niche your targeting will dictate the style of the email. For example:

Is very unlikely to say…
Hey guys whats up? check out my new site its really cool!
Is she?
Well maybe she does but it is not what her peers and therefore the target audience will expect fit the language to the persona.

Sell the idea, then the product

If you are not planning a long recurring relationship with your new contacts? Why not? then at least get what you came for and grab the sale, or in our case entice them into the dream. Most Affiliate sites quite rightly do not approve of spam. So our process of verification is simple…

• Present your offer in brief
• Present the way forward (a link to your site and landing page)
• Present a way out

Remember your targeting this group of people because you think they are interested in your offer. If they are not then you do not need to waste your time and resources there are plenty of fish in the sea.

Introduction shot

If you have been given or got hold of a list and need to verify then the introductory email is critical. Clearly emphasis that it is a welcome, single email and that they will receive no further communication without there expressed permission. Explain why they are receiving the email, don’t be shy if you bought the address be honest tell them. Offer them the opt out even if you are never going to contact them again. Finally make your offer/sign up page easy and quick. If they have clicked your link you have them on the line so to speak don’t waste the opportunity.

Spam sucks - be personal

Seriously the way to avoid being classed as spam is to personalise your content, names, IP addresses you name it what ever you got that is personal to your target. The fact you are actually targeting a niche and not the masses gives you lots of potential. But remember if you want to flog Viagra no amount of me to telling you nice ways to present your information will help you will be just another spammer.

So I think it’s time to start building our landing site and looking at the idea of landing pages. There are loads of good articles out there on making persuasive sales pages, I will start up a resource list but if you have some articles let me know in the comments?

First wave gone! new price $15! till 10am GMT

I have uploaded a password protected post, in that post is an interesting article on getting hold of very niche specific email addresses for marketing purposes. It does not “hack” systems but could be considered a little greyhat when you combine it with some of the ideas in the article. The article also contains over 4000 Dutch email addresses and 400 Email addresses for working mums.

If you’re interested in this article and the other content then you can get it right now!

The price

• For the first 5 hours till 1am GMT 28th of March the price for this information will be - $10 a measly sum indeed
• For 5 to 15 hours (10am GMT 28/03) into the sale the price is - $15
• After that it’s $20

If you have missed out on the first discount prices don’t worry you can still get access to the post at the regular price.

Oh I’m also going to throw in a few useful additional goodies, because I’m such a nice guy!

To claim your access to this content simply make a Paypal payment to t.nash @ venture-skills.co.uk but remember to check the time if your close to one of the Firesale marks, when I receive payment I will send you the password to your Paypal address, if you don’t want the password sent to this address use the notes field when sending payment to provide an alternative.

Any questions or if you’re worried I might miss your Paypal content then feel free to email me, please use the subject let me in So I can respond quickly!

Not only that for those of you on the Mac Book Pro Challenge I will be doing a post after the sale on how to legitimately use your email addresses.

What are you waiting for, people are already staking their claim can you afford not to?

Don’t forget if you don’t manage to get access during the Firesale you can still get access at the regular price of $20.

This post is part of the Mac Book Pro Challenge, but don’t worry it’s not to late to start, so why not join us?

Getting a face

Think of the Mac book Challenge as a marketing campaign the goal (ahem wish sorry) is to convince people to join in your version of the challenge by presenting them with the information, the incentive and the reason. Now for a little game who do you want to target?

Seriously its that simple forget careful keyword research or demographic studies go with your gut who do you think you can convince to join up and encourage their friends. The reality is just about any demographic over the age of 18 is going to be interested in a free laptop be they a student, a Gran or a Working Mum so which group do you think you can appeal to which group can you get your head in.

Once you got your target we are going to create a sales person an online persona who will front your campaign just like any good advertising campaign. Now before we even think about web sites etc I want you to think personal the key to a good campaign is when the person on the receiving end (believes) they are on a two way conversation.

So lets look at some social groups and try and decide the best person to front a campaign for each of them.

18-25 Male Students
You got to hand it to them by far my favourite source for this kind of affiliate marketing, they are generally poor, most want to get rich, nearly all want beer and they all like pretty young girls. Ok so a few sweeping generalisations there but on the whole pitching to sterotypes works even if its not politically correct.
Perfect Persona: Pretty Girl Next Door

House Bound Mum
Wants to earn a bit on the side, is more cautious about giving to much personal information away. Often looking for things to fill short gaps, ideas have to be pitched as not time consuming and not evasive.
Perfect Persona: House Bound Mum alternate: Dashing Gent

Silver Surfer
The internet is not just home to young, more and more elderly persons are getting online, highly cautious and much more careful with their details. The silver surfers are a great long term revenue source and have fantastic networking capability.
Perfect Persona: Silver Surfer

Affiliate Marketers
Strong willed and expecting a con, they have been there and done that however as they know the business they make great partners and can easily expand any affiliate network. In many ways they are the best and worst people to pitch to.
Perfect Persona: Me

These are all stereotypes and pretty generic in most cases like encourages like but such as the case of our 18-25 Male its not always the case. Once we have an image in our mind of our persona it’s time to go out and make them a reality.

Bring a persona to life

Your sales persona needs to be fleshed out; create a name, and find a suitable picture if you can’t use yourself try getting friend, family, local model to pose for you. If all else fails then look for a suitable photos online try to avoid the free stock photo sites like sxc.hu and instead look at sites such as stockxpert.com. The reason is simple buying an image or set of images that have been rarely downloaded means that the chances your model has been seen before is limited. Try where possible to get a few images which can be used throughout your campaign. Given that in our examples we are aiming to get people laptops it makes sense to promote with images of your model with a laptop.

Above all try to keep it real certain people are just not going to promote certain things, Jessica Simpson is not the next model for a free laptop. When using an image make sure the model has signed a model release form and that the image is licensed for commercial use.

The more details the more customers

The more people can be brought into the site the more likely they are to bite, this may sound a bit manipulative but that is what you are doing it’s what the local shops are doing. For the ultimate effect try using video, if you have access to your model, get them to record a personal greeting/ sales pitch. Developing a character with personality quirks does not take much, try to create a short bio, include 5 things your new persona likes and dislikes what star sign are they and age. The more the better even if you don’t use these details on the site it helps build a stronger character a more believable character.

What’s next?

Next post we are going to start building a suitable site as our main sales site, we will look at the various elements needed on the site and discuss how sites look can influence a person. Through out these next few posts I will be building a sample site for you to play with complete with persona (no you can’t use it) but it will help you to understand some of the ideas and psychology behind such sites.