What is Safelist Marketing and should you use Safelists?

May 4, 2020 Safelists No Comments

What is a Safelist ?

Did you ever catch yourself asking the question “what is safelist marketing” and “where do I learn how to use safelists”? Let’s start by getting an idea of what a safelist is?

A safelist is a membership website that consists of webmasters and affiliate marketers. It allows it’s members to exchange email ads with one another. That means that you would be able to email an advertisement to the entire membership of a safelist and in exchange you would agree to receive email ads from other members. Safelists provide a spam free environment for marketers to present their opportunities to other like minded people who are searching for online money making opportunities. Does this answer your question of “what is safelist marketing”?

Safelists use a double opt-in process to validate a member’s subscription to the list, and therefore nullify any potential spam complaints. Due to this double opt-in feature, ads mailed to the safelist members are not considered spam, hence the term safe list.

In simplest terms, a safelist is a club of web marketers who use the in house mailing system to promote their products, services, and opportunities to one another. Used correctly, these resources can be a very productive form of advertisement. This would be how you use safelists!

History in the Making!

A few years back, Safelists made a tremendous impact on the internet marketing scene. It was a way for internet marketers to get their ads and opportunities seen by a large audience. It grew so fast and got so big that people were getting more email than they were willing to read. So eventually email blasters and email box cleaners came along to make life more easier for the marketer. But when all was said and done, everyone was posting their ads and no one was reading them. The use of safelists declined and other avenues for gaining traffic were explored.

The Credit Safelist!

Then a new kid showed up on the block, the credit safelist. Credit safelists are similar to traditional safelists

except that they require members to be more active in order to send out their ads. Credit safelists are actually more like a traffic exchange in the way that they deliver traffic to your website.

When you join a credit safelist you receive emails from other members just like in a traditional safelist except each of these emails contain a “credit link” which you need to click in order to earn credits. Before you can earn the credits you need to visit the advertiser’s site for a set amount of time. You can then use the credits you earn to send your ads to the rest of the list.

Credit safelists generally work better than traditional safelists. The members must spend some of their time visiting your website in order to earn enough credits to send their own ads. This means you are guaranteed traffic to your site regardless of how well written your emails are. Of course with credit safelists you still have to deal with receiving a mountain of email ads in your inbox every day and just because your site is getting traffic doesn’t mean you are getting sales. Creating a catching subject line and a well written email ad will get your visitors to take a longer look.

The Viral Mailer!

The next generation of a credit safelist is the Viral list builders or viral mailers. You still receive emails from other members and you still read those emails to earn credits that you can use to send your own emails. Most Viral Mailers have what is called a

downline builder built into it. These are lists of programs, mostly other safelists and mailers. You enter your referral ID and as other people join the mailer and enter their ID’s you create a downline that you can send emails to.

The biggest difference with the viral list builders is how many people you can contact. Assuming you have enough credits safelists will usually allow you to send your ads to the entire membership. Viral list builders don’t limit you to just emailing the people in your downline. You can usually use the credits you earn from reading emails to contact other members who are not in your downline. Another difference is the variety of services that the Viral List Mailers offer along with a downline builder. Notice in this picture of the European Safelist that it actually gives you an autoresponder and a hosted capture page that you create for your business.

Will using safelists work for you?

The traffic you receive from using safelists caters to a very specific audience and is not suitable for all business opportunities.

Check out the advantages of advertising in a safelist:

A targeted audience of likeminded people looking for opportunities to earn money online.
All safelists require a double opt in membership, so there is no spam involved.
In order to maintain membership most safelists have a requirement for an active email and active readership.

Some questions that you need to ask yourself before your start joining safelists:

What kind of people would be interested in my site?
Where are those people surfing?
Where do I see the same kind of ads that I would be running?
What kind of people use safelists?
What are safelist people promoting?

If you can answer those questions and your website or business opportunity fits the criteria for a safelist, then get started.

How to use Safelists!

You need to consider how you are going to promote your opportunity using a safelist. Things to remember?

You should always promote yourself in the process (brand yourself) not someone else.
Build your list, not someone else’s.
All you have is a minute or less to catch the eye of the person clicking for credits.
Don’t use the standard splash pages provided by the safelist owner for marketing, create something unique that will brand you.
Encourage your fellow marketers to become your subscribers before they join the safelists.
Make sure that your offer (opportunity) will benefit your fellow safelist marketers.

Grab this ebook by Jerry Iannucci called Safelist Marketing Tactics. It is a step by step guide on how to use safelists and get the most out of safelist advertising.