Have You Ever Joined A Safelist?

Have You Ever Joined A Safelist?

Have you ever joined a safelist?  When I was lurking on a forum the other day, I happened to read someone commenting on the joys of being in a safelist. In that instant, I felt the hair stand on the back of my neck, as a painful past memory came to the forefront. Yeah, it was one of my newbie stupidity memories. Anyway, after all these years, I couldn't believe it, I thought this form of advertising was obsolete. Guess not.

To make a long story, short. This was a new thread that was created by this person. So, I had to assume one of two things. 1) It was an owner of the safelist trying to get individuals to join, if they asked; or, 2) It was an individual who has joined a credit-based safelist and needed other people to join to get credits to advertise.

Anyway, my own experience with safelists were short-lived. I learned quickly that I did not enjoy deleting 1000 of emails that I never would have time to read, or wanted to read. And, in many cases, the emails were spammy in nature. For those new to the Internet, or for those who do not know what a safelist is, check out my article, - "So, You Want To Join A Safelist".



The article will  give you details of a what a safelist is, how it works, and most importantly, whether it's worth the traffic you may get.


 So You Want To Join A Safetlist?

Do you really want to join a safelist? Or do you know what this advertising vehicle is? And finally, is their any benefits to being in a safelist? All good questions that I try to answer.

Safelists have been around for a long time. At one time they seemed to offer some, a convenient way to advertise. However, is this true today? I answer the above questions, and let you be the judge.




What Is A Safelist

A safelist is a form of email marketing and advertising. In its simplest of terms, it is a group of people that agree to opt-in to receive marketing emails from each other. Now this is the important part. ALL members can email the other members in the list sometimes once a week, or as frequently as once a day. It sounds like spam, you might say. No, because when you sign up to participate in the safelist, you have to agree, that yes, you are opting-in to this program and you will not send it to the spam file.

This does sound interesting doesn't it? I'm sure there are some of you thinking, "Hm-m, this could help me with my website or product that I am selling." Whoa. Before you get to excited, stop for a moment, and let me explain what is really happening in a safelist.

For simplicity sake, I will take one individual that has joined the safelist. This individual sends an email trying to sell you his product of kitchen utensils. More than likely, you're not interested in buying utensils. You in turn, will be trying to sell this guy your designer pens. Do you see a trend here. If not let me explain.

To put it bluntly, this is not a targeted list. Most of the individuals are not interested in buying your product or service, but are only interested in having you buy their product or service. In either case, sales are not going to abound. And, in most cases, any company that has a brand that they want to protect is not going to allow you to use this type of advertising vehicle. And if you do, you won't be in the program long.

Hopefully, I've convinced you that a safelist is not going to get you the target market you need and want for your product. However, if for some unknown reason you still feel that it could possibly help your business, cut your loses and try a free safelist.


Different Types of Safelists

What type of safelists are out on the Internet? From what I can see, there are still three different types of safelists:

1. Free - If it is a free safelist, you may find that you are limited to how often you can send out emails. the owner of the safelist is probably making money from advertisements that it attaches to each email, that each member sends.
2. Paid - You have to give the safelist the money to belong. They claim that with the paid list you have more control over your list. After you've spent the $30+, you may feel that those claims were well, not true.
3. Credit based - How does a credit based safelist work? There are several ways you can earn credit. 1) You can receive credits by referring other individuals to become a member of the safelist (Safelist is gaining more members and an opportunity to make sales for itself), or; 2) by clicking on certain links within an email that is sent either by the owner of the safelist, or other members. Thus, if you have 1 credit, you can send 1 member an email.


Though this is my opinion, I personally do not feel that a safelist works, and may cause you more grief than it is worth. In my early days, when I was Internet-naive, I thought I was going to see great rewards from a safelist. Nope. Didn't happen. What I did receive was a whole bunch of emails from people selling me everything from ebooks to paid programs that they wanted me to join. Of course, I wasn't interesting in what they were selling, because I was more interested in these same people who were soliciting me to buy something from me. Self-defeating isn't it! End result, I found myself deleting emails, just so that it wouldn't overload my email box.