How to Successfully Market With Safelists

By Herman Drost
Posted Saturday, January 15, 2005

Opt-in email safelists are one of the best Internet marketing strategies for getting your product or service immediately in front of many thousands of people. In this article, I will show you how you can successfully work with them.

Benefits of Opt-in Safelists

1. Email to thousands -[/b] this can be done with free safe lists or paid safe lists. Even if you only get a 1% response from thousands, you interact with those that will respond.

2. It's immediate – you can instantly send your ad and receive an immediate response from those interested. With ezine ads, you often have to wait for days or weeks before your ad is displayed.

3. Test your product or service – safelists are a good place to begin testing your ad, before you spend a lot of money on other advertising methods.

4. Track your ads – track those ads that pull the best. (Some safelists incorporate tracking in their subscriptions). You can then use these same ads repeatedly in other forms of advertising. The key is to have a great headline, because users will be scanning them for what catches their eye.

5. Low cost way of email marketing – this is a much faster, less expensive way to market than offline marketing. You can reach many more people in a shorter space of time.

6. No fear of spamming or being penalized for spamming – this is because all subscribers are strictly opt-in.

Types of Opt-in Safe Lists Free Safelists - Pros
It's free to email to the whole list – you can mail to all free and paid subscribers.
Email to thousands immediately Pays commissions on referrals

Cons
Fills your email box with thousands of offers from other subscribers.
No tracking of ads provided Email once a week only

Paid Safelists - Pros
Email the list (free and paid) every day or every 2 days. Doesn't require you to receive other e-mail ads from subscribers. Membership fees are low
Tracking of your ads
Pays higher commissions
Personalize your messages

Cons
Most customers will not see your ad at all. People on these lists are more concerned about others seeing their own ad, than seeing yours.
Lose money if you paid to subscribe, but didn't get any sales.

This is just a general list of safelist features, however each safelist has its own unique features and benefits.

How to Use Safelists Effectively Choose a targeted list – if you are targeting Internet Marketers, then don't subscribe to lists that are contain home owners. The more focused the list, the better your chances of success.

Use a benefit-laden headline in your ad – if you don't capture the attention of users in the brief second they see your headline, they will pass you by.

Use a follow-up strategy – direct customers from your ad to your web site or your sequential autoresponder. It often takes up to 7 times for users to see your ad before they respond to your offer. Instead of losing them after the first message, allow them to see another sample of your offer by following up on them every few days. This will increase your chances of making the sale.

Tracking and Testing – track the responses to your ads to know exactly which one works and which does not. You can then test which headline pulls the best. After a one-month subscription, you will have some idea if the safelist is worth staying with. If it isn't, unsubscribe!

If you are getting a good response from the free lists, then pay the monthly subscription fee, so you can send your ad more often. You will also benefit from all the features they provide.

Use several safe lists – subscribe as a free member to several paid lists. Test which safelist pulls the best response. Paid safe lists are of higher quality than the ones that are free (no paid subscriptions). As a free member you can often send your ad once a week to all members. If the response is great, pay your subscription and send your ad more often.

Utilizing Opt-in safelists is one strategy in your marketing arsenal that will quickly determine if your ad will be successful. Now explode your sales by implementing an email marketing campaign.

About the Author
Herman Drost is a Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW) owner and author of iSiteBuild.com (www.isitebuild.com/safelists) Get a FREE Web Site Designed, when combined with our Low Cost Hosting Plan (www.isitebuild.com/freedesign). Subscribe to the "Marketing Tips" newsletter for more original articles. mailto: subscribe@isitebuild.com