What are safelists?
Safelists are groups of individuals who have agreed to receive e-mails from each other without accusing each other of spam.
The term "safelist" is derived from the following two points:
- A group of people you can mail to is known as a "list", and
- Because everybody has agreed to receive e-mails from everybody on the list, the list is "Safe" from Spam complaints.
Ultimately the phrase "this is a safe list" was shortened to "safelist".
As a member of a Safelist, you have the right to periodically send your message to ALL the other members of that particular Safelist. The sending period which can be hourly, daily or weekly is based on your membership level.
Bear in mind that the opposite is true...
EVERY other member of the safelist has the right to send YOU an email on a periodic basis .
And, yes, this means that you will receive loads of mail, especially when you belong to the larger safelists.
Some of the newer safelists operate a points system for sending e-mail...
Basically you get a certain number of points for joining the safelist and each time you send an e-mail to the list a certain number of points is deducted from you. You get more points by:
- referring new members to the safelist
- Clicking links in your admin and list e-mails. These are known as click links.
- purchasing them
Are there any features common to safelists?
You can join most safelists as a Free, paid Professional or in some cases paid Executive member. Generally posting periods to safelists are:
- Free members can post once every seven days.
- Pro members can post every day.
- Exe members can post two or more times per day.
Initially you only needed one e-mail address to join safelists...
But as soon as auto-posting to safelists became popular so the volume of mail sent to safelists increased.
E-mails sent from the safelist administrators tended to get "lost" and so nobody read them.
It didn't take long for safelist owners to implement the current system of using two different e-mail addresses when you join a safelist:
- A "contact" e-mail address to which they can send administration e-mail.
- A "list" or "submission" e-mail address to which all safelist members post their e-mails.
If you don't keep your "list" mailbox clean and your mail repeatedly bounces, most safelists will delete your account. Some of the newer scripts will put your account on "vacation", meaning you won't receive any mail but you can't send any until you login and reset your account.
If you post to a lot of safelists, you are going to spend a lot of time cleaning out your inboxes. The most effective solution is to open a paid bulk e-mail account where you can delete all the mail in your inbox with one click, the two best being:
Important - Some safelist administrators will send you loads of advertisements under the faulty understanding that when you joined, you agreed to receive e-mails from "admin" and so they have the right to send you e-mails with advertisements.
You will get less mail from spammers than you will get from safelist "admin" L
This means you will need to use a separate e-mail address just for all your safelist "admin" e-mails.
Unfortunately you cannot just download and delete all this "admin" e-mail because there will be legitimate e-mails containing true administration information.
As mentioned previously you will also receive "click links" from safelists that use a points system for sending e-mails.
Should I post my advertisement in text or HTML?
In a lot of safelists you can only post text e-mails...
But a some of the newer scripts allow you to post HTML e-mails. This means you can post e-mails that look like a web page.
The jury is still out on whether posting HTML e-mails to safelists is worth it or not. Certainly the large bulk mailboxes, by default, will not show HTML e-mails, only text e-mails. HTML e-mails are shown as attachments when you open the e-mail.
Why?
Bulk e-mail servers handle vast amounts of e-mails and HTML e-mails are generally bigger in size than a text e-mail and so they greatly increase the load on the servers.
Bear in mind that not all of the auto-posting programs can handle HTML e-mails.
Also, think of your poor readers going through thousands of e-mails, the last thing they want, is to open an e-mail and then have to wait for it to load because you sent them a HTML e-mail.
So why do the new scripts allow you to post HTML e-mails?
Who knows...
For now concentrate on sending text e-mails.
How do I know if a safelist is responsive?
There is a very useful resource known as TrafficHoopla which continuously tests and publishes the most effective safelists.
The web page at TrafficHoopla has a list which contains the top five safelists plus a few more slightly less effective safelists (at the bottom of the page).
If you want to find more effective safelists you will have to take out a paid monthly membership.
If you are not interested in spending any money and still want to find which safelists are effective, you'll have to do some work and maintain accurate records...
A bad ad will not get many responses from a very responsive safelist and a good ad might get as many responses from an unresponsive safelist.
The only way you will be able to tell which safelists are responsive is to compare them against each other.
This means you must use the same ad for each safelist, but use a different tracking URL in each ad. And every time you post to a safelist you need to record that fact.
Don't think that one posting to a safelist is enough for testing... You need to post every day for two weeks minimum, preferably four.
At the end of the testing period, write down the number of hits your tracking URL received. Divide this figure by the number of days you posted to the safelist and you have the average hits per day, write this down.
Do this for every safelist you are testing.
The safelists with the highest average hits per day are the most responsive...
Important - A safelist with a large membership does not mean that it will be responsive or effective.
are there any tips for sending e-mail to safelists?
You only have a second to catch the eye of any person cleaning safelist e-mails from their inbox.
So you need a VERY effective subject:
- Use "----" or "____" at the beginning of your subject to indent it. For example, which subject do you notice first out of the following subject lines:
What Came First? The Chicken or The Egg?
Your PrePaid Account is READY!
#1 Rated Launch In 20 Yrs./ FREE Marketing Tools
Missing Opportunity Through Lack of Cash You Don't...
In response to your email,I know you are...
____Do you know something I dont?
You will be put on the fast track to marketing su...
Your own safelist-$4.99
Missing Opportunity Through Lack of Cash You Don't...
New Payment Processor..$5 FREE..Pays 6 Levels
You KNOW you can do it !!
- Try to use your own words when making a subject line. If you want to use those supplied by the program you are promoting, remember so has everybody else. If your subject is different it will stand out.
- Your subject line must include a major benefit. In other words, in as few words as possible, explain how your reader will benefit from opening your e-mail.
There is a limit to the length of the e-mails you can send to a safelist. Some safelists will allow you up to 5000 characters, but the most common length limit is 2000 characters.
This places a pretty big constraint on way you write the body of the e-mail:
How do you submit your e-mails?
Automatic submission systems have diluted the effectiveness of safelists, so to get a reasonable response you need to post to a lot of safelists. Like hundreds of them.
As with posting classified ads, this leaves you with two options:
- To post manually to a minimum of thirty safelists per day.
- To post automatically using a list submission system.
Posting to thirty safelists is going to take you some time. So using a list submission system makes a lot of sense as it leaves you free to get on with other forms of marketing.
One of the most cost effective safelist submitters is the Snazzy Safe List Submitter. You can download a free version but it places an additional ad at the top of your e-mail which dilutes the effect of your carefully crafted advertisement.
Important - A badly written e-mail ad is not going to get any results, no matter how many safelists you submit it to.
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