Safelist Advice
Despite what you might or heard, safelists are in fact an extremely important
advertising resource. Those of you that arrived here via an email should quickly
agree that this kind of advertising works; you are here after all.
For those few of you that arrived here by other means you too can learn this
great safelist advertising technique.
To totally understand how to achieve the most from your safelist advertising
campaigns, you will need to pay close attention to some rather simple, yet
very important details, as it could be the difference between a successful
email campaign, and a total waste of your precious time.
Overview - success formula, safelist advertising
Although this is a very simple formula, some of you might not understand
it all .So it has been explained in greater detail later on. But first read
through the overview of this formula:
You need a decent email account or email accounts that do not bounce! Do
not waste you time with using free web-based email accounts like yahoo, hotmail
or any other, no matter the size. They won’t handle the big picture
revealed to you here.
Eventualy you will be joining 300 to 1,000 lists. This will take time do
it gradually not over night! Use a little methodology; more about that further
on.
Also purchase, yourself a safelist submitter, a software version rather than
a web-based monthly subscription version. This will be a one-time investment.
Another choice available is a good freeware version, but it is not as flexible.
Begin recording your safelist submissions. It takes time, the idea would
be to join 100 lists then record them in the submitter, then join more lists
and repeat. Get into a rhythm.
Finally start writing your adverts; decent safelist submitters will store
these for you. Just remember, your advert must be attractive. Do not write
junk sales letters, do a little home work on this, it won’t take you
long to master this to a reasonable degree. Most importantly it’s the
subject-line that really counts, your email needs to be opened rather than
deleted. The easiest way to come up with a good subject line is to look at
those that get your attention, you can even just copy someone else’s
subjectline covering a similar topic, as long as it’s catchy.
Success formula for safelist advertising in depth by topic
Email & Bandwidth Issues
It’s a very good idea to spread the weight of all the emails coming
from safelists. Not forgetting the need for email accounts that don’t
bounce too. There are a few ways achieve this, and it’s not rocket science
just pay close attention to detail.
The complicated way is to set-up your own mail-server on a separate machine;
not going into this, let’s keep it simple.
An easier way is to use a few extra pop email accounts combined with a professional
email account like Ultimateinbox
(one of the very few recommended).
Ultimateinbox states that it is “unlimited size email account”
as does other accounts but be warned there has been plenty bad stories concerning
so called bottomless email accounts. You may have seen “big name”
email accounts appearing on banned domain lists provided by safelist owners.
Why?
Well there are a number of reasons but, bet your bottom dollar it’s
the rate emails come pounding in and general bandwidth issues.
Here is an example of what goes wrong, based on my own personal experience…
My 200MB email account with Runbox was always kept clean, yet started bouncing
regardless. This began messing things up severely. A complete nightmare nearly
all of my safelists went on vacation mode and my campaigns were stopped dead
in their tracks. Safelist subscription email accounts needed to be changed
pretty damn quickly!
Unfortunately some safelist owners will actually delete you without warning
if you start bouncing too much. Likewise modern safelist scripts have automatic
vacation features built-in. So can you see the importance of not bouncing?
This story ended with my personal loss of over 100 safelist accounts out of
300 at the time.
So what is the answer then?
Spread your bandwidth for starters. For example; here is what you can do
on a tight budget.
Besides having an account with Ultimateinbox, also have a couple of spare
pop email addresses. Use them together. Be connected at high speed 24/7 and
create a little home network using an old Pentium-II to handle your email.
If setting up your home network seems difficult, get someone to help; it’s
not an expensive exercise. In the meantime you will be quite ok with Ultimateinbox
until such time you are ready.
This method actually saved me from total disaster when Runbox caused serious
problems. My subscription email was quickly switched to pop email accounts
running at home. Called it “the ultimate back up”.
Once you have your home network setup; just run an email client like Outlook
(or whatever) on your old PII to sweep your pop email accounts. Use Ultimateinbox
to take up a larger percentage of subscription mail, as Ultimateinbox already
has daily cleaning built in. With email at home; delete your subscription
mail by “selecting all” then hold down the shift key whilst hitting
the delete key. Just before you delete though; it’s quite a good idea
to browse through the email looking for bargains, especially free pro safelists.
There are other known methods used for cleaning out pop accounts. These services
are not recommended for the real heavy volume. The best they do is sweep you
pop mail by the hour. In this example it’s recommended that you set
your “check for mail” setting between 5 to 20 minutes.
NOTE: Everyone’s ISP setup is different, limitations and other factors,
so some things may vary. High speed connections like cable broadband, ADSL
etc are becoming more of must these days - remember time is money! Broadband
often comes with the option of buying extra user accounts for a small fee
or even free. If you don’t have spare pop email accounts or good connection
you will need to rely
on Ultimateinbox. Once you start making money you can expand resources
and consider upgrading your ISP.
What ever you do try avoid putting all your eggs in one basket.
Joining lots of lists
Honestly it’s a numbers game, so you want maximum exposure - surely
that makes sense. Once you’re comfortable your subscription email accounts
are under control, join as many lists as you can.
Now it’s time to learn which safelists work with your safelist submitter
and which will not.
The majority of safelists listed in the directories on this site will work
with safelist submitters but there are some exceptions or in some cases you
need to be a pro member of certain types to avoid things like turing keys
(those random number logons).
Pearlsofwealth safelists will not work with safelist submitters (software
versions). There is a service though that will post to them but they were
asking for something like $22 a month – simply not worth it.
Safelists hosted by “safelistbuilder.com” you will need to be
a paid pro member, in order to post to without logging on through a turing
key.
Safelists hosted by “safelistservices.com” are strange a couple
work but the majority will not.
Safelists using iComplete, isafelists 2.0 and latest PHP deluxe scripts work
fine. Many other hosting services are fine too; Danmsmartmail, Planetxmail
and Mbonnerhosting to name a few. You will need to familiarize yourself with
what works and what does not. Good idea to put them to the test as you come
across something new.
There are a few others like Businessworldlist and safelister.com but these
are to examples of lists that you should be a member regardless and post to
manually on a regular basis. Herculist works fine in TASS but not Snazzy.
What safelist are best for advertising?
According to some experts, there are some safelists just not worth joining
according to certain criteria. It does not really matter, a lot of them are
not that responsive true but a hit is a hit. One thing noticeable with safelists
is hits come in cycles. It does not matter if your are posting to them day
after day and getting nothing for weeks on end, as long as you have you bases
covered. One thing guaranteed; if you are posting to hundreds of lists and
are using a catchy subject-lines and good sales letter, is not just getting
hits, you will actually get a handful of sign-ups. Even once in a blue moon
you will get a hit and sign-up from a really lame safelist – that’s
fantastic it could be your next go-getter in your downline(s).
Managing lots of safelists
When you start joining lots of safelists, you can quickly get overwhelmed,
with all the confirmation emails and different passwords, so it's a good idea
to have a bit of sound methodology when joining all these lists; a good organisation
strategy.
First you need to effectively organize your safelists. Do this by bookmarking
them in an orderly structure that best suits you. Personally I use Internet
Explorer’s favorites menu to take care of mine, and break them into
different categories by host type. Another method is to use a free online
bookmark service such as Bookmarktracker www.bookmarktracker.com
Another good idea is use the same username & password wherever possible,
in most cases this is easily done by editing your profile or upon signing
up. For those safelists that have a different interface that won’t allow
the above rule, you could do the one of following:
Option 1; add your username and password to the title of your bookmark.
Option 2;use a program such as Roboform www.roboform.com
The contact email address issue
It’s equally import that your contact email address does not bounce
as well. Use a primary email account to stay in touch with any admin alerts,
which are truly important. For example, when a safelist moves its script to
another host, the logon page changes. The idea would be to quickly edit your
bookmark and edit TASS. Some owners are also kind enough to publish user accounts
that are bouncing; it’s always good to check.
On the other hand, there are some list owners who allow too many solo ads
or send bogus admin alerts. In this case, weed out the really annoying safelists
and change contact email to a free email service.
Create a filter rule as follows: //If subject // does not equal //then
move to // Trash// In the “does not equal” put something
impossible like “jisimposible586” everything is then trashed.
Use a service such as “everone.net” free email services. For example:http://www.internetfan.com/email/scripts/loginuser.pl
their “trash-can” is automatically purged on monthly basis (also
check-in from time to time). Try not use this extreme technique too much,
there is an element of risk involved. If you are not sure you’re better
off buying an email account with about 50MB storage for a fair annual price
and keep it clean. Try and tolerate a little bit of solo ads, weekly is ok;
it’s the daily ones that might annoy you.
Using Safelist Submitters
Some people say to me, that automated mailing is cheating. Cheating because,
people post to loads of safelists then filter everything into junk mail accounts
and delete it. My answer is that is ridiculous, nothing much has changed over
the years with they way people handle their subscription mail. Yes most of
it gets deleted of course! It does not take a genius to work that out, this
has be going on long since safelists became web-based, it goes back to the
days of egroups (now yahoogroups). With safelist submitters, all you are doing
is taking advantage of the technology available to you.
At the end of the day, you want referrals, hits, exposure and sign-ups. So
you are posting to handful of safelists manually and getting little or no
response? Well, its time you stepped up your recruiting skills!
Choosing a software version safelist submitter over a service
Some web-based safelist submission services are quite ok, but I would like
you to consider a few things about doing it yourself.
First great point is you pay only once not monthly, the savings are enormous
especially for long-term players.
Second point; you have more control. You can see if things go wrong as they
sometimes might especially if an entire safelist host upgrades their script.
Third point; you don’t have to adhere to any service limitations.
Fourth point; you will feel a great sense of achievement once you see submitter
running longer and longer, it’s quite motivating too.
Final point; you will not necessarily be posting to the same lists as everybody
else
Honestly there are very few downsides, most obvious being the actual recording
of what is called a macro. The recording of the repetitive task of posting
to a safelist has to be manually recorded. This takes 2 or 3 minutes each
one with a good connection. If you decide to use TASS I have come up with
fantastic way around this! (Click here for more details)
Another option mention before is the freeware
version made by Snazzy.
Another factor is your machines capabilities; of course everything works
better if you have more RAM more processing power with reliable Internet provider.
Of course, you need to learn a new software package but honestly, it’s
a very simple application.
Spam & Saflists
There is a lot of talk at the moment about Spam. Honestly some of it is just
that, gossip.
It has often been said that Spam has become such a broad term these days and
will get you into a lot of trouble, even if you have not violated any laws,
and most forms of e-mail marketing, including direct e-mail, bulk e-mail,
and even sometimes safelist mail, can now considered Spam by nearly everyone.
It also has been said, even if you follow all legal guidelines when sending
out your mailing you still risk being labeled a "spammer" and in
reality, it only matters what the recipient of your e-mail thinks thus also
making it slightly unsafe to create your own opt-in list.
If you believe this to be 100% true, you have been fooled by some great marketing
hype for a new product.
Yes it’s true; the clamps have been point down on Spam, somewhat ineffectively
judging by the increased viagra ads in my mailbox but nevertheless we need
to be aware of the situation.
Take note of some big players like major ISP companies using “bait
& switch marketing” (create a problem sell the solution) and taking
advantage of these new laws. For example my ISP is selling Spam filter software
instead of just giving it to us as part of their package. Likewise there are
many people out there exploiting this situation by selling new solutions,
and they go as far to say safelists are in danger of being out of business.
This reminds me of the time, when web-based safelists came on the scene in
large numbers because there was wide spread news that all opt-in groups (yahoogroups,
topica, etc) were closing down. This was also not 100% true. There was a major
opt-in group provider closing down plus a few others, but the sales hype said
that yahoogroups was closing down too, which of course was a lie, they’re
still here now years later. This was just the sale pitch used on a lot of
pro-safelists. So be aware of the sales hype based on some truths, yet is
heavily exaggerated. Safelists are still safe and those of us that join them
know what they are for.
Spam complaints
Personally, I have had 3 Spam complaints in 4 years, all actually coming from
yahoogroups, which are more public than safelists. All have fallen on deaf
ears, the most recent being in April 2004. - Never had a Spam complaint from
a safelist and probably never will. If you are paranoid about it then the
suggestion is replacing your URL’s with tracing links, example: http://208.39.187.170/727/XBUM60149
these help protect somewhat. Some safelists provide these types of links depending
on your membership level; otherwise you could use a professional service like
ISORegister.
Start your campaign!
Last of all; just remember just write decent adverts that catch peoples attention.
Follow all of these above guidelines close to the letter, and you will go
far.
Next, you should move on and learn about other forms of email marketing starting
with group mail, Yahoogroups for example…
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