A safelist is an email list that lets everyone on the list send out emails to everyone else. It’s basically a free for all. When you join a safelist you agree to receive emails from all the other subscribers on the list.
When you join a safelist, expect to be flooded with emails for all types of things, including scams. Many people cheat safelists and automate the process so it is hands and eyes free. Safelists get a bad rap because of the massive number of emails you receive and the cheaters.
If you know the tricks, you can successfully get subscribers to your email lists from safelists.
You will constantly hear people claiming that it’s impossible to get subscribers from safelists. They are just doing it wrong or trying to get subscribers for one niche off a safelist setup for another niche.
The niches that do well with safelists include the make money online and get rich quick. Keep this in mind when wanting to build a list from safelists. Most subscribers will be newbies looking for ways to make money online fast. So make sure you target them directly.
Now, let’s look at some ways to improve your chances at getting subscribers from safelists.
Do Not Try to Directly Sell Something
This is most likely the biggest mistake being made by most safelist marketers. You do not want to even attempt to sell something to safelist readers in your email ads.
Safelist marketers are not in the buying mode when they are cleaning out their email inbox. They want you to read their ads but they usually have no intention of reading your ads.
Since they are not in the buying mode you need to give them something of value they are interested in for free and make your money on the backend or down the road.
Your main goal should be to get their non-safelist email address and name. This way you can market to them when they are not in the safelist “empty my email inbox as fast as I can” mode.
Use Great Subject Lines
Most safelist marketers use extremely bad subject lines. Go through your safelist email inbox and really take a look at what subject lines are being used. It will amaze you at all the subject lines you see that make no sense, scream hype and
buy me!
If you plan on getting your email ad read, you need to use subject lines that grab the safelist email inbox scanners attention. Your subject line has to jump off the page among 50 to 200 other subject lines. The reason I say 50 to 200 is because most web based email accounts allow the user to set the number of emails to view per page to 50 to 200.
Test Your Subject Lines
The slightest change to a subject line can increase the number of reads big time. Most safelists marketers do not test their subject lines against each other and lose a lot of email ad reads.
Don’t make this common mistake. Test your subject lines to determine what subject lines are working and which ones are not.
Keep Your Email Ads Short
I see this mistake all the time. For some reason safelist marketers write very long emails telling the reader all about their product and why it is the best and why they must have it today.
I also see email ads that look like a list of classified ads trying to sell 5, 10, 15 or more things in the same email.
Your email ads should have one purpose. That purpose is to get the reader to click a link to go to a web page that will give them all the information they need.
The email should get them to click. Do the selling on the web page instead.
Keep your email ads short and to the point with the only purpose being to get them to click a link. You will find you do a lot better with your safelist marketing.
Don’t Just Use Free Safelists
Everyone seems to start out by joining only free safelists. This is a big mistake as the free only safelists are the least productive and responsive. They are usually not maintained well by the list owner and produce little or no income for safelist submitters.
What you want to join is the free safelists that have a paid pro upgrade option. These are better maintained and have more serious members. The members of these safelists take their business much more seriously and are much more likely to read several safelist emails each day.
By all means keep the free only but also obtain several paid pro memberships.
Safelist marketing is a numbers game but you can increase your conversion percentages greatly by subscribing to top paid safelists.
Take Advantage of Credit Based Safelists
Credit based safelists are the most productive hands down. But the majority of safelist submitters are too lazy to use them. All it takes is about 15 minutes a day to get good results from using credit based safelists. The more time you have to view other members email ads the more email ads you will be able to email.
If you are not familiar with the term credit based safelists, let me explain how they work. You earn credit by clicking on emails and viewing their offers from other members of the credit based safelist. You can then spend these credits with the safelist to mail out emails ads to its members.
With credit based safelists your email ads have a better chance of actually being viewed by a real live person.
Use a Dedicated Email Account for Safelists
I feel sorry for all the new safelist marketers that make this common mistake. Safelists produce a very large amount of email being sent to your inbox. If you use your main email account, you will regret it. You will have a hard time finding emails from friends, family and business acquaintances.
Always use a dedicated email account for your safelist emails. I highly recommend setting up both a list and contact email account that is only used for safelist marketing.
If you are going to be using credit based safelists, I would highly recommend setting up a third dedicated email account just for its use.
Clear Out Your Safelist Email Account Frequently
A full email inbox is the great taboo of safelist owners. If your email box gets full and starts bouncing back emails to the safelists, it clogs up their systems and really pisses them off.
If you bounce emails back due to a full email inbox you will quickly find your safelist accounts being deleted. Sometimes you will even find yourself banned from particular safelists.
You must keep your email inbox cleaned out on a daily basis so this does not happen to you.
Constantly Learn More About Safelist Trends
Productive safelist marketing techniques are constantly changing. You need to learn what is new and what is currently working on an ongoing basis. Using old safelist marketing techniques will only make you think that safelist marketing does not work. This is no different than any other marketing method.
You need to constantly be learning what works today, not what worked yesterday.
Now that you know some of the tricks to getting subscribers from safelists, start taking advantage of this source of new subscribers. Be patient and soon you will have a new flow of eager subscribers on your email list.
Hi Rob,
Nice article and I agree with everything you say.
Give people a free report around how to get traffic or started in affiliate marketing and follow-up correctly you will do far better than pushing the same “opportunity” page as everyone else.
Andrew
Definitely enjoyed reading this. Very good information. I am a Safelist owner with 13,000+ members and I know that people who do what you have posted here do well with Safelist. The ones that don’t get very frustrated and quit.
The big key to me is to test your email subjects and find one that works. If you find one that works you can use it over and over again.
Thanks
Bo