I was wading my way around in a number of marketing forums, and to my surprise there were numerous queries about Safelists.

Are you familiar with Safelists?

Being one really broke guy when I got started, I began my listbuilding using a Safelist or two or three.  I’m not alone.  Big names such as Mike Filsaime and others have used Safelists to get started.

So what is a Safelist?

A safetlist is a place to send emails to a group of people that all agreed, by virtue of being on the Safelist, they would receive each others emails and not call them spam.

You sign up for a Safelist, and you then agree to receive the emails.

Most have a free and paid level.

Free Safelists

To get any ability to send emails with a free safelist, you must build up credits.  You do this by clicking, and viewing other members adds.  The more your view, the more credits you get, and the more people you can email.

You also get credits by recruiting people to use the Safelist.  More people in your downline, more emails you can send.

Paid Members of Safelists

Being a paid member usually means you get credits monthly without viewing emails and that you typically can send your emails more often.

However, being a paid member doesn’t necessarily make it so you won’t run out of credits.  Though most safelists have a level where this is possible, and you won’t have to view emails to be able to send.

What a Safelist Can Do For You

If you use them properly, you typically can get people to opt in to your list.  There are a few Safelists where this works fairly well.  You do have to have a dedicated effort for this to work.

If you try to send emails to sell, you’re most likely going to be very disappointed.  By the nature of the activity, people simply don’t buy from Safelists.  Sure, some sales are made.  However, if this is why you are there, then you better have a high frustration level.

All and all, people on safelists are in the mindset of being freebie seekers.  They want you to buy there thing, but don’t want to buy anything.  So you have to be more creative than the other 99%.

What You Can Expect From Safelists

You can expect that most Safelists are completely useless.  There are a few out there where people actually respond.  Doing a search for saflists won’t find you any good ones.  You’ll waste a lot of time with trial and error.  So if you want safelists where you have a chance of gaining some opt ins, here are some options:

Traffic Hoopla :  They claim to independently test Safelists and Traffic Exchanges.  This is a quick way to narrow things down.  From my experience, they are pretty accurate – though Traffic Exchanges generally are worthless no matter who recommends them.

The List Auction:  More serious people here.  They actually look at your ads, and – if you are short, and too the point, yet catchy, they will opt in with you.

Viral Networks:  I don’t think this site would like me calling it a Safelist, but it is a social network with a built in safelist, in my opinion… and it can be very responsive.

What Will You Get?

I’ll tell you what I do with these resources.  I use them to start tests on email copy and subject lines.  Though most are being opened to get credits, I’ve found that the amount of response — even in Safelists  — has everything to do with your subject line.

So if it gets opened and read, and some level of opt in from the Safelist test, then it will actually get better results from my customer list.

Plus, it gets you traffic.  Usually very targeted (though not necessarily buyers upfront), particularly if you market in some sub-niche of internet marketing.  Although, if you check out the safelists above, you’ll find that there are marketers from almost every profitable niche in the “good” ones.

The Bottom Line…

98% of safelists are utterly and totally useless.  Go where they are proven still responsive, and have a goal of either getting opt ins, or testing your copy.

Don’t expect to market direct sales.

There are ways to make tools work, but only if you go to the right places first.

What’s your opinion? Do you know a safelist that works that I haven’t mentioned?  Tell me in the comments.

- Wayne Sharer