If you're looking for ways to drive more traffic to your website, you may be wondering what a safelist is and how it can benefit you. The truth is, it's not as powerful as you think – at least not in the way you may think. I have tried quite a few of them over the years only because I’ve been invited to join, but no, they’re not good, you know. Not good.
l will explain what makes safelists such a waste of time and money, and how safelists never really generate quality traffic to your website.
Is there any good strategy for getting the most out of safelists? I really don’t think so. But most of them are free to join, so if you don’t believe me, just join and see if it really ever works. Don’t get carried away no matter how helpful they may sound in the beginning. Those people may be fake. So get ready - let's dive into the world of safelists!
What Is A Safelist?
A safelist is an online community of internet users based on outdated marketing methods. Members agree to send and receive emails to each other. Your email address must be verified upon joining so others know that you are a real person. But nowadays, anyone can create a Gmail account using a fake name within minutes and abandon it as they wish, so this barely means anything.
Originally, it was supposed to be a way to reach a large number of potential customers quickly and inexpensively. But that was decades ago. A safelist allows you to send emails to large groups of people without having to worry about spam filters. They may help you generate traffic to your website. The problem is, the traffic may not be responsive at all.
Safelists are usually run by old-ish marketers who cling to obsolete traffic strategies. They might already know that safelists don't work, but they tell you that theirs do only to get you to become a premium member to pocket money for themselves.
How Do Safelists Work?
To join a safelist, you must first provide your email address to the list owner. Once you are a member of the safelist, you can start sending emails to other members.
Most safelists have rules that members must follow in order to stay in good standing. For example, you must not spam the list and you must not use the list to harass others. This is supposed to ensure that everyone on the list is interested in receiving emails from you. Additionally, most safelists have a limit on how often you can send emails. This keeps members from being bombarded with too many emails and ensures that everyone has a “chance” to be heard.
The Problem with a Safelist
The problem with a safelist is that members all have one thing in mind but nothing else - to sell their products. They're never interested in others, they just want to sell theirs.
The vast majority of people who join safelists are not interested in buying anything, and they certainly aren't interested in your product. Some of them may tactically buy your $50 product, hoping that you’ll buy their $100 product in return.
Most safelists are utter trash because no real buyers are on the lists. That’s the ultimate problem, but actually, safelists are full of false advantages hidden behind the facade of "online business owners helping each other."
Unresponsive Traffic
Safelists may generate traffic to your website, but how responsive will the traffic be? Not at all. The number of visitors means nothing if none of them makes a purchase.
They say that you can “increase your chances of getting click-throughs and conversions.” It may be true, they may visit your sales page, scroll down and may click your “buy now” button - just to check up on your site. How your landing page works, which payment clearance gateway you’re using, your copywriting skills, etc.
In The Name of “Online Business Community”
In other words, if you are in it to help other online business owners while getting help from others, you must start by reading emails from others and clicking all the links to do them a favor. If there are 300 members, you’ll receive 300 emails every day.
If each member is allowed to send 3 emails per day, you’ll receive 900 emails every day. If it takes 20 seconds to read one email and click the link, it will take you 300 minutes (5 hours) to complete the job every single day. If this sounds feasible to you, then maybe safelists are good for you. What do you think?
An “online business community” may sound like a great place where members help each other, create synergy, and they can all increase their sales. But of course, in reality, it’s not a charity. Some of the members may be promoting the same niche as yours, which means they are your competitors. What’s the point of sending emails to the wrong type of audience?
Boring “Make Money” Invitation Emails
Sadly, most of the members promote the same old garbage to each other such as;
- “Generate more traffic”
- “Increase your revenue by X times”
- “Cryptocurrency to make money”
Imagine you are promoting a product that claims to “increase profits by 10 times” in your emails while others are promoting similar products such as;
- “Increase profits by 20 times”
- “Increase profits by 3.5 times within 7 days”
- “Increase profits by 7 times without putting any effort.”
Which one do you think is the best? Could you ever possibly be serious about any of it? If you could, then you could carry on claiming what everyone else is claiming. If not, you see a meaningless full circle going around there.
Just To Get Your Emails Open...
Your emails may be delivered to other members “safely” but whether they open them or not is a different thing. But if you just want them to open your emails, you can use a couple of classic methods such as;
- Clickbait: Put something to draw attention in your email subject line. “What Steve Jobs would have done before he died”, for example. Your mail may get opened but that’ll probably be it.
- Lead Magnet: You offer a downloadable freebie such as a (boring) ebook in exchange for signing up with you. But freebie takers, especially those who would join a safelist, have no intention to buy your products in the first place, anyway. A lead magnet is a rubbish idea, but at least you may get people to take action.
Does a Safelist Ever Work?
As I explained earlier already, if you’re in an ordinary niche, you are unlikely to sell because people don’t join a safelist to look for any particular service. If you are in the real estate business, your target customers are searching real estate sites, not some traffic exchange safelists.
With that said, a safelist may work if you offer a service that others cannot access anywhere else easily. For example;
- Clairvoyance, medium, fortune-telling
- Unusual makeover (e.g. turn a dog poo into a precious metal)
- Household products (that they use anyway) that are good quality cheaper than anywhere else, and delivered internationally reasonably quickly.
Don't Pay
You can try a safelist for free and see if anyone responds to you. But don’t be swayed into joining for a fee.
People pay to become premium members because they are told that the premium membership will allow them to send multiple emails per day, i.e. “You will have a great chance of reaching your audience.”
What they’re not told is that they’re reaching the wrong audience. If you become ubiquitous within the safelist, some may become interested to know who you really are. But equally, others may become annoyed by your excessive presence.
Safelists vs. Ordinary Email Marketing
If you think safelists are better than ordinary email marketing because you don’t have to worry about being penalized for spamming, that’s true.
Go and live in a country where the criminal justice system is weak so that you can steal stuff freely, you see what I mean? If you don't want to be penalized for spamming, don't spam, instead of going to a place where you can spam.
Millions of business owners thrive to learn legitimate and ethical email marketing methods to earn the trust of the public. If you can’t do that, neither safelists nor ordinary email marketing will work for you.
So here are some of the main reasons that ordinary email marketing methods are better than using safelists.
- The email recipients in the safelists are not your target audience, but a lot of them may be your competitors.
- With email marketing, you have control over who receives your messages. With a safelist, you have no such control, and your messages could end up in the spam folder of someone who didn't even sign up for the service.
- Safelists generally have a large number of members, which can result in your message being lost in the shuffle.
- Safelists often require you to view ads in order to earn credits, which can be time-consuming and frustrating.
- Email marketing allows you to track opens and clicks, so you can see how effective your campaign is. Safelist providers don't offer this kind of feedback, so you're left guessing as to whether or not your messages are being seen.
- You can segment your email list to send more targeted messages. This isn't possible with a safelist, as everyone on the list receives the same message.
- Email marketing allows you to automate your campaigns, saving you time and effort. Safelists don't offer this type of functionality, so you'll need to manually send out each message yourself.
Safelists Are Total, Utter Trash
A safelist is not a reliable way to build customer relationships or generate traffic to your website. Safelists are unmonitored, and the members are barely engaged. They are totally useless. If you don't want your mailbox bombarded with spam or be contacted by beginner crypto/forex spammers, it's best to avoid using safelists.
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Wow its a Great post. The information helpful for me. I didnt’ know anything about safelists but now I know how it works. I would like to generate more traffic but I didn’t know what the best way was until now. There are too many spammers around nowadays, I will try to be careful. Thanks For sharing good information.