Should I bother with safelists?

Got an email today from someone asking me why they should bother with safelists. It wasn't even about the safelist we run, he was asking about one of the giant safelists that we'll just leave nameless. He hadn't gotten any response and had been on it for a few months.

It was pretty similar to a message I got about 6 months ago from somebody else about a different, but still major, safelist. And I periodically get variations on these messages for the various safelists we've run or promoted or when we've said - yes, use safelists as an advertising method.

Somebody else had recently asked me how many sign-ups they could expect from one safelist mailing. Well - without knowing what they were promoting, how they were promoting it, which safelist, - any information at all, it's hard to answer that question. And even if you do know all that stuff -it is still kinda hard to answer. You can test and get some insight - but advertising is still some art form mixed with some science.
 

And since I'm in a grumpy mood (it's been known to happen) I figured I'd write a blog post instead of doing my regularly scheduled work :)  So here is the short answer - yes, bother with safelist advertising. The sign-ups I have gotten from safelists have been good, strong ones - when it comes from a non-credit based safelist, I've noticed that these are people that can, ahem, read - and they often wind up using the site, visiting again or being otherwise great. From a credit-based safelist this can be true too. 

In general it is easier to get sign-ups from a credit based one because they have more incentive to click. However, if there are a lot of ads that come out  - they have a lot of choice, meaning they might not choose yours. So have a good subject line.  Timing can help with that too - people sometimes click more when they need more credits to send out ads - so you might see a surge on the weekends. But sending out multiple ads with varying titles as often as you can really helps with the response rate - and  you can test the success rates of either titles or timing - keep track in an spreadsheet or even on a sheet of paper (remember those!?)

There's a free ebook that talks about how to make the most out of safelist marketing that has a bunch of tips. These work well on listbuilder sites and text ad exchanges too - anywhere you are going to send out email type messages to a bunch of people. 

Anyway, back to the actual grindstone now or the peppermill or whatnot (for those that don't know I cook, hence the peppermill....)

Rob...who is actually looking for a lost shaker of salt  :)