Safe Lists- The Truth

There are many marketing programs out there seeking your money and effort (plus your email address!), that fall under this category. There are quite a few names used for these marketing programs but I will refer to all of them as “safe lists”. Each of these marketing programs work under the same basic principles. To recognize these programs look for these major, key elements-

• Subscription fee or “buy-in” to the service • Sign-up to individual “lists” that you will send you marketing message • Requirement to have 1 or 2 email addresses but not through a free email service • The offers for these services usually sell you on the tools they have put into place to simplify the process. They also boast on the huge numbers of people you will reach with their program.

The “Safe List” marketing method is a very poor marketing choice and a huge source of annoyance once you are “in”. Like the mob (or a book club) once you’re in it’s difficult to leave on your own. Let’s briefly look at how safe lists work step by step.

You subscribe or buy into the master Safe List programs. This is a primary income source for the organizer of the master safe lists, although not necessarily for the individual safe list owners. The buy in will range from a one-time fee to a routine monthly charge for the service- I have even seen some that are offered for free for a limited time (you are committed to pay as long as you have active accounts after the trial period) . Immediately after buying in to the service you are asked to create an account where you typically provide 2 email addresses. When 2 addresses are used one is for primary email (contacts from the safe list organizer and administrative messages) and the other for the junk you will receive from being a part of these programs (more on that later).

Both email need to be legitimate e-mail addresses you own and control. Often, free and AOL email addresses are not permitted. There is a good reason for this- many of the free email services and AOL have automatic spam blocking as a feature. The safe list mailings come from central addresses (usually associated with the master program) and not directly from the individual marketer who is sending the message. Early on in the establishment of the different master safe lists the free email providers identified the messages as spam. The provision for a “real” email address assures the list managers that the messages will not be automatically blocked or dumped to the user’s junk or spam folders. Simply designed, this assures the master safe list organizer that any marketing messages sent will end up in your in-box.

During the startup process you will be given access to 100’s or 1000’s of participating individual safe lists to choose from. The individual lists have snappy names but don’t really tell you what their focus is. The individual safe lists can have anywhere from a few to hundreds of members each. The master safe list service makes it very easy for you to sign up for all of these individual lists in bulk by having a “check all” box option.

This is your first “opt-in” to become a user of the individual lists AND member of the individual safe lists. The different master safe list services offer slight variations on the next steps but the basic premise is the same. Any way it is done they will also simplify your confirmation for each individual safe list or 2nd “opt-in” to each. You are now permitted to “Blast” these individual safe lists with your marketing messages. You are also now a full fledged member of each of the lists!

Submission of your message is almost always web based and pretty easy to do. Compose you message and hit the send button- 100’s of people on 100’s of list will receive your marketing message. You can do this at least daily (some have limits on posting frequency) and literally reach 1000’s of in-boxes without much effort. Sounds great- but before you get your first message out to the masses you will start to realize some of the drawbacks!

You sign up through the Master Program, are easily added to hundreds of Individual lists and have access to hundreds of members. Each of these subscribers also has access to you!

In your quest to reach the most people effectively you may not have realized you agreed to be an active receiver of others marketing messages. Essentially safe lists are nothing more than a collection of marketers, not unlike you, exchanging messages with each other through the individual safe lists. All of the sudden, often before you can even compose your 1st marketing message your inbox will explode with marketing messages from others. You literally have the potential to receive messages from every person in the “program”- so if the master safe list brags about having access to 1 million people you have the potential to receive that many messages in a very short time period!

One you realize the safe list service is nothing but a bunch of marketing being marketed to marketers you’ll likely want out! The target audience you are looking for is likely not there but you have marked yourself as a target by signing-on to the safe lists. Unfortunately, the processing of leaving the individual programs is no where near as easy as signing up for them. You won’t find any bulk unsubscribe feature from the Master Program!

To get out of most safe lists you are required to log into every individual safe list (could be 100s or 1000s of them thanks to the upfront easy signup process!), scroll through a few menus and perform a few button presses before you can “opt-out” of the list. Again, you need to do this for every single list in the program. By design most lists make it a bit of a challenge to opt-out.

Consider the Safe List free trials I mentioned in the opening- once the trial period expires you automatically convert to a paid program. You must pay all fees while you are active in –any- individual safe list! The hook is set, line reeled in and you are on the boat! Its really tough to get out.

A bit more information you need to know about how individual safe lists work- the nightmare can reproduce quicker than you can opt-out of all of the individual lists. This feeds the free trial conversion hook I describe and perpetuates your receipt of messages as an opt-in participant.

The individual safe list owners can sell you your very own safe list to run and manage. They always include participants who have opted-in to their list. The fine print of the sign-up agreement participants check or agree to during the opt-ins permits the list owner to sell their list (including your information!) to new list owners. Every time this happens you end up on another individual safe list you technically didn’t sign up for. Many poorly managed or less than honest safe list owners transfer both current “members” and those who had previously opted-out. This allows them to sell the list for more because of the seemingly larger membership. So even if you are very efficient in the labor intense activity of getting out of the individual lists, one-by-one, you will still get solicitations.

Avoid safe lists unless you don’t mind hundreds (if not thousands) of emails and marketers are your intended target audience. Even if marketing specialists are your target audience it is not likely anyone receiving your messages will actually read the message because it will be buried in a sea of e-mail.

This article is an extract from Sam Mancuso's newly released book: Web Marketing- 10 Marketing Ideas to Avoid. Full details on the book are located at http://www.ruzzmanllc.com/ebooks/marketing/index.html

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