Safelist Marketing 101

Basically, a safelist is a gathering place (or, TE = Traffic Exchange, TAE = Traffic Ad Exchange) of like-minded business people and individuals who have agreed to exchange ads or advertising. You agree to receive ads from all of the other members in exchange for the opportunity to send your own marketing offer(s) via email. Actually, this marketing method can equate to driving a lot of traffic to your website or blog as long as you are fulfilling a need, providing relevant information, creating solutions, and solving problems.

Safelists (free and paid) and safelist marketing have become a very popular and lucrative way of advertising products, services, websites, blogs, and events via e-mail. And not to mention, make a lot of money. Safelists are lists which specific email addresses of folks who have agreed to receive email from other list members from the same safelist(s). Some safelists can contain from a few hundred to hundreds of thousands of members. This concept has many advantages; below are several of them. 

For one, it is spam-free as people have to double opt-in to the safelist and thereby agree to the terms and conditions set forth by the list owner to receive your ads. Should someone decide that the safelist mail is spam, well, it is not really your problem because the email is not sent from your email address or server; and most safelist systems today are very technologically advanced and coupled with mechanisms to prevent frame breaking, spam, malware, viruses, etc. to be transmitted or transferred. I have never had a problem with any of the safelists that I'm subscribed to. The origin of the terminology "safelist" derives from--"a closed community where it is safe for members to exchange ads via email". 

The second key advantage of safelist marketing is quite obvious but many people may have overlooked or are not aware of this:

Question: What do each safelist member and most Internet marketers have in common?

Answer: They all have something to sell, share, promote, or give away (i.e., for free). 

Some online marketers have not advanced far enough in their Internet marketing career to dismiss a very mundane, and sometimes labor intensive task of posting to safelists. Do not get me wrong here, safelist marketing is just one of many excellent, beneficial, and potentially profitable ways of promoting your wares and earning money while doing so. Therefore, if you have a product, service, report, eBook, income opportunity, info-product, newsletter, etc. that can help people on the way to Internet glory, then the average safelist user becomes an excellent prospect for you. One other note, some safelists even offer targeted marketing categories and niches so that you can point your ads more strategically.

For one thing safelists are profitable for me and tend to work faster in terms of sales than even Facebook, Twitter, and a number of other social network conventions out there. Safelists are a wonderful and free starting point for many new online marketers. Regardless, I have found safelist marketing to be very beneficial, profit wise, for many of my online offers and promotions.

So whether you join a free or paid safelist, you too can use email marketing and advertising to promote and sell to those members of your safelist who might be in need of your offer. Feel free to discover more about safelists and iMarketing information by visiting my sites Effective Email Advertising and eMarketing Media Advertising.

Imagine the next time you join a discussion about traffic. When you start sharing the fascinating traffic facts below, your friends will be absolutely amazed. 

Traffic Exchanges offer a great free way of promoting your business. They should be included in your advertising arsenal but make sure that you leverage your time effectively and you don't surf for hours for those advertising credits. Try to find a traffic exchange program that will not hinder your normal surfing behavior, while advertising your business and you will be one of the few people who maximize their time and effort with this free marketing tool.

Some traffic exchange services will make your surfing experience a bit more complex, since you would have to wait for a timer to expire in order to be awarded credits, and while that timer counts down you are forced to view another person's website from the network.

Some of these measures were taken by the traffic exchange programs in an effort to minimize or eliminate cheating, as some users have created ways to cheat the system by using software programs that auto surf and earn themselves credits.

Typically, participants to traffic exchanges will surf the Internet with a slight modification of how they normally would, in an effort to collect credits.

The less departure from the normal surfing experience, the more the webmaster will be willing to use that traffic exchange program. Also, the less you force a user to view your website, the more targeted they will be for that product or service. For example, someone who reads a headline in a traffic exchange and clicks on it to view the website is more targeted than someone who views it because they are forced to wait for a timer to expire.

Now that you have an overview of what traffic exchange programs are and how they work, let us take a look at their major benefits:

1. You can recruit affiliates and downlines to gain more exposure to your site as well as increase your earning potential.

2. You can build an opt-in email list to market your products to. 

3. They are free to use in most cases.

4. Targeted Traffic (i.e., for Internet and Affiliate Marketing campaigns).

So far, we have uncovered some interesting facts about traffic. You may decide that the following information is even more interesting or not. 

Almost all traffic exchange services are free, although you can upgrade your membership to get additional benefits. This means that iMarketers who are working with a minimum or no advertising marketing budget can quickly and easily start advertising their website or blog for little to no out of pocket cost.

If your product is Internet marketing related then the driven to your website will be somewhat targeted because they will be people who are also looking for ways of increasing their online income and traffic.

To capture these names and add them to your email marketing list, you will need to have a page designed to offer a freebie or a three-part to five-part eCourse in exchange for a valid name and email address. You can then follow up with these leads and offer them some more relevant products and services in the near future.

If you have your own product and/or affiliate program, then you can recruit affiliates to sell your products for a commission. The more people selling your products, the more passive income you will make. Sounds pretty easy, huh?

In conclusion, Traffic Exchange programs are services that are used by webmasters and online marketers to drive more traffic, attract new customers, and gain more exposure for their business.

There are different types of traffic exchange programs. Many will let you surf the Internet as you normally would but require that you set your browser's start page to their default advertising, sales, doorway, or splash page. Then, every time your browser loads one of their pages you earn advertising credits. In addition, you can earn credits for clicking on links of other members within the safelist or traffic exchange network. These credits can be used for credit mailers or in exchange for visitors to your website.

Remember, do not limit yourself by refusing to learn the inner details about traffic and traffic exchanges. The more you know, the easier it will be to focus on what is important, making money online!