“The challenge of any organization is to build a feeling of oneness, of dependence on one another - because the question is not how well each person works, but how well they work as a TEAM!”

The Magic of
Safelist Promotion

If you’ll recall from your reading of the “Secrets of the Big Dogs” ebook, we talked about three main traffic generating tools:  (1) hosting (NOT posting to) FFA sites, (2) PAID ezine advertising and (3) safe-lists.

Naturally, the first of the above tools – hosting FFA sites to harvest the email addresses of people POSTING to them – forms the basis of the CHIP program itself.  CHIP constitutes a very solid foundation for your traffic generating needs, while at the same time giving you an opportunity for SUBSTANTIAL (to say the least) income opportunities.

The second tool – PAID ezine advertising – is pretty much covered by CHIP Program # 13, the TopEzine Ads directory.

The third tool mentioned in the ebook - safelists - is a different story.  Although we spoke of the value of paid safelists in your promotional arsenal, we pretty much left it at that.  While we had planned to integrate safelists into the Big Dogs program from the first, our unexpected explosive growth simply didn’t leave time to move in this direction.  However, now, with our move to new offices complete and with in-house, full-time support personnel available to handle the more mundane duties, I have substantially more time to pursue this avenue of promotion for the Big Dogs affiliates.

Very soon, the Big Dogs program will include what we hope will be the most comprehensive safelist directory on the Internet!

Question:  “Are safelists better than ezine advertising or hosting FFA sites?”

Answer:  “That’s like asking if TV advertising is better than magazine advertising, of if radio advertising is better than newspaper advertising.  It’s not a question of “better,” but simply “different.”  It’s a matter of “target audience.”  Every type of advertising, whether online or offline, consists of demographically different groups of prospects, and marketers must take advantage of every form of advertising possible.  THIS is why Sears, for example, uses TV, radio, newspapapers, magazines, AND mass mailing in their promotions.  Some people watch TV and don’t even bother with newspapers or magazines;  others can’t wait to get those sales flyers in their mailbox, but never turn on a radio…and so on.”

You can never have too MUCH advertising, and ALL methods of promotion must be utilized.

Every method of online advertising has it’s strengths and weaknesses.  Ezine advertising is probably the most effective form of online promotion – but it’s also the most expensive.  It is not uncommon for a single ad sent to 20,000 ezine subscribers to cost $200.00.  On the other hand for that SAME $200.00 you can get a full MONTH’S worth of promotion by hosting FFA sites via the CHIP program.  What’s the difference?  Hosting FFA sites can be likened to mass mailing in the offline world.  Once again, using Sears as an example, they know that 90% of the flyers they mail to people will be thrown away without being read.  Sears makes their money from the 10% of the people that DO read the flyers in their mailbox.  Likewise, hosting FFA sites might result in 90% of our sales messages not being read – we make our sales, just like Sears, from the 10% that ARE read.

In other words, ezine advertising may be more effective on a “percentage read” basis, but it is very expensive;  very few internet marketers have pockets deep enough that they can risk large sums of money on just ONE ad – one ad that might turn out to be a dud.  On the other hand, FFA promotion is LESS effective on a “percentage read” basis, but it’s strong suite is that because of it’s extremely low cost, if one of your ads turns out to be a dud, you can change it the very next day!

For the average Internet marketer FFA promotion is much more realistic.  BUT ezine advertising canNOT be ignored!  Remember:  each type of advertising targets a separate and DIFFERENT group of prospects.

And now we come to safelists…..

Safelists sort of fall somewhere between ezine advertising and FFA hosting.  The cost to subscribe to a safelist is usually less than $50.00 per YEAR, and you can generally email your sales message to every other member once each day.  It’s almost like purchasing a solo ad in an ezine that will run your sales message not just once, but every day for a year!  Not bad!  AND…since the safelist owners moderate their lists very closely, you receive substantially fewer “bounces,” bad email addresses, and autoresponder messages.  In addition, the target demographics of safelists are slightly different than those of FFA sites or ezines – in other words, you will “hit” different prospects with safelists than you will with FFA’s or ezines.

So…safelists sound pretty good, don’t they!?  Well, they ARE, but just as we stated above, “each form of advertising has it’s weak points as well as it’s strong points.”  The weak point of safelists is that they “burn out” rather quickly.  The average FFA network consists of 40,000 or more members, and thousands of people post ads to them every day – and the average ezine has a subscriber base of 10,000 or more – on the other hand, the average safelist consists of fewer than 1,000 members.  In addition, the membership of safelists is very stable, and does not add HUGE numbers of new members (i.e. prospects for your program) quickly.  Thus your ad can become stale quite rapidly in the typical safelist.

Is there a solution?

Yes there is, and that is to belong to a LOT of safelists.  And their relatively small, once per year cost makes this very achieveable.  It is not uncommon for some “safelist specialists” to belong to 50, or even 100 safelists.  So what, then, if you “burn out” a half dozen safelists with a particular ad – just let ‘em alone for a month or two while their membership is “recharged.”  In the meantime, you can now use a half dozen OTHER lists to promote your program!  And so, on, and so on…

Yes, safelists can definitely put more arrows in your promotional quiver, but just as with FFA sites or ezines, not all safelists are created equal.  There are certain features that are a MUST in a good safelist, and there are features in other safelists that make them completely unsuitable.

THAT, fellow Dogs, is the purpose of the new
Big Dogs Safelist Directory
The initial version will be released in next week’s Big Dogs Bulletin, so watch for it!

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