Let's take a look today at a much misunderstood form of advertising -safelists.

People will tell you that they don't work, but I'm here to tell you that they do.  All that you need to do is apply the same philosophy that I recommend you use with Traffic Exchanges.

Who are you marketing to?

Internet Marketers

What should you market?

Information in exchange for an email address

Where should you market?

The most effective safelists as sourced and recommended by Affiliate Funnel.

How should you market?

Be original and here is where we need to apply some specific knowledge. You see while Traffic Exchanges guarantee you a page view, safelists only allow you to place an ad.  Your ad is competing with hundreds of others for the reader's attention. The better safelists generally reward participants by supplying credits for viewing some ads.

So how do you get your ad read?

First off, you need to understand that safelists are divided into two categories - credit based and non credit based and on the face of it credit based safelists will get your website page "seen" more often than a non credit based safelist.

But there's a catch (there always is isn't there?).   In order for you to advertise on a credit based safelist, you need to earn advertising credits by viewing other safelist members' advertisements - (just like a Traffic Exchange) and the question has to be asked - is it worth it? - and if it is worth it why not just pay for advertising credits and be done with it?

The answer is that with some initial spent on tracking and testing advertisements, safelist advertising on credit based safelists can be quite rewarding.

To succeed with credit based safelists you need two critical elements - a good headline and a simple landing page designed to capture leads. (In fact I have found that a basic splash page redirecting the safelist viewer to a lead capture page has been working very well for me.) A well designed headline can double click through rates on a credit based safelist, ensuring that you have some interested visitors coming to your site.

I have consistently found that safelist advertising using this strategy works, it then comes down to how much time you are prepared to spend on earning credits against buying them.

On that front I might mention that I have consistently found that the click through and response rates at List Joe have substantially been better than any other competitor and last time I looked, they offered an amazing "one time Gold Membership offer" that allows you to email 3000 members every 3 days, plus 10000 ad credits at Croc Ads plus 10000 credits at credit Ads Depot AND 25000 credits at Free Traffic Bar. 

Additionally, you can receive gold member commissions on all List Joe referrals. A well planned lead capture system and follow up system  that recommends List Joe occasionally will more than pay for this advertising.

If you're serious about safelist advertising you must investigate List Joe and its Pro membership options.

What about non credit based safelists? Are they just a waste of time?

Well, your click through rate will be much lower, because the only incentive for somebody to click on your ad is what you say in your headline and ad copy, but you can bet that if somebody has clicked through to your site they are legitimately interested and the key to getting a click through is all in what your headline says.

Your headline must be sufficiently original to prick the reader's curiosity, so that they want to see what is on offer.

Headlines should be short, sharp, believable and start with words like:

•  Unlock...

• Open

• How to...

• Learn

• Discover

• Uncover

• Exposed.

• Revealed....

• Explained...

• What You...

• Profit...

• Save...

• Make.

• Secrets Of...

• Top (No.) ...

and should be supplemented with adjectives like

Writing a good headline takes time, practice and some experimentation, but when you hit on the right one, your Safelist results will improve dramatically.

Further reading on this subject can be obtained by going here and reading the safe list chapter.

To get started with safelists you need to ensure that you have a dedicated email address that won't bounce.  Yahoo, MSN and the like bounce like rubber balls. I find g-mail to be perfect.

If you don't have a g-mail account, you can establish one by establishing an account with Google