Do You Prefer The Old Safelists or New Viral Mailers? - Why?

[Clare Bowen]

...Just wanted to make sure everyone knows there is NO difference in a safelist or a mailer.

I call them safelists mainly because it is their origionial name, but also called them mailers before 2010... and so did others.

 

Having one or two email fields does not make it a safelist, or a mailer - It is the same thing.

Having credits or not does not make it a safelist, or a mailer - It is the same thing.

It is a very old advertising method and not new.

 

It was "mandatory" to have 2 email addresses IF the owner or programmer wanted it.

My safelists have had either.

My mailers have had either.

Neither name is new and if someone says otherwise, then they were not around back then.

 

People have been doing 1 or 2 email fields since year 2000, or before, and use of credits.

It had nothing to do with the name of the thing (safelist or mailer)

 

Back in the day (and I am sure today) people filtered their safelist mail. Owners wanted to contact them but if filtered, their emails did not get seen. it depended on the owner, the programmer of a script and how they wanted it.

 

You're right :-)

 

I still classify them differently for my own use though. I have four parent folders for mailers - TAEs, LFMVMs, Safelists and a folder that I call Listbuilders (yes, I know lol), but I made those without worrying what others might think of my labels and really its based on script for me. The LFMVM folder came after the other three when those launched and I had name it then, "new script mailers".

 

I've just recently gone through all my filters and cleaned out many dead sites. Also switched a number of sites from one folder to another as they've converted to a different script.

[Terry Guile]

I don't have much experience with safelists but I have joined about 40 of them. The LFMVM ones are horrible in my opinion.

 

it isn't the script itself but the way it always ends up being ran.

 

When you join them they may give you 500 credits. Big deal. That equates to about 5 hits.

 

Plus, not many people are active because you get about a 1 to 4 or 1 to 3 ration on them.

 

Plus, you are dealing with all these emails. You mean I have to get flooded with emails and read all  of them on top of all the rest of it?

 

I mean if you cant convey to me whats on your site in 5 seconds of me flipping on to it im moving on.

 

If you want to do banners that is a no go also. People think they can get a good deal on all the credits with banners. Everyone thinks that though and you have a million banners and no action.

 

I would rather just do a traffic exchange and PTC that gives me a good ratio for my visits.

 

I don want 1 credit for 3 views and a bunch of emails I want to zip through sites and get the same views or better back.

[yourstores]

I use a tracker to monitor everything I do which includes mailers and TE's. I can agree with everything said about using both based on the info I have. I am however amazed at the number of bot visits that occur on TE's, often as many as 50%. As long as everybody doesn't start using them we should be alright, just keep playing the numbers game. 

[Michael Harris]

Hey I want to add a bit to this conversation. A year or 2 ago a friend and decided to run a little test to see which were the most responsive, the new smaller mailers or the large well-established mailers. we were somewhat surprised by our results. 

We posted in sites that were over 1000 members versus sites that were either new and less than 200 members more or less. What we found was that the smaller sites outdid the larger sites and we believe it was because in the smaller sites the members actually took the time to read the mail. Our tracking testified to this as well. In the larger sites, people were only concerned with clicking for credits to mail their own mail. So you would get a lot of clicks but no sales and certainly no sign-ups. Remember they were only concerned with the credits. The smaller sites converted better and the sign-up rate was better. Now I still use the larger sites in my marketing but use a different strategy in the larger list. 

i guess the saying "Less Is More'" is right in the instance. 

[Clare Bowen]

Hey I want to add a bit to this conversation. A year or 2 ago a friend and decided to run a little test to see which were the most responsive, the new smaller mailers or the large well-established mailers. we were somewhat surprised by our results. 

We posted in sites that were over 1000 members versus sites that were either new and less than 200 members more or less. What we found was that the smaller sites outdid the larger sites and we believe it was because in the smaller sites the members actually took the time to read the mail. Our tracking testified to this as well. In the larger sites, people were only concerned with clicking for credits to mail their own mail. So you would get a lot of clicks but no sales and certainly no sign-ups. Remember they were only concerned with the credits. The smaller sites converted better and the sign-up rate was better. Now I still use the larger sites in my marketing but use a different strategy in the larger list. 

i guess the saying "Less Is More'" is right in the instance. 

 

Interesting study and interpretation, thank you for sharing.

[captkirk]

Hey I want to add a bit to this conversation. A year or 2 ago a friend and decided to run a little test to see which were the most responsive, the new smaller mailers or the large well-established mailers. we were somewhat surprised by our results. 

We posted in sites that were over 1000 members versus sites that were either new and less than 200 members more or less. What we found was that the smaller sites outdid the larger sites and we believe it was because in the smaller sites the members actually took the time to read the mail. Our tracking testified to this as well. In the larger sites, people were only concerned with clicking for credits to mail their own mail. So you would get a lot of clicks but no sales and certainly no sign-ups. Remember they were only concerned with the credits. The smaller sites converted better and the sign-up rate was better. Now I still use the larger sites in my marketing but use a different strategy in the larger list. 

i guess the saying "Less Is More'" is right in the instance. 

 

Hi Michael,

 

I have come to the same conclusion "Less Is More"...

 

[weblord]

im half-half still i guess, because im still promoting in herculist though when i have the budget i like their lifetime gold upgrades. herculist has been here for so long a time. i also welcome viral mailers of which im also a member of