As an affiliate marketer, your whole business is basically whittled down to one thing. That one thing is to get as many people as possible to the site you are promoting through your affiliate link.
In other words, marketing.
You have no need to worry about writing ad copy, creating a new product, finding a niche or any of the other mundane tasks that go into product creation because they have already been done for you.
On the surface this seems like a no brainer. Easy money!
The problems arise when you stop to consider how many other affiliates are out there with the same goal in mind, promoting the exact same product as you are with the exact same promotional material.
If you have been into internet marketing for any time at all you most likely have looked into many of the free advertising avenues available today. Safelists and traffic exchanges are probably the most prevalent of these.
Safelists are good to use as a list building tool because they are populated with internet marketers. This is a wortwhile target audience.
The new lists that are credit-based are best because they require anyone wishing to use the list to advertise, to actually view the site to get enough credits to mail their own ads.
Now think about this for one minute. How many times have you clicked on a link from a safelist and been taken to the exact page that you have seen ten times already that day?
Come on people! Do you really believe that if someone out there sees the same site over and over again that they will eventually break down and buy, join, opt-in or whatever else your cookie cutter affiliate page is trying to accomplish?
No!
If you see one of those pages after the first time simply go back to checking your email and wait for the timer to reach zero so you can just close the browser.
On the other hand if you see a good page, with compelling copy, that is giving away a free report you may be much more likely to read what the site has to say and give them your name and email address to get the report.
Most of these marketers also will have their autoresponder set up to lead to a one time offer after capturing their prospects information. This is an awesome money making tactic.
As soon as marketer have your name and email address they can send you more offers for the same product or other related products. Most likely they will have a few messages already in the queue to go out at intervals of two to three days.
This is how to use a safelist effectively as your own list building tool. The people who opt-in to your list will be interested in your offer. They have set themselves apart from the crowd.
The money is in the list. Use safe lists wisely and they can still be effective affiliate marketing tools.
