Cleaning House

Today on the Traffic Pro List (TPL) site, was the first of the monthly "house-cleaning" events.

At this point, experienced members know I do things like this. But I know I've made a few newbies (oh, I do hate that nickname) a little nervous.

Some people wonder why a credit-based safelist would deliberately remove members just because they haven't logged into their account lately. The obvious rationale is, this insures the membership numbers (listed at the top of all safelist sites as an obvious influence to entice new members) are truly representative of the current amount of active participants.

What is less obvious is, why is this question being asked at all. This is the elephant in the middle of the room.

Because everyone knows why... but no one wants to come right out and say it. The fact is, reducing a list goes against everything that marketers are trained to think and believe: that the larger a list, the better; that no one ever, under any circumstances would remove members without a very good reason because it takes so long to develop a list, etc., etc. Well, rot. (If you haven't figured it out already, I do tend to fly in the face of convention.)

While I know that the larger the membership, the more appealing it is to join... I also KNOW (from the information I have in my back office) how many people are actually logging in and using their accounts... and how many are not even opening their emails. I know that one really well.

And pretending that things are anything other than they are is, well, dishonest. I only hesitate to say that because I know several other safelist owners with lists much larger than mine -- at least, according to their numbers -- who I'm sure must think I'm certifiable (as in, certifiably insane) to remove members for no other reason than that they're in-active. They've all but said it to my face (well, internet-wise). And I'm not trying to make them look bad. Besides being friends, I actually use their safelists.

The larger problem here is that, by the time someone owns a system like a safelist or a traffic exchange, they're already an experienced marketer. And, just as in any other business, with experience, certain facts are drummed into our heads. But the facts are changing and they don't know if I'm crazy, should be saved from myself, or right. So they remain neutral.

All I know is that, safelists very nearly became extinct because it was too easy to work around the initial, naive` concept of "you read my emails, I read yours." Every body did it-- and no one believed in them.

With credits added to safelists, this CAN change... but not if people continue to play games. And they do. Games like, "oh, sure... we have 2500 members... sure, sure." Well, at TPL, we may only have 1168 members, but we actually HAVE 1168 members-- not 200 members who have logged in recently and 968 who may not even be conscious anymore.

So when you see the "house cleaning" signal go up in TPL (in the member's area), just remember, however it works out, it's for real.--mo