Last updated on November 4th, 2024 at 06:59 pm
9 Quick Steps to getting Started with your Craigslist Marketing and get the Best Results in terms of leads and sales.
How To Generate Free Leads From Craigslist: A Beginner’s Guide for Small Business Advertising over Craigslist
Craig Newmark being its founder, Craigslist.org was founded in the year 1996. The marketing power of Craigslist.org is such that it gets around 10 million visitors in a day.
Be it wholesalers or businesses (startups, small), online or offline Craigslist.org has proved its importance & power everywhere to everyone. You couldn’t ask for more as a marketer when you get to know that posting on site is free for the most part. It connects buyers & sellers in more than 300 communities.
Posting ads on Craigslist site is free to maximum extent. At this platform you will find right from furniture wholesalers to SMEs (Small & Medium-Sized enterprises) online as well as offline to e-commerce websites and more.
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| Craigslist Marketing Tips |
Craigslist is one fine place for online marketers and they must make use of it to grow their business. Buyers and sellers in more than 300 communities are connected on craigslist via online classifieds ads.
Online retailing, real estate, wholesale furniture, tutoring, etc sells really well here. Before giving this platform a try, you might want to know how to generate leads (unpaid) on craigslist.
Well, to guide you on this, we have listed a few steps which you must take a look at to get insight on the same.
Now before trying out this marketing platform you must be wondering how to know what sells best on Craigslist. Well, to your guidance here we bring the answer to your question.
Craigslist is one of the best places for the online marketers to promote their products/ services.Right from real estate, teaching, repairing to goods be it for wholesaling or retailing, Craigslist is meant for all. For those looking for new ways to find customers, Craigslist is a boon.
Top 9 Craigslist Marketing Tips for Small Business Promotion:
There are certain steps that needed to be followed when Marketing via Craigslist:
Craigslist is widely used ad posting site however very few businesses have been able to channelize it to lead generation. Learn how to generate leads using craigslist.
1- Identify your Target Markets
The very first step requires you to identify your market so as to determine which cities you would focus upon to shoot across your ad. On Craigslist you can even identify the cities available if any of these falls within your desired region.
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| Identify your Target Markets |
The opportunity to reach out new customers increases when you’re selling nationwide. To bring into your knowledge, over-posting or spamming is prohibited here. There are certain rules that needed to be followed when you are using this effective advertising and marketing tool.
The spam control lies in the hands of users itself. They can easily spot businesses/ marketers misusing the system & might not forgive them. Therefore, business must be careful enough not to spam or misuse the users.
2. Register Yourself at Craigslist
Like you do for any other site, here also you need to create an account on craigslist for getting started. Simplest thing ever. All you need to do is access craigslist website, if you already have an account on Craigslist then on to the next page, click on “Don’t already have an account”.
You will be asked to fill in your details, your name, email address. It would then verify your email by sending a confirmation mail. Once you click on the link received on our mail, there you are done. Welcome to Craigslist now!
3. Campaign Selection
What kind of leads do you want? Whether lease option buyers or some others. Are you looking for those who are buying house for the first time or for those who searching for luxury house or some REO property buyer?
You must be very specific and clear to what kind of leads you want and accordingly must select your ad campaign.
4. Creating Campaign For Craigslist lead generation
The next step in line after picking up your campaign is to create your campaign. This step will take about an hour or half from you but not to forget you will enjoy the results later. Now in order to generate traffic you need to create and post several ads.
No similar ads can be posted repeatedly on craigslist. Every ad needs new titles, new description, varied posts. This will help you drive traffic to you landing page and also you can easily post on regular basis.
5. Execution
Once your campaign is ready, you can start posting your ads on craigslist. Post at the time when the traffic on craigslist is maximum and when you think most of the buyers are online and surfing. You need to be consistent with your posts.
Do not be inactive as you can lose on leads. Also avoid posting at 5-6 am in the morning.
6. Follow Up
You need to plan on this part as well. Your follow up action will be dependent on the information you collect from your leads. On taking email ids you could shoot the mail to them, on collecting phone numbers you can call them directly, on taking their address details you can even send samples to them and so on.
Keep sending new offers to them and not the same ones repeatedly. This is how you will be able to listen a ‘Yes’ from your leads in context of working with you.
7. Be Progressive
Keep a check on your ads. See how they are performing. You need to keep a track of your ads so as to know what ads are reaping results and what not, what ads are able to generate maximum response, what amount of leads are successfully getting converted into clients, landing page impact and more of such concerns.
No matter what, strive to improve as much as you can.
8- Putting Up Ads on Craigslist
[ Top 100 Ad Sites on the Internet ]
An awesome heading, a witty & clear ad body, at least one picture and complete contact information is what makes a good ad on Craigslist.
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| Steps for Posting Ads on Craigslist |
Building ads on Craigslist is not that complicated or hectic task. All you need to do is build a text ad and put up an image or images of the product. Direct approach is what works best here.
You don’t require to use fancy adjectives rather be clear in your words to make the user understand what actually you want to convey but make sure the heading is attention grabbing along with a clear and precise product description.
As far as contact information is concerned, if you don’t want to share your contact number due to any specific reason you can give your email address in the contact information because people take interest in the products that has seller’s contact details in the ad.
9- Tracking Advertising Results
Tracking results is yet another concern. Craigslist ad can be tracked by e-mail, phone number or website referral. When the ad is posted to various multiple cities, it becomes important to track the results as to which ads produce the best results.
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| Tracking your Advertising Results is Crucial |
No tracking data is provided to you by Craigslist. How you choose to track must depend on different methods the customers used to communicate with you. No product or service demand will remain constant, it will fluctuate.
Therefore, you must be aware of the competition & competitors in your categories or cities & focus on complimentary things that could make you stand out from the crowd amidst the competition.