Posts Tagged ‘craigslist’

Have you ever been to craigslist.org?  You probably have.  But have you really considered the powerful possibilities of promoting your business on craigslist.org?  I have been digging into this lately and it feels like I just struck gold.

The background story is this.  I recently sold a car.  I took it to CarMax because everyone says CarMax pays the best.  However, CarMax did not offer me nearly what I wanted for the car.  I decided to try CraigsList.org.  CraigsList.org is free and very popular.   I took wrote a compelling ad and added a few photos.  I crossed my fingers.  I know that the price I was asking was slightly higher than I expected to get, so I was not sure if I would get any calls or not.  I ended up selling that car within four hours and the buyer paid in cash.  That was a great success.

A few weeks later, I decided to look into Craigslist.org and see how other businesses are using this service.  I learned a lot.  Would you like to drive more prospects to your website?  Craigslist.org can be more effective than the Yellow Pages.

Why Use Craigslist.org?

Craigslist.org is extremely popular and it is free.  Further, the user community expects you to place ads there.  Place ads in your own city, or in other cities, and people will click on the ads and visit your web page.   Driving free traffic to your website is always a good thing, right?

Getting Started with Craigslist.org?

Register your free account on Craigslist.org and explore the site for a bit.  Look at how people write other ads and what types of ads are in what categories.  Check other states as well.  Once you are comfortable with how things are organized, go ahead and place your own ad.  Your ad should include a link to your website.  You will have to form the link using proper HTML codes.   You should also include a picture if you can.  Get some help putting together your first ad.  Save the ad and you can place it again in a week or so.

Powerful Tips for Craigslist.org

Use Landing Pages – Create a special page on your website that is linked to only by your Craigslist.org ad.  This way you have precise statistics and it helps you build targeted offers, etc.

Special Offers – Create special time or quantity limited offers.  People really respond to limited time or other restricted offers.  When someone fears they might miss out, they are more likely to take action.  Don’t forget to offer free offers.  Get your free e-book on how to make a zillion dollars!  Then get them to sign-up for your newsletter and send that e-book to whomever signs up for your newsletter.

Use Posting Software – Once you determine that Craigslist.org is working for you, consider buying specialized software to help you post ads.  Most can be scheduled to post your ad on a regular basis and will help you with other time-saving features.

Different Ads, Different Categories, Different Cities – You can run various ads across the country.  The rules for Craigslist.org don’t allow for posting the same ads in different cities.  You can run different ads in different places.  Know the rules, then create several different ads for different products or services and post the various ads in various places.  Just stay within the guidelines.

Don’t Spam – Craigslist.org has rules about how many ads you can post and other restrictions.  You want to do as much as you can, but if you violate the rules, you could have some problems.  Read the rules and abide by them.

Write Good Ads – Remember your marketing rules.  Write ads that compel people to visit your site and buy your products or services.  Try different strategies and study your success rates.

Use these techniques and before you know it you will know what role Craigslist.org plays in marketing your products and services.   Who knows, maybe Craigslist.org will be your best marketing value.

If you ask any expert to help you get 100,000 visitors to your website, they will tell you it can’t be done, or at least you have to spend a lot of money to do it. If you use conventional methods then this is true. But let’s think out of the box. What if you could get your message in front of millions of people for free? What if you could do that instantly, for free, and as often as you want? There is a brand new frontier for Internet marketing and it’s called Social Media Optimization, or SMO.

So what is Social Media Optimization (SMO)? SMO is using social media web sites to promote your own web site, products, or services. Social media websites are all those websites where you can create a profile page and interact with others users with messages and videos. Sites like www.myspace.com , www.facebook.com , www.youtube.com , www.plaxo.com , www.linkedin.com , www.twitter.com , www.craigslist.com , www.ebay.com , www.wikipedia.org , and many more. Social media optimization is the art of using those sites to promote your own site. It takes a little practice, but master the art of SMO and you’ll have more traffic than you can imagine.

Objective #1 – Target Your Audience!
Your website must have products or information of interest to your audience. If you have more than one target customer, then you may need more than one “landing page”. Your landing page should captivate the visitor. If you are selling an e-book on marketing that caters to musicians, for example, then build a page that that touts that book and creates urgency for them. If you sell a similar e-book on marketing that caters to used-car salesmen, then create an entirely different page for them. Then promote the different pages separately. Have an entirely different campaign for each e-book.

Objective #2 – Sell Them Now or Lose Them Forever!
Urgency is the key to Internet marketing. Just assume that if your customer leaves your website then they are gone forever. Your marketing pages should sell a product, give away a product (in exchange for contact information), or collect their contact information for an email, blog, or newsletter. Don’t let them get away.

Social Media Marketing Basics
Nearly all of the social media sites allow you to add a link to your own website. You can add links to the profile page on most sites. You may be able to add links in the descriptions of videos you upload. Many popular blogs allow you to add links when you write comments that add value to their blogs. Start with youtube.com, then add your own site(s) on digg.com, del.icio.us, and other bookmark sites. Put links like [digg this], [add to yahoo.com], and RSS subscribe links on your blog pages. The concept is simple. You want a link to your website to be created on those popular sites. Master that art form and you will see your traffic explode.

I know you want to know more about this. It is a learning journey at first, but before long you will be a master. There are tips all over the Internet that can help as well. Now that you know about SMO you are well on your way to being a master Internet marketing.