5 Secrets to Using Craigslist to Generate Leads

I have used Craigslist quite successfully now for several months. There are a few things that you need to know in order for you to use Craigslist successfully.

You need to know what cities are the hottest to post in. I use this link every week to determine what cities that I want to post my ads in.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=Craigslist.org

I created 12 email accounts. This way you have a different email account that you use everyday to post from. You are essentially set up for 2 weeks. (I do not post on Sundays- so I only needed 12 email accounts.) I used gmail as my email accounts.

You need to set up your ads. For example, I post in small biz and the financial services for my business: http://gas.greenstacks.com.

I have 5 main ads for small business and 5 main ads for financial services. I then took those 5 ads and made them into 70 different ads. So now I have 70 different ads for small business and 70 different ads for financial services.

Every day, I post 5 ads to each category and use one of my email accounts. The next day, I take 5 new ads and post to each category and use another email account. I repeat this process every day for 12 days. Then I start over. It works really well.

I often post my image in my postings. If you have an image in your posting, it will show up with the words img after your posting and people tend to click on this before any other ad. If you are using a link to post an image – like mine. http://fascinatingyou.com/images/happyangela.jpg - then you need to change your link every 3 to 4 days – that way Craiglist does not recognize it. You can use the same image, just change your directory.

As far as headings go, if you use the words ebay and money in your headings, you will increase your open rate up to 67%. If you are not selling anything related to ebay…try a heading like this….Don’t sell on ebay to make money, try this…

Another trick that I use is to put promote my website for example: http://greenstacks.com and I have an optin to collect a name and email for a fabulous course that I promote.

You should always use a shorter ad rather than a long on when advertising and try to keep in mind what benefit are you offering the potential customer. The customer wants you to offer a solution that will fix their problem; they don’t care what you sell. When you are writing your ad copy, always keep this in mind.

Another trick, if you want to be found in Google or Yahoo….within 4 or less days. Use this technique…

Use your keyword in your subject line. For example, if you are selling a report on golfing. Put golfing in your subject line…because Craiglist ads are indexed in Google or Yahoo within 4 days or less. So if someone types golfing report in Google in the search engine phrase – it will come up.