For Those Who Make Money (or Want to Make Money) with Craigslist Here’s Two Tips

If you make money through Craigslist marketing or you want to make money through it here’s two tips, one of which some people aren’t going to be happy about.  When you start out monetizing a new site you need to come up with a method, or if you are already monetizing a site sometimes you method dries up and you need to think of something new.  Not everyone is super creative and so a lot of people get stuck racking their brain trying to come up with something clever.  Here’s one thing you can do which some guys won’t be happy about, but that’s life, and that is competition.

Go to Craigslist and start replying to ads.  Reply to the ones that you think could be an internet marketer’s ads.  When you get the email reply you’ll be able to tell if the person on the other end is a marketer like you.  Now see what he is doing.  He’s going to unintentionally share his method with you because he’s trying to convert you.  See how the method looks.  If you were an average Craigslist user would you get converted with this guy’s method?  If so, then you may have just found yourself a new method to start running and you didn’t even have to rack your brain.  Work smarter, not harder.  Some people may say that is ripping someone else’s method off…  yeah, I can see it that way, but how would it look if Yahoo cried that Google came and started a search engine and it was so unfair cause they were doing it first?  I think all’s fair in marketing.  The one thing I don’t condone and I think is a dick move is screwing over another internet marketer by flagging his posts, or reporting him to a CPA company, or anything like that.  Seeing a method and using it for yourself is OK in my book.  Doing something to intentionally harm another person’s living is a no no.

Allright, I did say I’d give you two tips right… so here’s the second one.  Now this one might be common sense to some of your CL pros out there.  But frankly I was pretty surprised by the results.  I posted a TV I wanted to get rid of on Craigslist.  No internet marketing here, just a true “For Sale” post in the electronics section.  Took a picture of the TV, put real wording, and posted it (in a relatively small city… not a metro area).  After a few weeks I’m still getting emails about this TV.  I’ve gotten over 100 emails to date.  And this was a small city location in an electronics section that usually has 40 posts per day (my point being that my post is buried by now yet I’m still getting fresh emails).  I have not thought about how to monetize this traffic.  I might in the future when I free up some time.  But a few things I think you can glean from this…

1.  Posting in small cities can be effective.

2.  People do use the search function on Craigslist…  if your post gets buried that doesn’t mean you won’t get emails from it.  Therefore, make sure you use the proper keywords in your titles and posts.  Use the brand name, model number, description, etc…  Most Craigslist posters put very basic info in a sentence or two… if you cover a lot of keywords you’re going to show up in the search results while other people won’t.

3.  Longevity on CL is possible if your post looks realistic.  This is pretty common sense, but in forums I read about people who give up hope of their posts sticking more than 24 hours.  If your post only sticks for a day or two that is because your post sounds too much like a sales pitch or something shady.  Don’t try to convert someone in your Craigslist post.  Heck, don’t even try to convert them in your first email reply to them.  Be patient.  Try to convert them after a few days or a week in your second email reply.  You’ll have the trust factor going and it is less likely that someone is going to flag your post.

I’ve come to find that the people pulling the bucks from Craigslist are a very quiet crowd… and with good reason.  Hopefully these tips will help you to start pulling in some cash or increasing the amount of cash you’re pulling in.   If you have any questions send them to me via the link at the top of the site “Submit to Mailbag”.  I’ve gotten a few questions and after I get a few more I’ll do a Mailbag post and get those questions answered for you guys.