Have you ever been on Craigslist? It is the largest online classified ads and it is an excellent way to promote yourself and your product or service. It is not pretty, but it draws a lot of traffic.
Here is how you promote your service on Craigslist:
1. Go to Craigslist and choose the city you would like to post your ad.
2. Pick the category that is appropriate for what you would like to promote, for example, if would like to promote my book keeping service to small business owners, you might choose the “Small Biz Ads” under the “Services” category.
3. Once you have clicked on the category, in the upper right hand corner there is a link entitled “Post”. Click this link.
4. You typically will be directed to a page that has the sub categories list. Choose the category that you would like to post your ad in.
5. You will be asked to put in a Posting Title and a Specific Location. Fill both out.
6. Now you will have to add a description. Make sure that you make your description have sizzle and that it promotes you. The whole intent is to have someone contact you. Perhaps you can add an offer to entice someone, like a 10% off your service or a free consultation.
7. You will have to fill in your email in the email box, but as a suggestion, use the anonymize feature so that you don’t get spammed.
8. Click continue and finally accept the post.
That is all there is to posting your service on Craigslist.
You can do the same if you sell products and you can add pictures too.
One thing you should know, you can add the same posting every 48 hours, but make sure that it is over every 48 hours our Craigslist may think that you are spamming them and they can ban you from the site. This is important, if you have posted an ad and you want to repost so that the ad remains fresh, you have to remove your original post first.
As an added benefit, Google and other search engines will find your ad on Craigslist and based on certain keywords, you will show up in the search results in the search engines.
Give Craigslist a try and see what kind of response you get. Try different variations on your description to see if that would impact your response rates.
