Networking Your Website - Craigslist

By Rita Wilhelm, Contributing Writer
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In my column with The National Networker, I often like to write about how people are using different online social networks to network their websites to grow their business.

For this column, I decided to interview Lori Osterberg of Vision Business Concepts, to learn more about how she uses Craigslist to grow her business.

Craigslist has over 30 million viewers per month. People who use Craigslist can post and view classifieds, and communicate in forums.

It’s important to note that when promoting your business on Craigslist, you are only allowed to post in the ‘Small Biz Ads’ section under ‘Services’, so that you are not spamming the community.

Here is my interview with Lori:

Rita: Tell me a little bit about your business.

Lori: Vision Business Concepts Inc helps people design and maintain a profitable web presence. We start by helping people design a new site, or redesign an existing site. Then we help them implement a marketing plan so they can start getting traction out of their site. I've been online since the early 90's, and understand what it takes to get a site noticed. I use this knowledge to help market my clients businesses in a variety of ways. Because of my background, we primarily target people in the creative industries: photography, wedding industry, authors, and consultants.

Rita: What made you decide to use Craigslist to help you market your business?

Lori: I'm always on the watch for sites with heavy traffic. About a year ago I added Craigslist to my list, and started marketing a few of my sites with classifieds. I've tried a lot of things: from promoting things for free like signing up for an ezine, to selling high ticketed items like web marketing plans. It's nice to be able to use a resource like this for "free" - it just takes your time.

Rita: How has using Craigslist impacted your business?

Lori: While I have gained a few clients from Craigslist, my biggest impact has been in growing my list. I currently produce 3 ezines; one for my main site VisionOfSuccess.com and two for my lead generating sites VirtualPhotographyStudio.com and VirtualWeddingProfessional.com. I promote signups for my ezines on Craigslist about 5 days a week, and put my listings all over the world. The great thing is your listings stay on Craigslist anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, depending on the size of the city. So I have the potential of gaining signups all the time - and I do. I routinely can get a dozen or more signups per day.

Rita: Tell me about your Craigslist routine.

Lori: I have a whole file of write-ups for my various sites and various offers. I open up my file every day, login to Craigslist and start posting. I'm also helping clients post to Craigslist too, so I'm doing about 20 postings per day. For some offers I can choose a city anywhere in the world. For others, it's more region specific. You can't post the same write-up again and again - it's on a 48 hour turn over before you can post the same write-up again. To do my 20 postings takes about 30 minutes, and it's just a part of my morning routine now. Plus its great seeing my lists grow all the time.

Rita: What 3 tips would you give someone who would like to start using Craigslist as a marketing tool?

Lori:

1. Be patient. You can't post once and expect results. It really is something you need to work at.

2. Try different offers. Don't post one listing for one type of product/service. Create several different offers, and don't forget to motivate people to signup for your ezine/reports. Just getting people to your list is a huge accomplishment.

3. Headlines are important. I have the most luck with questions: i.e. Have you always wanted to be a photographer?

Rita: Thank you Lori for sharing your tips.

Consider giving Craiglist a try for a couple of months. Be sure to test different headlines and offers, to see if Craiglist is a good choice for you.

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