Advertising Your Business on Craigslist

Today, now more than ever before advertising on Craigslist is becoming very worthwhile for just about any business offering products or services. This website alone if used properly can be your one & only source for finding new business and customers.

If you are just starting out with building a new business online, and have no money to advertise, then Craigslist can be the ultimate advertising medium, providing a free service where you can place your advertisements in front of a massive and ever-growing audience everyday. Whether these products are offered through ecommerce websites or physical stores, the business owners can see financial gains through advertising on Craigslist.

Firstly unlike other advertising opportunities there is very little to No risk involved in posting on Craigslist. With the exception of job postings and housing postings in specific markets, advertising is free on Craigslist. Users are asked to agree to the terms of service of the community and are expected to follow specific guidelines when posting advertisements but there are no financial obligations to those placing advertisements on Craigslist, which if you are serious about building your business online or offline, you would never abuse such a huge free resource for gaining new business and customers.

This means that those who post advertisements do not have to be concerned with whether or not the advertisement they place will meet their expectations in terms of sales generated.

How To Be Sure To Reach Potential Customers on Craigslist

Another reason why posting advertisements for products or services on Craigslist is so worthwhile and lucrative is the huge likelihood of reaching a large audience of potential customers. A review of the Craigslist fact sheet reveals pertinent and very hard to ignore figures and information( especially if your into affiliate marketing ) regarding the amount of traffic the website receives.

According to this information Craigslist receives approximately four billion page views each month with ten million people using Craigslist each month and those figure will continue to grow everyday. From these statistics it is undeniable and clear that advertisements placed on Craiglist are likely to receive at least some attention from potential clients searching for your products or services.

With so many visitors using Craigslist each month you would be forgiven for thinking that the advertising possibilities are limitless and ever-bounding success will be easily attained from your advertisements, however, there are no guarantees or dead-set promises that any of these visitors will be interested in your products or services.

Like any marketing campaign, thinking outside the "normal" box when constructing your advertisements is not only essential today, but will be instrumental in whether or not you make any profits or make massive loads of cash, your advertisements on Craigslist must be intriguing, informative and in a location where you will reach your target audience.

What To Do To Find Your Target Audience on Craigslist

We’ve already discussed the absolute huge volume of visitors using Craigslist each month and what that can mean for your business online, offline, established or just starting, but the key to taking advantage of these numbers is to target your advertising in such a way as it is aimed at reaching your target audience as opposed to a wide audience of individuals who have no specific interest in your products or services and very likely not to spend any money.

It is much more worthwhile to reach a small audience of those with a keen interest in your products or services than to reach a much larger audience of those who are not interested. Those who have an interest in your products or services are your target audience, the more you concentrate your customer targeting the more money you will make.

The key to reaching your target audience on Craigslist is placing your advertisement in the most appropriate locations. Craigslist has a specific section for businesses to advertise their services. This section is broken down into a number of categories.

Those who are in the business of computer related services and products would be wise to place their advertisement in the computer section as opposed to the automotive section because individuals looking for computer help will naturally migrate to the computer section. It may sometimes be appropriate to place an advertisement in more than one section. This is acceptable as long as it does not cross the line to spamming the section and breaking cross-promotion policies made by Craigslist.

If there is not a specific section for the products or services offered by your business there are a couple of options. Business owners can place an advertisement in the section for small business advertisements where it might be found by those doing a search in this section. Alternately the business owner can contact Craigslist to suggest the addition of a new category. They might be willing to oblige if they believe this category warrants an addition.

The Difference between Advertising and Spamming

Advertising on Craigslist is one thing but spamming is quite another. Placing an advertisement in an appropriate section of Craigslist is acceptable; however, placing the same advertisement in nearly every section of Craigslist websites for a number of different geographical regions is considered spam.

Spam is ineffective for a number of reasons. First of all potential customers who see a particular advertisement in a number of different locations are likely to recognize the spamming techniques and be less inclined to patronize this business. Also, if Craigslist detects the practice of spamming they may delete all of the postings and could potentially ban advertisements from the individual in the future.

In conclusion, Craigslist gives any business the ultimate free ticket to advertising utopia if used in the correct manner. In the bricks and mortar offline world the possibility of getting as many people to your business in a single day as the ability that Craigslist provides you is Zero, Nill, Nada and Zilch. Starting today you should be using Craigslist in all aspects of your business marketing.