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May 09
2009
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ALL CRAIGS LIST ADS ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL Urbane Lab Project #050909
Posted by: Eric Brown on May 9, 2009 01:00 Tagged in: Untagged
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Are you a Craig’s List Advertiser? We are, and we LOVE Craig’s List! When executed well Craig’s List can drive a pile of traffic to your communities, but know, ALL CRAIG'S LIST ADS ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL. Know that we DO NOT Love Craig’s List because it is FREE, that helps, but it isn’t the reason. We like to fish where the fish are, and we like catching fish, lots of fish. And to catch lots of fish, you likely have a lot of different lures in your tackle box. We recommend you have a few different Craig’s List Ads in your Marketing Arsenal too.
ITS NOT WHAT YOU SAY, BUT HOW YOU SAY IT
Industry-marketing leader Lisa Trosien posted recently about copy. Lisa has some excellent points.
What is the right copy length and content that will garner the short and brief attention of your prospect? You only have a snap flash to get your audience attention. Are you aware of what Craig’s Lists ads work and which ones don’t? And, assuming you get the prospects attention, will they click through to your web site? Heck, have you even thought through what you want them to do after they click on your ad? Perhaps that is an eminent place to start.
MAP IT OUT
As Jon Morrow, Associate Editor of Copyblogger so well out it in a recent post titled Your Blog vs. The World:7 Steps To Winning The War for Attention,
“When going into battle, a smart general doesn’t take a gun. He brings a map. Yes, guns and soldiers and tactics are important, but knowledge of the battlefield is a prerequisite to positioning all of those guns and soldiers and tactics appropriately. Whoever best masters the geography has an enormous advantage over their opponent. My advice: play to win”
Start by mapping out what you want your prospect to do once they do click your ad. For us, we want to get the prospect to our web site in the slightest amount of clicks. Our marketing goal with all our Craig’s List Ads are to get the prospect to fill out a Guest Card on our web site, in the straightest line possible, not the fastest, the straightest, there is a significant difference. As with romance, rushing through is not favorable. Nor is flying over your marketing ads, but grasping the prospects attention is a must.
NO CARES ABOUT YOUR APARTMENTS BUT YOU
Stop yapping about your product features, no one cares. People care about themselves, and they want to feel good. Try out snappy, short titles that evoke emotion. Try interesting, short paragraphs about fun times, sell short stories. They are far more interesting than your apartment features, which are most likely the same as the folks across the street.
STAY OUT OF THE RUTS
We regularly, but now sparingly use formatted programs like vFlyer. They are great, colorful and peppy, but……………, like all good things can become boring and complacent to your prospects. We got on the vFlyer kick last summer and fell into a bit of a rut and couldn’t figure out why. We started a combination different ads and quickly rebound our Craig’s List traffic. To that point though, a regular stream of vFlyer ads are great, and they populate many other sites, but similar to cocktails, just don't over do it.
Mix it up, teach yourself how to use basic HTML, it isn’t all that hard, and you should know it anyway. You can then get pretty creative and fun with your ads. And then too, just some simple short ads with pictures are always a great hit. EVERY ad should have pictures.
IT’S NOT FREE, BUT ALMOST
I hear the argument that Craig’s List isn’t really free, and it isn’t, someone has to post regularly. And you can’t post the same ad everyday either, nor should you, that’s just boring. We have developed a stable of Craig’s List Ad’s that we mix and match. For our boutique property management business, we post five to seven Craig’s List Ad’s every day, six days a week, which takes about forty five to fifty minutes each day. It just isn’t as big of a deal as some folks want to make it. We drive over three hundred pieces of traffic a month, which seems to keep our portfolio buoyant.
Happy Ad Writing! Should you need help or direction, give us a ring, we would be happy to assist!
I built a tool for my agents like postlets but with reminders to help you spread your ads out. It automatically pulls data from our database from which you can preset and change to get the info you want in the ad fast. This helps you spread the ads out throughout the day to get viewed more often.
Some templates are nice HTML, but most importantly some look organic and perform better. The goal is to do follow Urbane's model of 5-7 ads daily, but in just a few minutes. There are many uses beyond Craigslist as well.
You're already using http://www.RentApartments.Info as a locator and ILS and this tool will be available to the property managers in a few days. I'll call you next week.
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My goal is also to post on cragislist at least 3-5 times over the day, the problem is as being on-site personnel we do not have time to spend an hour on it, we have 5 mins if we are lucky.
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Here is a link to all of our CL Ads, http://detroit.craigslist.org/...&bedrooms=
Type in the management company in the search line and all of their consolidated ads come up. I understand the time constraint, but I don't understand the time constraint. There are certain things that we do every day, CL Ad Postings are one of them.
Good Luck!
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Maybe it is time to start rethinking how we run our properties and what positions and responsibilities we are going to get the best results from. The market is changing and we need to change with it.
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The results of over-posting may not be seen at the property level; however, the culture on craigslist opposes multiple postings by the same community. This results in posts being removed, or worse, ignored!
The most important thing I've noticed is that these over-posting properties are mainly competing with themselves!
Now that I've put my 2 cents out there, I should say there are solutions. A strategy is key, but before a strategy can be set into motion we must evaluate the process.
First: determine the types of posts (text, HTML, postlets) that are producing the majority of leads;
Then: factor in the times of day and days of the week the leads are occurring (this varies by property);
Last: use a combination of posts on the most effective times/days to achieve the maximum benefit for the minimum effort.
Before designing your craigslist ad, be sure you know your audience (the demographic you are trying to communicate with).
I've found that there are a few 'common' craigslist ad traits that should be shared across all of your properties:
-Put the phone number in multiple places so it is always visible (even when scrolling)
-Show pictures of the interior of your unit
-Make contacting the property as easy as possible with links and email addresses
-Remember, post links that go to the property, not the 'main' website (many people do not want to perform another search after searching craigslist)
I do not believe that posting multiple posts daily is the right strategy. I think it is an attempt at scaling, but there is no one-size-fits-all strategy. Each property is unique, so should be the strategy for craigslist postings. By determining the most effective strategy for your property, you can reduce the time you invest and increase profitability.
That's just my 2 cents...
Charity
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You agree not to...
w) post the same item or service in more than one classified category or forum, or in more than one metropolitan area; (craigslist is specifically vague on this one - some believe it applies at a property level - meaning one ad per property at a time, regardless of our view that each unit is a different "item")
Check out the posts in the CL Help forums - search for apartments...it's ugly. The community generally hates our existence. Less so in smaller markets, but rabidly in the larger markets.
Links out to your website in an ad can be big fodder for flagging, as it's often viewed as "bait and switch" drawing people away from CL.
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I would love to see a sample of one of your homemade ads if you are willing to share!