Finding Buyers on Craigslist

Finding Buyers on Craigslist

Preview Of What You Will Learn Sections: Introduction...5 Designing Your Ad...7 Building Your Buyers List...13 Wrap Up...15 You Will Be Able To: Sell your properties through Craigslist Use Craigslist to build your buyers list FBC-V2-01082016

Introduction Now that you ve learned the fundamentals of Craigslist and know how to generate seller leads, let s look at some creative ways you can use Craigslist to find buyers. Keep in mind that Craigslist can also attract the window shoppers as well as serious buyers. If you make your ad attractive enough, you just might find those buyers who didn t even realize they were in the market to purchase anything. In this system, you will learn how to create effective ad copy when looking to sell your property, and tricks to keep your postings fresh. We will also show you how to actively search for buyers instead of waiting for them to come to you. Area & Category In the upper left corner is a link to post to classifieds. If you have created a new account, your screen will typically look like this when you log in for the first time: Finding Buyers Finding Buyers 5

Introduction Helpful Tip! It is a good idea to create two or three separate gmail accounts just for your Craigslist postings. This will not only help you distinguish which emails are related to your Craigslist postings, but it will also help you identify how much traffic your postings are generating. Choose your local area and click on the go button. This will bring up a list of possible posting types. This is one area where Craigslist is not as intuitive as you might wish. Instead of these categories matching those on the main city page, Craigslist chose slightly different categories. So, although your posting will ultimately end up in the real estate for sale category, you will need to choose the housing offered category. On this page, the for sale by owner and for sale by dealer categories do not refer to housing. You will be able to make that differentiation on the next screen. Finding Buyer Once you choose housing offered, you will have the opportunity to choose the type of housing you are selling: if you are acting as an investor, choose real estate by owner. If you are acting as an agent, choose real estate by broker. 6 Finding Buyers in Craigslist

Designing Your Ad Now that you have answered all of the basic questions, you can really start to draw in the buyers with the design of your ad. Craigslist has recently prohibited the use of customized ad flyers; however, there are still many ways to make your ad stand out from the crowd. An attention-grabbing headline A keyword-dense property description High-quality, professional images Multiple types of contact information Let s look at each component of the ad in more detail. Headline The first thing that prospective buyers will see is your headline, so you need to make sure it stands out from the crowd. The body of your Craigslist ad will typically include the asking price, the number of bedrooms, and the square footage of the house, so try not to duplicate this information in your actual headline. Craigslist also gives you the option of including the specific location of the property outside of the title information. Finding Buyers Headline Tips DO keep it short and punchy. You only have 72 characters to grab someone s attention. DO include keywords or keyword phrases that people will search for on Google or Bing: foreclosure, rehab, pool, etc. DO use the specific location option to include desirable information that potential buyers will use to refine their search: school district, subdivision, county, etc. DO play on the potential buyers greed or on their fear of loss of a good deal. DON T include duplicate information in your headline. Craigslist already gives the option of including the asking price, the number of bedrooms, the square footage of the house, and the specific location of the property. DON T use language that will make you sound dishonest or disreputable. DON T be too wordy. Just because you have 72 characters doesn t mean you need to use all of them. in every ad DON T be bland, and state the obvious. Finding Buyers 7

Designing Your Ad Here are some examples of a few good headlines you can use. ***Best Deal in Charlotte!*** 3 BED W/POOL, MOVE IN READY!!! *Updated Home With Tons of Charm at an Exceptional Price!* ^^ Stunning Remodel at the RIGHT PRICE ^^ These headlines are bland and give very little information: For SALE Germantown House For Sale House in Memphis Here are a few others that typically attract investors to your ads: ~~CASH BUYERS WANTED! DEEP DISCOUNT WHOLESALE PROPERTIES~~ * FAST CLOSINGS & CASH ONLY * Finding Buyer Is Less More? One thing that you will really need to test in your specific market is whether or not you should include price and bed/bath information in the listing. Some sellers have had great results going off the premise less is more. The reasoning behind not including these specific items is to give potential buyers the ability to reach out and contact you directly for the information therefore allowing you to inform them about other properties you may have in your inventory as well. However, the drawback is that many potential buyers will search homes by the number of bedrooms or bathrooms, or price. These buyers will never even come across your property if that information isn t included. Nevertheless, it s something you should test to see which option works best for you. Property Description An attention-grabbing headline needs to be followed up by a snappy description that includes a call to action. You want your description to essentially be a teaser only include enough information so that the potential buyer is intrigued and contacts you to learn more. A key point in building your buyers list is to always make contact. A Craigslist ad is a phenomenal free marketing tool if used correctly. If the property has a lot of features to describe, use a bulleted list instead of a long block of text. Use short sentences that carry lots of keywords that potential buyers might use to search for properties. It is a good idea to customize your ad for the audience you are marketing the home to. Make sure to type key features in the description as well as showing pictures of them. 8 Finding Buyers in Craigslist

Designing Your Ad Common keywords that potential buyers use to filter their search include features, financial, and fixer-up status: Pool Workshop Split-floor plan Wood floors Foreclosure REO Bank-Owned Home Auction Tax Lien Wholesale For sale by owner Needs work Renovation Rehab Fixer upper Helpful Tip! If you are having an open house, include that information in your listing. Be sure, though, to remove any dated information from your ad in a timely fashion. Images Good quality, professional images are absolutely essential to having a successful posting. Craigslist allows users to select only postings that have images, and most people choose this option. Craigslist allows you to choose up to 24 images, but be sure to upload the most attractive image first the first image will be the large image when the posting is opened. Aside from photos, the images can include floor plans and flyers as well. As always, spending the money on a professional photographer is a wise investment. Contact Information Make sure that you include contact information so that the potential buyer can reach you or get more information about the home. Craigslist doesn t allow you to add hyperlinks to your posting, but you can advise potential buyers to copy and paste your URL into their browser for more information on the property. Here is a good example of multiple ways to obtain further details on a property: Finding Buyers Notice that there are several way to contact Justin; however, he doesn t list his email address. This is primarily because scammers use site scrapper programs to harvest emails from websites like Craigslist for their spam or scam schemes. It s important that you always choose the Post Anonymously option for your ads. This puts a generic email link in the ad for potential buyers to contact you, but keeps your real email address safe. Finding Buyers 9

Designing Your Ad Sample Ads Now that we ve discussed the elements of a successful ad, let s look at and evaluate some actual Craigslist ads. The following ad was placed briefly on Craigslist in Memphis as a test. This ad took approximately five minutes to create, and in less than 20 minutes received an inquiry, despite the fact that it had no address, and no contact information. What it did have was an eye-catching title and a stunning photo. Finding Buyer This is an ad posted by an owner and targeted at investors. The seller uses the keyword rehab in the headline and goes so far as to give an estimate of the rehab cost in the property description. Seller indicates a desire to move quickly and a preference for a cash buyer, both statements guaranteed to attract investors. The seller did not include a phone number but did include at least a general location for the property. 10 Finding Buyers in Craigslist

Finding Buyers Designing Your Ad This is an ad placed by a broker. Notice that he has not specified the price of the home, but did include the number of bedrooms and bathrooms in the headline as well as a specific geographical area. There is a nice picture of the home to entice potential buyers, but this agent made one critical mistake: the description of the property is a very large, off-putting block of text. He made an effort to make certain words stand out by using capitalization, but potential buyers are not going to spend the time to read through all of that text. Better to stay with the teaser theme and offer a FEW bullet point features to lure buyers to the listing site. Helpful Tip! Another way to maintain privacy and track prospects is to set up a special phone number that you use only in your Craigslist ads. Google Voice, for example, is a service that allows you to create a special Google Voice number that is different from your actual mobile number but will ring on any device you choose. Finding Buyers 11

Designing Your Ad Helpful Marketing Tips Placing your ad was the first step in electronically marketing your property, but there are some follow-up steps that you can take to help make sure you are using Craigslist to its fullest potential. After 3-4 days, Craigslist will give you the option to renew your posting. Either you or your assistant needs to stay on top of the renewal option since this puts your property back at the top of the list for new people to see. If you aren t getting the traffic you want, you can also repost your ad. Perhaps the title wasn t catchy enough, or you didn t have the right keywords. Maybe you had a chance to get better pictures. Make small changes to the ad to see what buyers are biting on in your market. In reality, your ad should be posted every day to get maximum traffic; however, Craigslist will only let you repost every 48 hours FROM THE SAME ACCOUNT. Here s a little trick you can use to make sure your ads are seen every day. If you create three different Craigslist accounts and set them up with three different email accounts, you can post/ repost every day. For instance, your individual email accounts can look something like: 1. MaryJo1234@gmail.com 2. MaryJohn9810@gmail.com 3. MJohnson321@gmail.com Finding Buyer Once your email accounts are created, use those email addresses to create three individual Craigslist accounts and post your ads, rotating between the three. Creating multiple accounts will reduce your chances of attracting posting issues such as getting reported for ghosting or abusing or using one account too much. However, you will just need to make sure to switch up your ad copy and headline a little so that Craigslist will think that you are posting unique ads every day. Here is a timeline to illustrate this process: Day 1: Post Gracious Southern Home It s a Steal! from MaryJo1234@gmail.com Day 2: Post Southern Beauty at a Bargain from MaryJohn9810@gmail.com Day 3: Post Grab this Southern Charmer While You Can! from MJohnson321@gmail.com Day 4: Re-post Gracious Southern Home Bargain! from MaryJo1234@gmail.com Day 5: Re-post Southern Sleeper from MaryJohn9810@gmail.com Day 6: Re-post Charming Southern Home from MJohnson321@gmail.com Helpful Tip! Pay attention to which browser (Firefox, Chrome, Explorer) you are using when you create a Craigslist account and always use the same browser when posting from that account. 12 Finding Buyers in Craigslist

Finding Buyers Building a Buyers List Placing Ghost Ads You can also use Craigslist ads to capture leads and build up a list of buyers in your area either through an actual posting or through ghost ads. A ghost ad is more of a general advertisement that focuses on a type of property rather than a specific property, and talks about the services you offer. Here are a few examples of ghost ads: Finding Buyers 13

Building a Buyers List Finding Buyer Another type of ghost ad is one where you place an ad for a property that you own that isn t currently for sale. When someone contacts you about the home, you simply say that property isn t available any longer, but that you have other properties that are available, and provide them with your inventory. Make sure to get the prospect s contact information so that you can immediately add them to your buyers list and inform them the next time you have similar properties for sale. Helpful Tip! Keep in mind that some Craigslist users may tag ghost ads as spam. If you happen to be tagged too many times, Craigslist may cancel your account. If this does happen, create another email address and open another account. Placing informative ghost ads in the Apartment/Rental section of Craigslist will reach people who may not realize that buying a home is a possibility. Point out the advantages of owning a home vs. renting and include some basic financial information on purchasing power and interest rates. After you have placed a few ghost ads and have a feel for what works, outsource creation and placement duties to an assistant. This is a quick, easy, and almost free marketing strategy that can bring you a steady stream of potential buyers. You may also be able to find buyers among the sellers who have rehabbed homes listed for sale. Most people who are selling a rehabbed home are also looking for their next fixer upper! 14 Finding Buyers in Craigslist

Finding Buyers Wrap Up Posting ads is free marketing that can bring large returns if done right. Designing Your Ad A catchy headline, keyword-rich description, high-quality photos, and relevant contact information are the keys to a successful ad. FINDING BUYERS ON CRAIGSLIST Building a Buyer s List Use ghost ads to capture information from potential buyers. Marketing Your Ad Don t forget to renew and repost your ad to keep it timely. Finding Buyers 15

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