Can Craigslist Improve Your Business?

The answer to this question is yes, no and maybe.

It all depends on the way in which you utilize Craigslist. If you're a savvy Internet marketer and are able to identify the target audience and create sales copy which draws the reader in, you may find advertising on Craigslist to be incredibly profitable. On the other side of the coin, if you do not do your research and take a spamming approach to advertising on Craigslist, you are not likely to see the results you would like. A lot of the result depends on you, so take the time to do it right.

There is certainly the great opportunity to gain financial benefit through advertising on Craigslist. Advertising for all products and services is free on Craigslist, making it extremely cost effective. Additionally, Craigslist already receives extensive traffic with approximately ten million visitors generating four billion page views each month. That's a lot of eyes who can view your ads! While Craigslist offers so many advertising benefits, these benefits may be wasted if you do not do your research and evaluate the competition.

Research before Posting on Craigslist

Advertising on Craigslist is similar to advertising in many other forms of media. Despite the existing heavy traffic flows to the website, successful marketing campaigns require extensive research. This research should provide you with insight into where to post the advertisements to most effectively reach your target audience, how to word the copy of the advertisement to make it most appealing to that same target audience and which relevant keywords should be included in the advertising copy to make it likely for members of the target audience to find the advertisement easily when searching for products and services offered by your business.

Research such as this can be conducted either online or offline. One of the most effective forms of this type of research is to have members of your target audience fill out marketing surveys. The answers provided by the participants should provide you a good idea of what the they are seeking. Incorporating this information into the marketing campaign can make it noticeably more successful.

Evaluate the Competition on Craigslist

The search feature on Craigslist is an invaluable resource to evaluate your competition. Studying the competition is important because it can help you to learn how you can be more successful. This increased success can be a result of determining successful aspects of the competitor's marketing strategy and implementing these strategies as well as determining faulty aspects of the competitor's marketing strategy and avoiding these strategies.

To get a good idea of your competitors who are advertising on Craigslist, use the search feature to search for keywords relevant to your own products and services. You will likely receive search results including advertisements from competitors. Next, carefully analyze these ads to determine how your can not only create better products and services at more affordable prices but also write more engaging advertising copy.

Many wise Internet marketers have the reasoning skills necessary to properly analyze the advertisements for competitors but they often falter when taxed with the issue of creating better advertisements. This is when knowing the ins and outs of writing excellent copy comes in. Words, even only a few, are powerful and can either get you the click you want or send that potential customer away, never to be seen again.

Craigslist is an excellent resource for any smart Internet marketer. Go where the people are and present them with advertising copy that succeeds to build trust and confidence. You'll quickly see the traffic and the profits rolling in.

Tony Thomas is an online entrepreneur who enjoys sharing his experience with other online business people at http://www.mybiztools.net

Learn to write Web copy that draws people in with "Make Your Words Sell." Get this excellent resource at http://www.mybiztools.net/myws.htm