How should I have craigslist leads contact me?
 

Hello all.

I am in the process of building my Latin Music production business. Alongside of developing a website, I have decided to experiment with craigslist ads. Nothing to zany to start ; just using the three ads per day allowed to one account.

Yesterday was day two. And, look, I've got response already. Although I had given thought to talking points with a lead, I hadn't given much thought to how I want leads to contact. I suppose I should give some thought to what works best to convert leads into clients.

Options:

- give em every way to contact me. Phone, text, email. Pros: easy access. Cons: lol, too much access! Being interrupted constantly by people who aren't serious stops me from working, which is what makes me money.

- text. Pros: its easy, and not very intrusive to me. Con: its not easy to be persuasive via text.

- email: I'm leading towards switching towards just emails. It allows me to respond with a thoughtfully written sales email.

- direct to my website. Ideally, I'd like them to visit my website,where they can hear my sound, which is sort of a way of vetting people before they even contact me. If they fill out the form there, its highly likely they're already somewhat interested. Of course, you can't have direct links in craigslist. Does anyone have success with links in images,

Thanks in advance for insites.

Re: How should I have craigslist leads contact me?
 

Hey there,

I'd highly recommend only allowing people on Craigslist one way to contact you, and that's via that anonymous email provided via Craigslist. Also, make sure to use a NEW email address that you will not regret deleting once you are done with your ad campaigns.

Because so many people on Craigslist are there to harvest your contact info and either sell it to spammers or start spamming you themselves. You'll notice it within a week or two of giving your cell number or email address away on there...usually.

Craigslist no longer allows links of any kind to my knowledge, and no longer allows using images that link to websites. You'd have to enter your information to be copy/pasted, I believe. Leading them to your website in the Craigslist ad seems like the best deal, and then they can contact you via email or your website after hearing your music, if they want.

Do you have analytics set up to see where your website visitors are coming from?

Re: How should I have craigslist leads contact me?
 

Can we assume you have some kind of call to action in your Craigslist ad? So they respond, what are they supposed to get? You do have their email address at this point, so thank them and provide what they asked for, but leave a signature at the bottom with a link to your website. Like you say, the ones that are curious and interested are going to click it, so have an optin form to invite them to get updates with no hype. It works for me on other advertising,

Re: How should I have craigslist leads contact me?
 

You need to first define what constitutes a serious lead. There's a whole segment of people who are no longer comfortable calling but may be more prone to a quick text message or email. You can't prejudge or rule out a lead as not being serious or legit just because of someone's communication preference. The bottom line is you want to be able to engage them to qualify them on your own with an actual phone call or email exchange. What works best to convert leads into clients is a meaningful exchange with them - there's no substitute for real human contact.

I was never a fan of website links within a Craigslist ad (even when you could include them) as you can't quantify or gauge ad response or ROI very well from blind and anonymous website hits where you don't get that opportunity to engage them.

Many of our posting clients include both a phone and email response option to accommodate most ways leads may prefer to contact them. We're increasingly seeing clients add that texting option as well.

Re: How should I have craigslist leads contact me?
 

This makes good sense, I am going to make some adjustments. THANKS!

Re: How should I have craigslist leads contact me?
 

I forgot to add in my last post. If you want people to be able to call you, you should get a Google voice number and use that as your contact number for Craigslist. That way, you can always discard the number when you no longer need it, and your personal privacy won't be affected.

Other than that, I would only recommend using anonymous email.

Re: How should I have craigslist leads contact me?
 

sorry for the slow reply. I've got to figure out how to have this forum notify me of replies.

thanks for the feedback, I am digesting it now

Re: How should I have craigslist leads contact me?
 

thanks for the heads up


Thank you.

The call to action is "Text or email, and let's talk. Let's make that hit happen."

So, following up, I've been doing this for three weeks.

Ads uploaded: 27
Leads Generated: 2
Sales Closed: 0

I also did some CL scraping and Google scraping
Messages send from scraping: 8
Leads Generated: 1
Sales Closed: 0

I'm guestimating that is takes about 10 leads to generate a sale. So I'm aiming to create at least 100 leads in 2016 to generate 5 to 10 new clients. I'm not sure whether my estimate are realistic or not.

Re: How should I have craigslist leads contact me?
 

I would only use email unless you enjoy answering the phone 24/7 (yea I know about voicemail). Email works great for CL leads & staying organized.

Re: How should I have craigslist leads contact me?
 

funny thing is, the two leads I have gotten so far have been via text. I wonder if they would have written me if I had email only as an option set up

Re: How should I have craigslist leads contact me?
 

how do you get them to go to your page from the craigslist ad if you are not allowed to post links?

Re: How should I have craigslist leads contact me?
 

I already think about collection emails from craiglists. But this will be not effection. Because most of the craiglist emails not works well for marketing. Because the email owners not checks them recently.