Once I first began working from dwelling, 99% of my enterprise got here from word-of-mouth – a design right here, just a few weblog posts there. I began each workday by spending just a few hours writing chilly emails to mates of mates and pitching to freelance gigs discovered on numerous websites and Fb teams. Discovering work was as a lot part of my work-at-home job as doing the precise work.
Ultimately, although, as you’ll discover out if you happen to’re within the work-at-home world lengthy sufficient, there’ll come a time while you resolve to scale your enterprise, department out of your present line of labor, or diversify your revenue. So how are you going to shortly and simply discover new purchasers and prospects to fill this hole and take your facet hustle full time?
That is how I earned $3,500 on Craigslist in 30 days, utilizing minimal advertising that anybody can do.
Making Cash on Craigslist
Now, I’m going to forewarn you that I made cash on Craigslist in two very alternative ways: One, fully common, and the second, a bit of uncommon.
Once I determined to broaden my images portfolio from company work to household and portraits, I knew I must department out of my present shopper record. Exterior of household and mates, I used to be at a loss for the place to show. I imply, how do you promote providers you’ve but to truly carry out?
It All Began With a $5 Advert
On a whim whereas spring cleansing, I posted a categorized advert on Craigslist. One $5 advert, and a month later, I had landed $2,700 in images work – with no web site, enterprise playing cards, networking, or advertising.
You heard that appropriately!
Due to the overwhelming quantity of spam and scams on Craigslist, the positioning now requires you to pay for promoting providers—a $5 price. I can confidently say that the ROI on my $5 commercial was properly price it.
Deciding What to Promote on Craigslist
The next $800 I earned by a relatively uncommon interest—however earlier than I inform you about it, I wish to inform you about how I got here to the choice to monetize it. After studying posts on The Work at Dwelling Girl about producing revenue by discovering your area of interest, I spent a great deal of time interested by these items:
- What hobbies do I take pleasure in?
- On what topics am I the professional?
- Is there any kind of labor I may spend hours doing?
- Any subject I may spend hours speaking about?
After that, the reply was simple – aquascaping! Aquascaping is the artwork and design of dwelling, planted aquariums; you’ll be able to be taught extra about it right here.
Together with my advert for images and a number of things I discovered whereas cleansing out my closet, I posted an commercial for stay aquarium crops. I didn’t anticipate a lot demand, and at only some {dollars} per plant, I didn’t anticipate a lot revenue. However as crops produced from trimmings that I’d in any other case have thrown away, each cent earned was (virtually) one which didn’t price me something to supply. Speak about a revenue margin!
What I believed can be a low-key Craigslist advert that just about nobody would take note of become $800 in extra cash over a two-week span. Whereas I don’t assume it will substitute my day job any time quickly, it was completely the simplest (and most enjoyable) $800 I’ve ever made!
Do you have got a service, product, craft, or interest that might doubtlessly be monetized? Should you’d like to check the enterprise mannequin in a low-risk setting with minimal upfront prices, think about promoting on Craigslist or one of many quite a few on-line platforms obtainable to you.
What’s Craigslist?
Earlier than we get into find out how to earn cash on Craigslist, it may be useful to speak about what Craigslist is precisely. Craigslist is a no-frills classifieds commercial web site that’s paying homage to newspaper classifieds.
Most individuals know of the Craigslist gross sales part, however you can even discover listings for jobs, actual property, flats, misplaced pets, storage gross sales, providers, and even dialogue boards.
The corporate relies out of San Francisco and options native listings in virtually each main metropolis worldwide. Whereas these days Craigslist has quite a few buy-and-sell rivals like Fb Market and OfferUp, you’ll be able to nonetheless discover tons of exercise on Craigslist throughout each class.
Right here’s Tips on how to Get Excessive-High quality Responses and Make Cash From Craigslist Promoting
1. Use High quality Photographs or Instance Items
Should you don’t use images in your promoting, you’re unlikely to get a response – interval. And a easy hyperlink to your portfolio web site is unlikely to be clicked if the particular person doesn’t open your advert within the first place. Embody at the least 4-8 images in your advert to provide individuals a bite-sized preview of your work.
You don’t essentially want skilled images on your itemizing both; you may get nice, high-quality photos along with your iPhone. Should you’re itemizing gadgets on the market or promoting bodily merchandise, you’ll want to use good lighting and embrace photographs from a number of angles if doable. Listed below are some images suggestions for taking high-quality photos at your property.
What about writing or extra summary providers? Head over to Canva to design your self a nice-looking service providing graphic.
2. Introduce Your self
This looks as if such a easy step, nevertheless it’s one which’s regularly neglected! Particularly with a platform like Craigslist, making your advert pleasant and personable is likely one of the best methods to ascertain belief with potential patrons. Inform individuals who you’re, why you’re posting, and the place to seek out extra details about you.
3. Inform Folks Exactly What Type of Jobs You Wish to Do
If you create your advert, think about your potential purchasers and prospects and for what they are going to be looking. For me, notably with my plant advert, I used to be concentrating on individuals who had been seeking to buy used fish tanks on Craigslist. Suppose – what are the chances somebody would seek for the precise genus and species of aquatic plant I used to be promoting? Not excessive! As a substitute, I listed my advert for “Reside Aquarium Crops,” and along with the title of the plant, I included in my description naturally-placed search phrases like “fish tank” and “aquarium.”
Do the identical along with your service. I may have left my images advert at “Pictures,” however as a substitute, I individually listed out “engagement images,” “senior portraits,” and so forth.
4. Provide a Deal or Go away Room for Negotiation
Now, this may occasionally sound counterintuitive in case your purpose with promoting is to usher in money, however I guarantee you, this trick of the commerce works – and it really works properly. Adverts that embrace “OBO” (or greatest provide), “value negotiable,” or “reductions obtainable” have a roughly 75% better response price. Value your providers and gadgets so you have got room for negotiation; individuals love a great deal.
5. Have an onboarding plan in place
Study from my errors. I used to be unprepared for the push of enterprise I obtained. My inbox was flooded with emails and seemed like a downright catastrophe zone, most of them asking the identical questions, inquiring about the identical dates, and virtually all of them coming from similar-looking, auto-generated Craigslist electronic mail addresses that eliminated any figuring out data. Understand how you’ll deal with these emails, set up them, and the way you’ll set your charges.
Security Ideas
Like several buying-and-selling platform, you’ll wish to take sure precautions to make sure your security as a vendor on Craigslist. Relying on the kind of posting, you’ll probably wish to meet your purchaser in a public location to finish your transaction or carry out some kind of vetting or screening for potential purchasers.
When promoting high-dollar gadgets, police stations are a protected wager. For smaller gadgets, a busy public parking zone will often do.
Remember the fact that even for providers the place you’re not essentially coping with costly merchandise, you could possibly doubtlessly nonetheless be coping with costly tools – akin to images or woodworking. It’s greatest observe to not invite strangers into your property, studio, store, or wherever it’s you might be storing such tools.
Should you can’t meet potential service purchasers in public, I’d advocate doing a telephone or video name or (if following tip #5 from above) having them full a questionnaire.
Whether or not promoting services or products, money is king, in fact, however there could also be instances you’ll wish to settle for cost by way of a third-party platform like Venmo, CashApp, or Zelle. Normally, you’ll be able to keep away from most scams by not permitting patrons or purchasers to pre-pay with out assembly or seeing the merchandise. If, for some purpose, that’s not an choice, utilizing a PayPal enterprise account will afford you some safety as a vendor.
Conclusion
So there you have got it; these are my greatest suggestions for locating purchasers and prospects and getting cash on Craigslist while you’re simply beginning out. It additionally serves as a superb, free platform for testing the waters of a product-based enterprise you would possibly bear in mind. If the demand on your product is so nice in such a small, localized space—simply assume: What may you accomplish with an internet retailer?
Do you employ Craigslist to earn cash? If that’s the case, we’d love to listen to your story!
Initially printed August 6, 2018. Content material up to date Could 2023.