Once I first began working from house, 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 buddies of buddies and pitching to freelance gigs discovered on varied 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 should you’re within the work-at-home world lengthy sufficient, there’ll come a time whenever you determine to scale what you are promoting, department out of your present line of labor, or diversify your earnings. So how will you shortly and simply discover new purchasers and clients 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, utterly common, and the second, somewhat 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 listing. Outdoors of household and buddies, 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 categorised 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 nicely price it.
Deciding What to Promote on Craigslist
The next $800 I earned by a somewhat uncommon pastime—however earlier than I let you know about it, I need to let you know about how I got here to the choice to monetize it. After studying posts on The Work at House Girl about producing earnings by discovering your area of interest, I spent a great deal of time fascinated by this stuff:
- 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 matter I may spend hours speaking about?
After that, the reply was straightforward – aquascaping! Aquascaping is the artwork and design of dwelling, planted aquariums; you possibly can 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 vegetation. I didn’t anticipate a lot demand, and at only some {dollars} per plant, I didn’t anticipate a lot revenue. However as vegetation produced from trimmings that I might in any other case have thrown away, each cent earned was (virtually) one which didn’t value me something to supply. Discuss a revenue margin!
What I assumed could be a low-key Craigslist advert that just about nobody would take note of become $800 in more money over a two-week span. Whereas I don’t suppose this may exchange my day job any time quickly, it was completely the simplest (and most enjoyable) $800 I’ve ever made!
Do you’ve gotten a service, product, craft, or pastime that would probably be monetized? If you happen to’d like to check the enterprise mannequin in a low-risk setting with minimal upfront prices, take into account promoting on Craigslist or one of many quite a few on-line platforms out there to you.
What’s Craigslist?
Earlier than we get into the right way to earn a living on Craigslist, it is perhaps useful to speak about what Craigslist is strictly. 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 too 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 opponents like Fb Market and OfferUp, you possibly can 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
If you happen to don’t use photographs in your promoting, you’re unlikely to get a response – interval. And a easy hyperlink to your portfolio website is unlikely to be clicked if the individual doesn’t open your advert within the first place. Embody no less than 4-8 photographs in your advert to provide folks a bite-sized preview of your work.
You don’t essentially want skilled photographs in your itemizing both; you will get nice, high-quality photographs along with your iPhone. If you happen to’re itemizing objects on the market or promoting bodily merchandise, you’ll want to use good lighting and embrace photographs from a number of angles if attainable. Listed below are some images suggestions for taking high-quality photographs at your own home.
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 like such a easy step, but it surely’s one which’s incessantly missed! Particularly with a platform like Craigslist, making your advert pleasant and personable is without doubt one of the best methods to determine belief with potential consumers. Inform individuals who you might be, why you’re posting, and the place to search out extra details about you.
3. Inform Folks Exactly What Type of Jobs You Need to Do
Whenever you create your advert, take into account your potential purchasers and clients and for what they are going to be looking. For me, significantly with my plant advert, I used to be concentrating on individuals who had been trying to buy used fish tanks on Craigslist. Assume – what are the percentages 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 “Dwell Aquarium Crops,” and along with the identify 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 an alternative, I individually listed out “engagement images,” “senior portraits,” and so on.
4. Supply a Deal or Depart Room for Negotiation
Now, this will 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 nicely. Advertisements that embrace “OBO” (or finest provide), “worth negotiable,” or “reductions out there” have a roughly 75% larger response price. Value your providers and objects so you’ve gotten room for negotiation; folks love a very good deal.
5. Have an onboarding plan in place
Study from my errors. I used to be unprepared for the frenzy of enterprise I acquired. My inbox was flooded with emails and regarded 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 info. Understand how you’ll deal with these emails, arrange them, and the way you’ll set your charges.
Security Ideas
Like all buying-and-selling platform, you’ll need to take sure precautions to make sure your security as a vendor on Craigslist. Relying on the kind of posting, you’ll possible need 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 objects, police stations are a protected wager. For smaller objects, a busy public parking zone will normally do.
Understand that even for providers the place you’re not essentially coping with costly merchandise, you would probably nonetheless be coping with costly tools – similar to images or woodworking. It’s finest observe to not invite strangers into your own home, studio, store, or wherever it’s it’s possible you’ll be storing such tools.
If you happen to can’t meet potential service purchasers in public, I’d advocate doing a cellphone 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 occasions you’ll need to settle for cost by way of a third-party platform like Venmo, CashApp, or Zelle. Normally, you possibly can keep away from most scams by not permitting consumers or purchasers to pre-pay with out assembly or seeing the merchandise. If, for some cause, that’s not an choice, utilizing a PayPal enterprise account will afford you some safety as a vendor.
Conclusion
So there you’ve gotten it; these are my finest suggestions for locating purchasers and clients and earning money on Craigslist whenever you’re simply beginning out. It additionally serves as a superb, free platform for testing the waters of a product-based enterprise you may bear in mind. If the demand in your product is so nice in such a small, localized space—simply suppose: What may you accomplish with an internet retailer?
Do you utilize Craigslist to earn a living? If that’s the case, we’d love to listen to your story!
Initially printed August 6, 2018. Content material up to date Might 2023.