After I first began working from residence, 99% of my enterprise got here from word-of-mouth – a design right here, a couple of weblog posts there. I began each workday by spending a couple of hours writing chilly emails to associates of associates 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 should you’re within the work-at-home world lengthy sufficient, there’ll come a time if you determine to scale your enterprise, department out of your present line of labor, or diversify your revenue. So how are you going to rapidly and simply discover new purchasers and clients to fill this hole and take your aspect 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 other ways: One, fully common, and the second, a bit of uncommon.
After I determined to increase my images portfolio from company work to household and portraits, I knew I must department out of my present consumer record. Exterior of household and associates, I used to be at a loss for the place to show. I imply, how do you promote companies 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 accurately!
Due to the overwhelming quantity of spam and scams on Craigslist, the positioning now requires you to pay for promoting companies—a $5 charge. 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 via a slightly uncommon passion—however earlier than I let you know about it, I wish to let you know about how I got here to the choice to monetize it. After studying posts on The Work at Residence Girl about producing revenue via discovering your area of interest, I spent a great deal of time desirous about these items:
What hobbies do I get pleasure from?
On what topics am I the skilled?
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 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 reside aquarium crops. I didn’t anticipate a lot demand, and at just a few {dollars} per plant, I didn’t anticipate a lot revenue. However as crops 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. Speak about a revenue margin!
What I believed can be a low-key Craigslist advert that nearly nobody would take note of become $800 in extra cash over a two-week span. Whereas I don’t assume this can substitute my day job any time quickly, it was completely the simplest (and most enjoyable) $800 I’ve ever made!
Do you may have a service, product, craft, or passion that might doubtlessly be monetized? When you’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 obtainable to you.
What’s Craigslist?
Earlier than we get into the right way to earn a living on Craigslist, it is likely to be useful to speak about what Craigslist is strictly. Craigslist is a no-frills classifieds commercial web site that’s harking back to newspaper classifieds.
Most individuals know of the Craigslist gross sales part, however you may also discover listings for jobs, actual property, residences, misplaced pets, storage gross sales, companies, and even dialogue boards.
The corporate is predicated 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 possibly can nonetheless discover tons of exercise on Craigslist throughout each class.
Right here’s Learn how to Get Excessive-High quality Responses and Make Cash From Craigslist Promoting
1. Use High quality Photographs or Instance Items
When 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 individual doesn’t open your advert within the first place. Embody at the very least 4-8 images in your advert to present folks 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 together with your iPhone. When you’re itemizing gadgets on the market or promoting bodily merchandise, be sure you use good lighting and embrace pictures from a number of angles if doable. Listed here are some images suggestions for taking high-quality photos at your private home.
What about writing or extra summary companies? 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, but it surely’s one which’s often neglected! Particularly with a platform like Craigslist, making your advert pleasant and personable is among the best methods to ascertain belief with potential patrons. 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
If 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. Suppose – what are the percentages somebody would seek for the precise genus and species of aquatic plant I used to be promoting? Not excessive! As an alternative, I listed my advert for “Dwell Aquarium Vegetation,” 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 together 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 Go away Room for Negotiation
Now, this will likely sound counterintuitive in case your purpose with promoting is to herald money, however I guarantee you, this trick of the commerce works – and it really works nicely. Advertisements that embrace “OBO” (or greatest provide), “worth negotiable,” or “reductions obtainable” have a roughly 75% higher response charge. Worth your companies and gadgets so you may have room for negotiation; folks love an excellent 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 Suggestions
Like all 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 seemingly 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 secure guess. For smaller gadgets, a busy public car parking zone will often do.
Remember the fact that even for companies the place you’re not essentially coping with costly merchandise, you would doubtlessly nonetheless be coping with costly tools – akin to images or woodworking. It’s greatest apply to not invite strangers into your private home, studio, store, or wherever it’s chances are you’ll be storing such tools.
When you can’t meet potential service purchasers in public, I’d suggest 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 instances you’ll wish to settle for fee by way of a third-party platform like Venmo, CashApp, or Zelle. Normally, you possibly can keep away from most scams by not permitting patrons or purchasers to pre-pay with out assembly or seeing the merchandise. If, for some motive, that isn’t an choice, utilizing a PayPal enterprise account will afford you some safety as a vendor.
Conclusion
So there you may have it; these are my greatest suggestions for locating purchasers and clients and being profitable on Craigslist if you’re simply beginning out. It additionally serves as a superb, free platform for testing the waters of a product-based enterprise you may take into consideration. If the demand on your product is so nice in such a small, localized space—simply assume: What may you accomplish with a web based retailer?
Do you employ Craigslist to earn a living? If that’s the case, we’d love to listen to your story!
Initially revealed August 6, 2018. Content material up to date Might 2023.