How and when to Promote Your Business with Craig's List

Craig's List is an advertising phenomenon. Let's face it, almost everyone has heard of Craig's List, and many people have posted ads on Craig's List, but I'll bet if you own your own company you never thought of using Craig's List to promote your company. Am I right? I'll bet that I am, especially if you are a new company.

There are two scenarios to take into account when you are considering promoting your business using Craig's List. The first scenario is one in which your company provides a service to the public. Craig's List takes all kinds of classified ads, and offering services is one of the best things that you can place an ad for on Craig's List. As a freelance writer who has gotten some of my best gigs through Craig's List, I can attest to the power of placing an ad for your services. Best of all placing an ad on Craig's List is absolutely free, and while the ad is only online a short time, you can quickly and easily repost it from your free account. So, if you are a small start-up company without much of an advertising budget then Craig's List is one way that you can advertise your services without spending a lot of money. You will reach a large audience, and when you know who your target audience is, the possibility of new business is even greater.

However, there is another business scenario in which you as a business owner will definitely want to promote your business on Craig's List, and that is when your competitors are. Small companies are not the only ones getting on the Craig's List band wagon, large and well known companies do as well. If you are a small company who has large or even small competitors who are advertising their services on Craig's List, then you cannot afford to not do the same thing. When a company does not advertise in the same arena as their competitors, especially when that advertising is free, then they are in essence giving all those potential customers to their competitors. While clearly if you are small and or a start-up company and you don't have a large budget, then you will probably not be able to reach those potential customers that the big wigs are paying a lot in advertising for, advertising on Craig's List can give you a way to compete with the big dogs. However, there is one instance in which you may want to consider other advertising avenues, and that is if Craig's List is saturated with companies in your niche advertising the same service. In this case your ad is likely to get lost in the ocean of all the other ads placed for the same services on Craig's List.

When advertising on Craig's List it's not only important to know your audience, but another important factor when advertising on Craig's List is to have stellar advertising copy. I've seen some really bad ads on Craig's List, ones from companies that I certainly would never purchase services from. Even if you don't know how to write sales copy, and cannot afford to hire someone to do it for you, there is really no reason to fear. There are hundreds of free e-books, online courses and websites that can educate you on how to write an ad that gets read and then acted on. All it takes is a little time and effort, and you should be able to write a great ad to place on Craig's List.

So, once you have written your ad, all that is required is to sign up for a free account on Craig's List, find the city closest to you if yours is not listed and then fill out the form place your add in the appropriate category. You'll want to log in regularly because your ad will only be posted for a short time, and if you want to continue to have it posted, you'll need to repost it once the time limit is up.

Promoting your business on Craig's List is to your advantage, not only is it free, but if done correctly, you can draw a lot of new business and customers.