This document provides an overview and summary of a Craigslist Masters Class presented by Eric R. Broughton of Yield Technologies. The class teaches property managers how to effectively use Craigslist as a lead generation source. Key points include establishing a Craigslist account correctly, preparing content and posting frequently while avoiding issues like flagging and blocking. Data analysis of post performance is also recommended to fine-tune strategies. The goal is for Craigslist to become a top 1-2 lead source for communities.
2. Presenter: Eric R. Broughton
• President and COO of Yield
Technologies, Inc.
• Co-Founder and Visionary behind
RentSentinel, YieldVision and
RentSocial
• Second to Andy Hamilton in
knowledge of Craigslist for the
apartment industry
3. Yield Technologies
• History
– Founded in 2007
– Headquartered in Chicago
• Technology company specializing in the Multifamily
Marketplace
• Products: RentSentinel, YieldVision and RentSocial
• Over 4,500 communities nationwide on our platform
• 97% client retention rate
• 8 of 10 largest REITS on the Yield Technologies platform
• More than 1.5 million apartment units on platform
• Comprehensive business solutions
• Drive NOI and ROI
4. Typical Results
If you apply what you learn today I expect you to achieve the
following for your community:
• Craigslist becomes your #1 or #2 lead source
• Craigslist becomes the #2 source of new leases after
referrals (or other)
• Craigslist refers more people to your community website
than all other sources combined
5. Craigslist
• Craigslist dominates the market in
facilitating face-to-face transactions.
• 47 million unique users every month in
the US – nearly a fifth of the nation’s
adult population.
• Reported annual revenues of $100M
and just 30 employees.
6. Wired Magazine
• “…the nation’s greatest apartment-
hunting site, the first likely choice of
anybody searching for a rental or a
roommate” (Wired Magazine –
September 2009)
• “How much market share does this
housing site have? In many cities, a
huge percentage. It isn’t worth trying
to compare its traffic to competitors’,
because at this scale there are no
competitors .”*
7. Poll Question
In your portfolio, where does Craigslist rank as a
source for new leases?
a) The number one source
b) Top 5 source
c) Top 10 source
d) Statistically insignificant
8. Creating Your Account
• Like any great relationship you need to start it off right
– with honest intentions …. and with your real contact information
• Create one account per community
• Use your corporate email address
• If possible use a cell phone that has never been used before
and select the text option for phone verification
• Create the account on the same computer that you expect to
perform posts
9. Prepare Your Content
• How much time do you truly have to dedicate to Craigslist?
• Posting frequency will dictate the amount of content required
• In advance you will need to have
– Unique Titles
– Text that accurately describes your community, floor plans and
amenities
– For each floor plan you will need Pricing, BR, BA, SqFt
– Pictures
• Use a tool created for the multi-family industry
– Like RentSentinel’s Marketer! :)
10. Posting Correctly
• Login to your account before you post
• Try to use the same computer every time
• Ensure that you are posting to the correct region
• Do not post to multiple regions or in multiple Craigslist
sections (apts/housing for rent, rooms & shares…)
• If you post often enough you will be prompted to verify your
phone – do it
• If you are ghosted or blacklisted do not panic
11. What Makes an Effective
Craigslist Ad?
• All the ingredients that make an ad effective from Marketing
101 still apply to Craigslist:
– Four “P’s”
• Product
• Price
• Place
• Promotion
– Don’t try to be something you are not
12. What Makes an Effective
Craigslist Ad?
• Give the customer the information necessary to be
knowledgeable about the product
– Clean and crisp presentation with quick access to decision making
information
– Don’t be too wordy or too extravagant
• Be present (and persistent) when the customer is looking to
make a purchasing decision
– On Craigslist, the only way to do this is to post often (within
reason)
• Do not lose the privilege to post
13. Now That They Have Clicked on the Ad
What Will They See?
14. Poll Question
Which ad performs better on Craigslist?
a) Crisp and Clean
b) Fun and Conversational
15. Challenges
Some of the pitfalls to avoid:
• Flaggers
• Spam
• Fake Emails and other Scams
• Blocking and “Ghosting”
• Consistent posting and monitoring
16. Flaggers
Craigslist lets users flag ads they deem
inappropriate as a mechanism to
moderate the site. When an ad is
flagged a certain number of times it is
removed by Craigslist.
• Do not post more than once per hour
• Vary your content
• Do your best to not post for unit
types that have zero availability
• Do not post in multiple categories
17. Spam / Phishers
On Craigslist, along with leads comes spam and fake email (phishing).
How we dealt with this problem: Capture more than 1 million.
18. Blocking
• Craigslist also attempts to moderate spam and overposting
- Unfortunately many of the means available are reactive and
more like a sledge hammer than a scalpel
• Certain posting practices such as, posting for multiple
communities in multiple markets from the same domain will get
you blocked because Craigslist thinks you are spamming
• Don’t be afraid to reach out to Craigslist
• Craigslist is publicly spirited and wants to maintain an efficient
marketplace for facilitating face-to-face transactions
• Do phone verification.
19. Poll Question
Have you ever been blocked from logging into
Craigslist?
a) No
b) Yes and I am now unblocked
c) Yes and I am still blocked
20. Ghosting
• What is ghosting?
• Oh, there’s my ad but why isn’t anyone calling?
• Craigslist has not publicly admitted to this practice
• Stop the haunting!
• Vary your content
• Stop posting so often
• Take a break (~ 2 weeks)
• Only use a single tool for posting
• Use the same computer
• Pretend you were Craigslist and had to deal with
spammers and phishers
21. Measuring your Marketing Activity
“I know that half the
money I spend on
advertising is
wasted.
The problem is that I
don’t know which
half”
- J.C. Penney
25. Which Ad Types are
Most Effective in Generating Traffic?
Fancy or Simple Ads
• Most statistics show that simple ads win the day but don’t let that keep you from
trying different approaches
Community & Floor Plan Descriptions
• Two to three sentences with solid key words and SEO quality information will result in
more leads
Include Links?
• 100% yes. Definitely include links to your property, Facebook and Youtube account if
you have confidence in those sites.
Community Focus vs. Unit Focus
Go with your strengths but make sure that if you are focusing on the value of a particular
unit type that you have availability
26. Style Success
• Template structure that
produces the optimal
results
• Generally the simple
“No Template”
templates deliver the
best results but keep in
mind that the sparse
content is designed to
drive prospects to ask
more questions
27. Template Success
• Templates are the implementation of styles and give you the
ability to determine the optimal color, font, banner & background
• Best if run for an individual community
30. Manage Ghosting
Much like pricing through market survey’s it is important to
know how your competitors are doing
31. Manage Ghosting
If you are a group that needs to post often you need to have
a lot of content ready to go
32. Fine Tune Your Ads
Look for outliers in additional analytics
• Description success
• Photo success
• Feature success
• Price success
Look at the results as a whole over time
• When you see a favorable result do not
duplicate exactly but instead create variations
of the success trait
• Keep on trying different ideas and strategies
33. Key Takeaways
• Craigslist can be your #1 source for lead generation with the
right posting strategy in place
• More importance on a consistent posting strategy than on
slick presentation
• If you have a Craigslist tool to support you; use reports to
fine-tune your posting strategy
• If you get in trouble please feel free to contact our team at
anytime
1. Whoa! – you said this was a masters class. Creating a Craigslist account is simple.2. This is truly a relationship. Ups and downs, love and hate. For all you people that would give out 867-5309 as their personal phone number this pertains to you.3. Do not use a VOIP phone – Craigslist has known documented issues with phone verification on a VoIP lines.
We’ll show some examples of portfolios with different strategies and how that reflects in their results.
Product – Truthfully list your property. No pool pictures if you don’t have a pool. Price – You have to state a price on Craigslist. Make sure it is a price for an available unit and accurate. No teasers.Place – Complete the location and cross street fields. People want to click on the Yahoo/Google maps options and see the location immediatelyPromotion– Put yourself into the mind of the consumer. If someone is wasting your time with false advertising you will flag them. Also, make sure you add every sales contact channel (email, phone, address).
