How To Leverage Craigslist For Your Detailing Business

How To Leverage Craigslist For Your Detailing Business

In January of 2007 I gave myself a challenge. I decided that I was going to take everything I had been learning about detailing for the past ten years and really put it to the test. So I sold my car in January and committed to detailing enough that year that I would be able to buy another car before the end of the year. I put $8000 from the sale of my car in the bank and started working. Well, I had to wait for it to stop snowing first, but as soon as spring arrived I started working my butt off.

I figured I would need more than just my regulars and and their few referrals, so I decided it was time to branch out and start using some other techniques. So I dusted off a couple things I had tried in the past and really put them to work. The most effective technique I used is what I'm posting about now.

Most of you are probably familiar with the internet's awesome yard sale known as Craigslist. There really isn't anything to compare it to other than the classifieds in your local paper. You can advertise jobs, services, stuff, and just about anything else you can think of. The best thing about Craigslist is that you can create your ads in html and really make them stand out. Take a look at your local Craigslist site and see what othe detailers are advertising. Chances are that they look like this:
http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k1...LC/clpost1.jpg

That is what the average detailing service post on my local Craigslist looks like anyway, and clearly they look like that in Atlanta too. My guess is it doesn't look much different wherever you go.

So while that guy may or may not get many hits, that type of post shows some very important facts:

1. He isn’t professional enough to have a website he can post.
2. He is not professional enough to have proof of his skill in the form of before /after pictures.
3. He doesn’t have to give a full list of his services, but you definitely want to post more than he did.
4. If you are going to post such scant details, then at least don’t capitalize every other word. It makes you look like a teenager. I’m surprised he didn’t use texting lingo in the posting too.
5. The word ‘We’ is mentioned, but I get the impression that there is no ‘We’ in his operation. Be honest and never imply that you are more than you are.
6. There isn’t even a name for his business listed. How legitimate can you be if you haven’t even got a name yet?

The list could go on for everything that is wrong with that particular posting. I'm not going to say that I do everything right or that I am a marketing genius or anything, but I definitely can suggest some ways to do it a little bit better than that.

Here is what one of my craigslist ads would look like.

http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k1...LC/clpost2.jpg

That says quite a bit about the business. Look at the things we have corrected on the short list of errors the other ad has.

1. There is a website URL posted for you to get more information.
2. Behold the before/after pictures.
3. More details about the services are listed and even more in the URL.
4. I'm pretty sure my posting is fairly grammatically correct.
5. I'm not implying there are any other employees other than myself that you will be dealing with.
6. Name? Check!

That isn't all that this ad does. It is designed much better than just plain text. Because Craigslist allows you to use HTML you can do quite a bit. I used a very simple template that required little effort to modify for my purpose. All of the images are hosted on Photobucket for free. You can check out the album if you want to grab the graphics and use the same templates if you want.

In addition to being a better looking ad, there is another thing that designing your Craigslist postings like this can do for you. Do you see the navigation at the top? That Oxidation - Swirls - Engines - Interiors - Contact Us aren't just graphics. They are true navigation buttons. What do they navigate to you might ask? OTHER CRAIGSLIST ADS. :) Lemme 'splain.

Craigslist is ridiculously search engine optimized. When I have my ads running and you go to google to search for Salt Lake City Detailers, you find my ads. So there is definite benefit to having as much search engine food in Craigslist as possible. So what I do is post on other area Craigslists different pages of my "Craigslist Site". In Salt Lake I’ll post one page and in the Ogden one I’ll post another page. In Provo I’ll post another one. I’ll use as many of the regional Craigslist pages and beyond until I’ve got everything up there. The reason for this is because if I posted all five pages in the Salt Lake Craigslist then they’d get deleted as being duplicates and all my work is ruined. It doesn’t really matter where they are posted since you are going to link them all together anyway.

Once you have your five ads posted, you’ll need to go back to each one and update the navigation buttons with the corresponding Craigslist ad. Without an HTML editor like Dreamweaver I suppose that could be kind of a pain, but it really isn’t too tricky. It is absolutely worth the effort. What you are left with is a network of Craigslist ads which are essentially your own little website. Click Here to see what it looks like all linked together. I haven’t posted this on Craigslist for two very important reasons.

1. Because it is not useful to link to things that will expire when you want the thread to be a resource for a long time to come.
2. Because it is winter right now and the last thing I want is a hundred phone calls of people wanting me to come out and detail their car in 20 degree weather. ;)

I do want you to see how it all looks though, so definitely check it out. I haven’t protected the right click or anything, so feel free to take the source code and use it as your own. The images in the Photobucket album should help you out and I would recommend you build something similar. Separate the images into corresponding page named folders for easy sorting and go from there. Even if you don’t have a website, this can be your first one. :)

Craigslist isn’t the only site that you can do this on either. There are other places that you can go to. Here are some other tools that will come in handy as you search for other ways to leverage free websites to grow your client base:

Craigslist Ad Maker, Craigslist Ad Creator, Craigslist Ad Generator
Custom Classified Ads | Listing Doctor | Custom Craigslist
Slozzle is a FREE Craiglist Ad Maker!
Post Classified Ads | Targeted Online Ads
postlets | home
vFlyer - Redirect

I hope this guide was useful. Beware the power of using the information in this article. If you post an ad like this, you had better be prepared to receive the volume. Some of my largest clients came from my Craigslist ads.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you the end of the story. So in 2007 I sold my car in January and committed to detail my heart out until I could buy a new one with my detailing profits. I bought a motorcycle in February to use to go back and forth to work and my wife and I shared the Pilot for everything else. I put $8000 in the bank from the sale of my car and in September I paid $15,000 cash for the car I drive now. Other than the $8000 from the car I sold, the other $7000 was generated through detailing. That may not be a lot, but I also have a family and a full time job as well as another business that I run to keep on top of, so I'd say $7000 profit after taxes and expenses is pretty darn good for realistically six months of detailing season in Utah. The detailing season wasn’t even over yet and I generated additional revenue in October during my Fall Detailing Blitz. That was also due to a brief (only two weeks prior) of advertising for that on Craigslist and with an email blast to the customers I detailed for earlier that year.

As a result of the new clients earned in 2007 I still haven’t had to post anything on Craigslist to keep the business going. Granted in 2009 I slowed down a ton because of another business I started, but I didn’t have to advertise at all in 2008 or 2009 to keep the cars coming in. It all comes from some well made Craigslist ads that were head and shoulders above the competition. Even the ones who throw in pictures of their work will not look as impressive as your site will with a little proper design work. Good luck! Post your results!

EDIT:

One resource I forgot to mention is where you can find templates. I like freetemplatesonline.com for that. There are a a million different templates that are easy to modify. The key to this strategy is the text in your ad. If you don't have words for Google to see, then you won't get the search hits. Just uploading pictures won't do you any good at all. It might make you stand out from others who just put text up, but someone who uploads a big image of their services is just like someone who just uploads text. It is a good idea, but poorly executed. Find a good template that you can edit and you'll get much better results. :)

I have been looking into advertising on craigslist until my site is finished. But good write up.

Awesome write up. You could also set up a Facebook fan page for the business and invite any of your clients to be part of it. Give out coupons for services there, and build up more customer interaction. Just as Auto Geek does with their Facebook and Twitter pages.

Awesome write-up Anthony!

:bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown:

Thank you for taking the time and for going above the call of duty to put this article together and then share it with our community forum. There's some meaty information in this article that will definitely help others to help themselves.

This is a great example of,

"Each one teach one"

It's pretty easy to find articles on how to buff paint, now days with the improvement in chemical technology, pad technology and machine technology, just about anyone car turn out a show car finish with a lot less experience than it used to require.

Writing an article on how to increase your business, now that's a lot harder to find.

Be sure to edit your post and add a copyright on it even thought this won't stop any of the professional copy and pasters and information gatherers and assemblers from lifting your article and then writing their own and calling their work.

I have my articles lifted and sometimes simply copied and pasted with only a few words and images changed by others in the forum world.


Here's the one I use for any article I create for Autogeek...

Copyright ©PBMA - AutogeekOnline.net® All Rights Reserved

Thank you for your article.


:dblthumb2:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DonMTV

Awesome write up. You could also set up a Facebook fan page for the business and invite any of your clients to be part of it. Give out coupons for services there, and build up more customer interaction. Just as Auto Geek does with their Facebook and Twitter pages.

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That may work for a web business where your customers can be anywhere in the country or world, but for a local service based business I'm not sure that would be as effective. I absolutely agree that you should increase your digital footprint with any chance you get, so social networks like Facebook and Twitter are great places to do that.

Thanks for the props, Mike. That means a lot coming from the article master himself. :bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown:

Wow! Awesome write-up. thanks

WOW that is a great write up!

I have to agree with Mike, somebody is bound to lift this write up and claim it as their own! It's just that good!

Excellant write-up!

:urtheman:

Great article Anthony!

DLB

great write up

One resource I forgot to mention is where you can find templates. I like freetemplatesonline.com for that. There are a a million different templates that are easy to modify. The key to this strategy is the text in your ad. If you don't have words for Google to see, then you won't get the search hits. Just uploading pictures won't do you any good at all. It might make you stand out from others who just put text up, but someone who uploads a big image of their services is just like someone who just uploads text. It is a good idea, but poorly executed. Find a good template that you can edit and you'll get much better results. :)

If you do upload photos to use, use the alt tag to describe what the photo is about, and also include your business name as that will help with the search words found by Google or Yahoo.

Very good info! Thanks for sharing! :props:

There are a few websites out there with great lists for SEO website building. alt tags is definitely one of them. Do a google search for "golden rules of SEO" and you'll get some great advice. I need to take pretty much all of it myself. lol My OCDetails website is anything BUT optimized. In fact, less than 30% of my traffic comes from Google, unfortunately. Yahoo and MSN have different standards and that is where most of my traffic comes from when it comes to search engines. Since Google eats Craigslist ads up for breakfast, you definitely want your ad to be as optimized as possible. That may be a topic for another article. ;)

Oh, one other thing I would recommend if you can manage it. This is something I'm going to change on the example I linked you to when I have a little bit of time to do it. If you use a design like the one I'm using, then when you have links to pictures I would recommend you have them open in new windows or as pop ups. Especially if you are showing before/after pictures. That way they don't have to keep clicking back. I'm going to change the code in mine so that if someone wants to just cut and paste HTML and then change the graphics, then it is all set and coded for them. If you are doing something custom, then just don't forget to change the target so it opens in a new screen.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OCDetails

Oh, one other thing I would recommend if you can manage it. This is something I'm going to change on the example I linked you to when I have a little bit of time to do it. If you use a design like the one I'm using, then when you have links to pictures I would recommend you have them open in new windows or as pop ups. Especially if you are showing before/after pictures. That way they don't have to keep clicking back. I'm going to change the code in mine so that if someone wants to just cut and paste HTML and then change the graphics, then it is all set and coded for them. If you are doing something custom, then just don't forget to change the target so it opens in a new screen.

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I think the html code for forcing a new window to open looks like this,

target=_blank>

This would go after the " mark at the end of an URL address when using the href tag

<A href="www.URL ADDRESS Goes Here.html" target=_blank>


(Any Code Monkey's feel free to correct)


Anthony's suggestion is a very good one because it means your customer/reader is never closing or leaving the page they're on, (your valuable page), but will instead open a new page that is also your page. You want them to have your pages in multiple windows, not surfing away to new pages and losing previous pages.

:D

I've got it opening in a new page right now, but I'm thinking about making it a scaled popup that just contains the image so they can see both images on the same screen. I just need to go back through and edit the code for the popup. I've not done it so far because I know that pop up blockers could shut me down and I don't want that. So for now it is just another window. :)

An important rule for any website is that you never want them to leave your site. If you have a link to a product or service or whatever, then that link MUST open in a new page so they don't actually leave your site. They may browse 50 pages on the new site and you don't want them to have to go back 50 times or try to find your link. People want their web surfing to be as easy as possible, so find ways to make it so. :)

Check this out Dug

Awesome post! I see that it's old but the first time I've seen it. Very useful

I spent a few hours working on a flyer yesterday uploaded it to photobucket and tried posting the html to craiglist. Only to find out craiglist i guess doesnt allow html code any more F M L... lol

Quote:

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Originally Posted by brondondolon

I spent a few hours working on a flyer yesterday uploaded it to photobucket and tried posting the html to craiglist. Only to find out craiglist i guess doesnt allow html code any more F M L... lol

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Yep. Looks good but no longer works with Craigslist.

Excellent and subbed for future reference!!

Thanks Anthony!

This is super helpful. Thanks for taking the time to put this together and post it for us.

Thanks very much, subbed.

I wish this still worked. Craigslist accepts very minimal HTML now.