Increase Sales and Foot Traffic of Your Retail Store via Craigslist Marketing

Craigslist Marketing for Retail Stores

Craigslist should be your best friend if you are a local retail store owner, especially during these tough days.

You might say, “Craigslist is an online classifieds site, I think it hurts my local business, how will it help?”.

Yes, if you don’t use it, or if you don’t know how to use it right, it might hurt your business. But if you start taking advantage of the limitless opportunities on Craigslist, it will be your best friend during these tough times.

Let me share some creative and successful Craigslist Marketing ideas that I have been implementing for my own businesses, and for my clients for years (*I’ll use Craigslist New York in the examples since it’s my local area, change it to your local area while implementing these. Also, keep in mind some of these techniques might be called as “Gray Hat Marketing” Techniques, so use them at your own risk):

1. Post products for sale at Craigslist For Sale section:

Do not advertise your store name, it will get flagged. Post a picture, price and a short description (mention if it’s brand new or not), then wait them to contact you. When they do, either email them back or tell them on the phone, you are a local retail store, and make them visit your store. You will be surprised with the amount of positive response, store traffic and new customers you will get, if you do this right.

2. Use Craigslist Free Section Wisely:

Free section is one of the most visited sections on Craigslist. If you use it wisely, you can get so much foot traffic to your store you’d be surprised. Here’s the basic idea. Create/Pick a cheap promotional product to give away for FREE. No gimmicks, no tricks, offer it completely FREE. And advertise it on Craigslist Free Section. Again, do not advertise your store name. Mention the free product and address, tell them come and pick it up (just like a regular free ad). When they come over to your store, put up signs on the window for “FREE XYZ”, and give it away for free. They will be in the store, they will most likely buy something else. Remember to make them fill a short form “name, email” before picking up the form. Now, you start creating your targeted email list. This is GOLD. Setup an autoresponder, and send them an email that night, thanking them for coming in for the promotion, and kindly ask them if they like to be included in your VIP email list to get early notices for next promotions (double opt-in), most of them will say yes. Next time, you run any type of promotion, you have a targeted, local, valuable email list you can advertise to for absolutely FREE. Offering a free promotional product is only one idea to use Craigslist’s Free section. Be creative, come up with other ideas. Trust me, there are many more.

3. Craigslist Local News Section:

Any sale you do, any promotion you run, any news worth reading, post it to Craigslist Local News section. If you are a family owned business, mention it again and again. If you ran a promotion the previous day using the Craigslist Free section, post at Local News section as a success story. Write it personal, not promotional, just like you are writing to a friend or family member. Remember, these are the tough days, you need to treat your customers just like you treat your friends. Come up with creative ideas and stories. If you have recently renewed your store lease for 10 years, come up with a story to write, mention your previous 10 years, how you love that location, how you create jobs for the local community, and why you want to be there 10 more years, and post this story to the news section. Anything you do in the store, if tailored right, might be a story worth posting on the local news section. Use it to share with the local community and create a bond with them.

4. Craigslist Local Events Section:

Since you are a local retail store, you must be a part of the local community. Create events that attract local community and advertise at Craigslist Local Events section. Let the local community know that you care about the community. Let’s give an example. You town’s high school football team won the state. Create a celebration party in your store. Invite the team members, families, and everybody in the town. Offer free drinks, appetizers, and advertise heavily on Craigslist and elsewhere. The cost will be worth and you will bring in so many new people to your store otherwise would never come.

5. Craigslist Volunteers Section:

I own a commercial business, why should I use the volunteers section to advertise? If this is what you think, you have to change your way of thinking and start being creative in marketing both online and offline. Run a charity event (e.g. 10% of the sales will go to support local library on next Saturday), and ask people to volunteer to help. Post it to Volunteers section on Craigslist as well as events, small biz ads, etc. Think hard now, and you will come up with dozens of ideas to use Craigslist Volunteers section for your local store.

There are literally tens of other ways to promote your retail store on Craigslist, absolutely for FREE. So, spend some quality time on Craigslist, check out what others are doing (in bigger cities, etc.) and start implementing these Craigslist Marketing techniques right now. If done right, these techniques will increase the foot traffic to your store, and will create a bond with you as a local business owner and your local community.

Did you try any of these Craigslist Marketing Techniques successfully to increase your retail store’s foot traffic? Share your experience at the comments section below, and help other local retail store owners survive during the recession.

Craigslist is the most visited local classifieds site online, but remember to use the same marketing techniques to increase foot traffic to your retail store at other local classifieds sites such as; Kijiji, Oodle, Backpack, etc. More sites, more ads, more traffic, and more sales to survive during the recession. Good luck.

*This article is a part of 10 article series; “10 Ways to Get Foot Traffic to Your Retail Store via Online Marketing“. Remember to read the other articles in this guide to increase your store’s foot traffic and sales.

Tagged as: Craigslist, Craigslist Marketing, Craigslist Volunteers, Free Foot Traffic, Increase Foot Traffic, Marketing on Craigslist, Retail Store Foot Traffic, Retail Store Marketing