Questions on Craigslist Posting

I have a few Craigslist related questions, would love some feedback.
What company do you work for?
Does your company use a tool? If so, which one?
How are your communities doing with posting Craigslist ads?
How do you keep them motivated?
Are teams held accountable?If so, how?
What value is Craigslist seen as providing, vs an ILS?

Lauren Curley just did a session at NAA and specifically mentioned how Craigslist was still working for them in a big way. I will try to get her to jump on and share a few thoughts.

Awesome! I must have missed that class.

@Brent Thanks for looping me in! I love talking about Craigslist, which is why I include a little shout out to Craig and his friends every time I speak.

First, I know there has been some debate amongst some of the larger companies as to whether there is value in the time spent to effectively manage your Craigslist campaign. When we looked at the numbers, there is a very clear correlation between the number of posts on Craigslist and the number of approved apps at a community. Best of all, Craigslist prospects tend to have more immediacy in their move (typically 14 days or less). As such, it is a great tool for vacant ready apartments that you're pushing. I have included some graphs below:






Second, in order for Craigslist to work, it matters when you post and what you post. The vast majority of our Craigslist traffic comes between the hours of 9AM and 5PM (demographic is primarily white collar workers). We post throughout the day at times when we see peak eyeballs (10AM, Noon/Lunchtime, 4:30PM before people leave for the day). Our standard is three ads posted at these specific times for each available bedroom type (which works out to roughly 9 ads per day). We measure Craigslist posting activity every 15 minutes to ensure that ads are posted exactly when they will have the greatest impact (most exposure). This is so important that we have hooked into our Craigslist posting tool (Entrata, which is also our PMS) so that we can see which sites are ahead or behind schedule at 10:15AM, 1PM and 5PM. We send text alerts to our Regionals and PMs when a site has not met the posting benchmark by that point in the day so that we can correct the deficiency in real time (instead of letting the opportunity to post pass). See below:








Finally (and I know you already know this) but content matters when it comes to Craigslist. Our teams cannot post duplicative content (at least 80% of the description text must be unique) within a 30 day period. We use Entrata's tool (which offers both a posting widget and a content management system, or CMS, for managing content). There are quite a few tools on the market (Bake Extra Cookies, Roof, etc.) that are equally good. We use Entrata because we prefer a single stack solution with our PMS (also, Entrata's API allows us to capture the Craigslist reporting data we need to send our text messages, which is what keeps our teams on task). I recognize that it is hard to post unique content for 9 ads per day. As such, we use the following guidelines:

• Each ad should include a description with at least 4-6 sentences and no more than 8 sentences.
• Draft a specific ad for each available apartment. Take pictures of that exact apartment and write content that is uniquely attributable to that apartment. For example, "Apartment 2410 is located on the second floor with views of the pool and clubhouse." You can re-use this content every time this apartment comes available.
• Write content about one specific amenity or feature. For example, write a pet friendly ad with pictures of your pet park and features that the pet may like. For example "Your dog will love taking his/her nightly walk along the trails behind the community or saying 'hi' to friends at the dog park."
• Use humor. Although a bit edgy, one of the most effective Craigslist ads I have ever seen had the title "You Can Ride It!" Inside, in the body of the ad was "The bus stops right outside of our door. What did you think we meant?"

Craigslist is an integral part of our marketing strategy at Bonaventure Realty Group. To keep everyone bought into the process we run contests for most creative ad or best photos. When Regionals or corporate are onsite, we talk about Craigslist and how we can make our ads even more effective. To see the benefits of Craigslist, you have to manage it as you would any other advertising medium; but, the numbers don't lie. Craigslist works when you put the work into it!

Hi Lauren, this is great information. Would you mind emailing me the charts to [email protected]

How are your teams held accountable for posting?

Lauren, this is like a "best of" type of forum comment! Wow!

Great info!!

Awesome info, Lauren!!

Hi Lauren, I would love to pick your brain a little more in this area if you have time. My email is [email protected]

Awesome stuff, Lauren, thanks for sharing!

Great article! My one question, as I've always believed in the "numbers", but what is your average return on Craigslist aquistions? Do the new residents tend to have good credit or just good enough? Do they have very positive rental history or just good enough? Do they contribute to a positive return to the property (pay on time, treat it with respect and make positive referral)? Or have they simply signed a lease? Just curious as I didn't see any mention of their value other than increased leasing. My apologies if I missed that and thank you for sharing.

Hi Lauren! Thank you very much for this information. Would you mind sending me the charts, as well? My email is [email protected]

Thank you, so much!

-Andy

We use Rapidsoft. It is a much easier tool than manually posting and you can post in less than 5 Minutes. We hold our staff accountable by reports telling us how often they post.The templates are nice and easy to use.