Real Estate Investor · Palatine, IL · Member since 2014 · 102 posts · 22 votes
I created a new gmail account to handle my internet marketing stuff for lease options, and as my first foray into the game I decided to mail some rentals/FSBO's in my area on Craigslist. What I figured I'd do is first hit up the rentals from 7 days back and work my way up to the front, and then do the same with FSBO's. Never made it that far ;)
I clicked reply and selected gmail on 8 ads yesterday and 8 today and sent a couple sentences saying I'm an investor and would they consider a lease option, if they're interested in having their home maintained while it gets sold, they should call me at my number. After that every single one of my outgoing emails on this gmail account was instantly rejected by gmail on a permanent basis due to their antispam setup. Essentially this gmail account is completely unable to send outgoing email, permanently.
Based on what I've seen, it seems 25 mails per day is a pretty small and reasonable number that many people subscribe to as being a decent marketing stream for Craigslist. And yet I do 8 per day and my email address is shitcanned ;) I find this most puzzling because I hear about hiring VA's to do 25 a day and even making a new gmail or other account specifically to share with them for this purpose.
Where did I go wrong? Is Craigslist not in the stars for me?
First, I only send emails to Craigslist ads that do not have a phone number. If they have a phone number, I would much prefer to send a text message or a voicemail.
I send my texts thru MightyText.net. You can't really use Google Voice anymore for texts (for the same reasons you brought up in your post).
For voicemails, I like to use SlyDial.
My texts and voicemails say something simple like... "Hi. Saw your rental on Craigslist. You wouldn't have any interest in selling it, would you?"
Or if it's a FSBO, "I saw your property on Craigslist. I am an investor. Is you price negotiable."
I only send emails if the ad does not have a phone number. (I actually have my VA do all this for me.)
I created three different email accounts - Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail. I also wrote 5 different email scripts. The emails are really simple - maybe 2-3 sentences. They are very personal and do not have any links.
My VA has instructions to alternate between all the email accounts and all the different emails. When they only send 3-5 emails a day, I never have any problems.
Hey man, you seem to be a real expert on the Craigslist method and really nerding it up with the techy tactics. Might you perhaps have some insight intrinsic to this incident?
First, I only send emails to Craigslist ads that do not have a phone number. If they have a phone number, I would much prefer to send a text message or a voicemail.
I send my texts thru MightyText.net. You can't really use Google Voice anymore for texts (for the same reasons you brought up in your post).
For voicemails, I like to use SlyDial.
My texts and voicemails say something simple like... "Hi. Saw your rental on Craigslist. You wouldn't have any interest in selling it, would you?"
Or if it's a FSBO, "I saw your property on Craigslist. I am an investor. Is you price negotiable."
I only send emails if the ad does not have a phone number. (I actually have my VA do all this for me.)
I created three different email accounts - Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail. I also wrote 5 different email scripts. The emails are really simple - maybe 2-3 sentences. They are very personal and do not have any links.
My VA has instructions to alternate between all the email accounts and all the different emails. When they only send 3-5 emails a day, I never have any problems.
I have a scraper that does the e-mailing and searching for me, then sends me or my VA the responses. When I first set it up I had about 10 different gmails I created, but I didn't filter the scraper to send out only x amount per day, so it went full throttle and blasted a ton of people and gmail shut all those accounts down...no biggie...created more.
@John Jackson Would this be something like cubixsolutions? I've been considering messing around with that in the future after I get the more finessed approach to Craigslist direct marketing dialed down
Did you check to see if the ads allowed for unsolicited services or offers? There is a box people can check if they want such offers. Most people don't want to receive spam in their e-mail.
do NOT contact me with unsolicited services or offers
?
It seems like every single advertisement has that. It might as well be etched in stone ;) Plus technically speaking craigslist direct contact campaigns are solicited because they result directly from the fact that someone is advertising their house for sale or rent. Rent to own is still rent, although it's a different kind of rent with a different kind of outcome ;)
For your craigslist/online marketing procedures/systems do you do anything to keep track of who you've marketed to in order to avoid unwittingly hitting them with a repeat communication?
Do you database the people you market to in a specific area, for other purposes, such as repeat marketing after a certain duration of time?