Generating Leads Through Craigslist

What is the purpose?

At our core, Rental Beast is a rental listing database composed of owner-sourced listings. Or, in other words… For Rent By Owner (FRBO) listings. Think of For Sale By Owner (FSBO) but on the rental side. Every property tagged as “Rental Beast Reviewed” means we talked directly with the property owner or manager to ensure the rental is active and received high-quality listing information. This means a real estate professional does not represent the listing, so you can market these listings to drive lead generation.

Why is this important?

Proactive sales professionals do not wait for leads to come their way—they generate them. Posting Rental Beast reviewed or FRBO listings to social media and classified advertisement websites is an excellent way for Rental Beast real estate professionals to generate leads for specific properties.

One of the tools that help professionals do this is our “share to Craigslist” button, which automatically generates HTML code to be copied and pasted into the description portion of a Craigslist ad. This allows you to be more efficient and quickly create a post for Craigslist.

How to post a listing on Craigslist:

Open two browser tabs or browser windows: One logged into your Rental Beast Dashboard and the other for Craigslist.
In Rental Beast, go to the “Search” tab and run a “Search” to identify listings to post to Craigslist.
Once you identify a property, click on the listing to open the “Listing Details Page.”
Right-click and save to your device the images from the listing you want to highlight in your post.
Click the “Share” arrow icon on the listing detail page and select the “Craigslist” icon.
Copy the HTML code and paste it into the “Description” portion of your Craigslist post.
On Craigslist, click “Create a posting,” select “Housing offered,” and then pick the “apartments/housing for rent” option.

Enter the rest of the relevant information in the Craigslist listing form and upload the images you saved to your device.
Click the “Continue” button and follow the prompts to finish posting your listing.

Pro-Tips for posting listings to social media:

Quality pictures are vital: Saving quality photos to use in your post from a listing is essential because, other than rental rate, pictures are often a significant factor that dictates if a post receives interest and engagement. So, use listings that have attractive photos to help increase the likelihood your post receives attention!
Tracking a lead and their progress: Once you post a listing on Craigslist, it will be visible to the general public. When an interested lead clicks on the listing, they will be brought to a Rental Beast controlled listing page that purposefully redacts the exact listing address and contact information, ensuring the lead can’t contact the property. If interested in the rental, the lead will click “Request a showing,” “Save,” or “Share,” and they will be prompted to input their contact information. Congratulations - Your hard work has generated a lead!

Your ad, your lead: Any lead generated on your Craigslist posts will be automatically accepted. You will then receive an email notification that a lead has been generated. You will receive their contact information and the listing information they inquired about in the email notification.

Additionally, this lead will automatically populate under your “Client’s” tab. You can see the exact listing they engaged with by finding the notification in your “Activity Hub” and clicking the “Listing Details.”

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