With the demise of effective print ad papers in my area increasing I have turned to Craigslist type advertising. I have noticed a recurring pattern of requests via email in response to my ads. Most frequent reply requests more pictures
I don’t know what to say other than what is taught as the bottom line of advertising: The purpose of copy is to sell!
I recommend communicating w/ potential buyers in the method they prefer. You already have an open line of communication so if they dont want to go to the phone, why force the issue?
I personally would rather do all my communication on these deals by email but I’ve slowly come around and will follow the other’s lead.
Great post and question, Shawn.
In a post yesterday on the other site I mentioned the fact that the free MH magazine in my area went belly-up, and my sales suffered.
For a while now, and even still currently, I rely heavily on Craigslist as a source of buyers. Although I do have some good buyers who came from Craigslist, I have to say that for the most part my experience has been that these buyers have worse credit, less cash, and a much more urgent need for housing than I get from other advertising medium. naturally there are exceptions, but this is the trend I see.
Having said that, I still use it, and am really at a loss for other marketing venues. I spent a lot of time/money on a website redesign this summer, with the sole intent of moving up significantly in the google/bing search results. This was successful, I’m right at the top now, but it hasn’t translated into many new buyers…yet.
Bill TX, what is your email reply to " will you take less?" and “how much down and how much per month?” Do you tell them info in ranges? D/p as low as____? What I am getting at is without any info from the customer, I can’t answer unless I simply pick a number and drop all other considerations and screening.
I guess I’m just asking if others have developed an effective email sales script.
Shawn, lately I’ve been telling them “I need somewhere between $x and $y down as a minimum and the more you can put down the better price I can give you.”
Maybe there’s a better way others can suggest but that’s been my line lately.
Bill
I’ve advertised 3 mobile homes on craigslist in the past couple months. I got several emails inquiring about them, a couple phone calls, one person actually looked at a home, and about 20 spam emails 
So I haven’t created a sale from it but I’ll keep trying. I do put a photo on the listing also.
Kevin Long
Luckily, most of my Craigslist responses have been calls. I do put the down payment amount, the monthly payment amount and the lot rent amount on the ad.
I also put photos up and direct them to a website with even more photos. I put photos of every room and of the outside.
I have been getting quite a few calls from people who want to buy a home to move to private land. Since I sell on payments (and am trying to fill our park up), these calls aren’t much help.
My experience has been that people who don’t want to call and discuss are not serious buyers. Even the people who call and talk to me in person, and set up a showing only show up about 35% of the time.
-Mike Scarbrough
Shawn Sisco wrote:
With the demise of effective print ad papers in my area
increasing I have turned to Craigslist type advertising. I have
noticed a recurring pattern of requests via email in response
to my ads. Most frequent reply requests more pictures
I have a lot of success with Craigslist in my area and I also use Postlets.com and MHVillage.com to augment the advertising. By far, Craigslist is the most successful and I get the best response from listing the homes in the Apartment for rent section. Why buy when you can own right? The key in my area is to update it every other day and be sure to update the ads every Friday and Saturday Morning.
Most of the buyers show interest beginning around the 15th of the month so they can find a place 45 days out from the end of their lease. The key is to keep the phones ringing and I haven’t found a better free advertising venue. Keep the ads fresh, interesting and the headers MUST draw attention. “Beautiful 16 x 80 3 bed, 2 bath Mobile home in quiet country park, great schools” is a typical header I use.
Good Luck!
Brian
Post Edited (04-14-11 20:56)