Using Craigslist and other free sources...

[clashctyrokr]

I'm kinda broke at the moment, so I can't really afford large PPC campaigns - especially when I usually lose money on them... I'm looking for a way to get some free or very cheap traffic.

My question is this: How can you use craigslist to your advantage? I've done some simple posts in the general section before just promoting dating leads... they do okay, but I was thinking about moving to sales. So how exactly does that work?

Say I wanted to sell Resveratrol. Could I post in the beauty services section? Or the general for sale section? Or should it be avoided completely?
Would networks care? I don't mind being banned from Craigslist, but a network is a different matter.

Also, what other ways could I drive free traffic? I know the obvious ones, like articles, SEO, etc, but none of that has worked well for me.

 

[xRAVExHEAVENx]

I used to post a LOT on craigslist and got very successful with it for a little while.
One of the ways I ran it was to post an ad about a laptop or something... Then set up an auto-responder that said that someone was on their way to pick it up but you got it from a email submit free laptop ad.
Before they started charging for jobs, I used to link BizOps on there with kind of a "click here if you are interested" thing going on.
I know Motive really doesn't care about posting on CL. Talk to Chris there.
Good luck!

 

[Despoil]

Made a page about random junk for free. Listed a bunch of misc items like shoes, video games, women crap, and included "incredible diet pills, have an entire bottle left but already reached my target weight!"

When people emailed me I hit them with a pasted couple of sentences that said "Sorry we're all out of everything but if you're after those pills like everyone else is heres a link to the free trial: (acai berry link)" People that actually emailed me about the pills had a conversion rate of 100% others were about 20%. My post only stayed live for about 4 hours before it was flagged and deleted.

oh topix - the forums for citys have VERY little moderation but a lot of traffic so you can get away with a lot there. Got some conversions just from posting my acai berry flog on there with no other text on the thread.