Make the most of your Craig’s Lists Postings

1. Ensure you register and post ads from your registered account. Registered listings get 40% more views then anonymous postings.  If you have a product that would work in multiple markets, register for each of those markets

NOTE: How to search Craigslist multiple cities and categories:
Use Google’s advanced search feature.

a. To Search the whole craigslist for a specific keyword: keyword site:craigslist.org

b. To search some specific cities: keyword site:sfbay.craigslist.org

2. Start your Craig’s List classified posting at http://www.zeringo.com. Register for an account at Zeringo and click on Classifieds. Write your ad and use the copy feature to post it to your Craig’s List Accounts

3. Different Ad Descriptions: You need to change the ad description each time to avoid “similar posting” error and staff deletion (popularly known as “ghosting”). Use image in the description or upload image during ad posting. Using an image increases response. With Zeringo, this is much easier as you can just copy your ad and post the new URL

4. In order to be easily found, ensure you choose the most obvious category. Being clever or creative when choosing the category will just make the post harder to find.

5.  Pictures add a lot of value. Zeringo allows you to easily add multiple images to your posting

6. When your product sells you will really be thankful that you used Zeringo for the posting. No longer will you continue to receive calls and inquiries after the sale. Zeringo will automatically mark the product sold so anyone who comes across your posting will quickly and easily see you accomplished your goal of selling your product

Happy Selling and Best of Luck. Don’t forget to share your story with Zeringo.com we like to share the good news

How Many Hats do you Wear in a Week?

My answer this week is 3. I had the end of school year 6th grade party, where I had to send an email to all the six grade parents to bring in snacks and drinks. I had the swim team family registration, for that I had to send out an email to all the potential swim team families and let them know about registration day at the pool.  To top off the week, my son decided to sell his iPod touch, because now he wants the iPod touch generation 2; and he needed to raise the money himself. Okay, so I probably have overwhelmed you already, but if you are still with me, let me tell you the secret to my success….. it’s one word Zeringo

Zeringo allowed me to set up separate profiles, for my role as room mom, homeowner’s association and the role of mom as a Craig’s List extraordinaire.  Each of the profile’s already contained the members for each group.

For the snack and drinks for 6th grade, I created an e-letter to solicit help and donations from the parents. I was able to know who was bringing what in real-time. The parents were able to see what was still needed again in real time. To top it off, those parents who could not help were able send an online donation directly from the e-letter.

For the swim team registration, I was able to easily send an online invitation using my swim team profile. That may not seem like a big deal to you, but let me give you more information. There was a thunderstorm the day of registration. In the past the change of weather would have resulted in many calls and emails. Not this time, I was able to quickly and easily update the event on line to depict the plan due to the thunderstorm. Not only did everyone have the information they needed real-time; some families used the conversation feature and set up carpools to the registration.

For the last event, my tech savvy son who must have the latest and greatest, I was able to develop a classified in Zeringo. I developed the ad once and then posted it to my Facebook and Twitter. I was also able to easily post it to Craig’s List. Now my favorite part, when we sold it the Craig’s List posting was automatically updated as sold. I was able to avoid the headache of emails coming for days after I sold the product

Zeringo is the key to driving success in your business and online worlds.

How do I import my Gmail or Yahoo mail contacts into SmartBook?

We know – you have lots of friends, lots of relatives, and lots of contacts. Even if this is not true of you and no matter how few contacts you have, entering each contact one by one into any address book can be a slow and painful process. You had to do it for Outlook, then for MSN, then for Yahoo… the list goes on. You are probably tired already, anticipating doing this just one more time. Luckily, Zeringo does not force you to do this. Instead, Zeringo allows you to import your Yahoo and Gmail contacts directly from the source! To start, surf to the SmartBook tab and click on the “Import” link. Pick either the Yahoo or Gmail graphics and choose to import all contacts or just contacts that you select. If you want to invite your imports, be sure to check the box under the “Invite imported contacts to join Zeringo”. Modify the message if you like and click the Import button. Once you click the import button, the message goes out and your imports come in. Your contacts are now imported, and you should consider eventually removing your duplicates, which hopefully will be the subject of a different post!

How do I import MSN contacts into SmartBook?

Importing contacts is an onerous task that nobody relishes. Fortunately for you, Zeringo makes this easy. To import your MSN contacts, export your existing contacts and save the file on your computer. Next, inside Zeringo, surf to the SmartBook tab and click on the “Import” link. Select the type of file (Windows Live Hotmail or Microsoft Outlook) to be imported. Your choice should reflect the file type that you previously saved. Next, choose to import all contacts or just contacts that you select. If you want to invite the people that you are importing into Zeringo then be sure to check the box under “Invite imported contacts to join Zeringo”. If you are inviting, choose one of your addresses from the drop down menu and modify the outgoing message if you want. Once the Import button gets pressed, your imports will be imported. At some point, please consider eliminating your duplicates – there are bound to be some!

How do I link my Zeringo classified to Craigslist?

So, you need to link to your ad in Zeringo to enable online payments and wonder how to do it. Well, it is not too different from posting any other kind of ad on Craigslist. You will need an account on Craigslist (of course) and you will need to post an ad. Inside this ad, you will paste your Zeringo ad. When an ad is created on Zeringo, a preview page contains a link called “Copy to Clipboard”. Clicking this will present a popup window that contains the HTML fit for copying. Follow the instruction on the popup window to copy the information. Paste the information into your Craigslist ad and save it. Congratulations! You just linked your ad in Zeringo to Craigslist.

Collecting money for a fundraiser using an event page

Have you ever tried to arrange an event such as a family reunion? It is just a little bit easier than herding cats, isn’t it? There are so many little details to take care of. For instance, the location must be arranged, the attendees notified, the menus planned, since sometimes our relatives are on restricted diets… then we also need to handle cancellations. What if there was a way to track all of these details? There is – Zeringo. You can create many types of events, invite attendees, set a fee or ticket price, and collect the entrance fee. You can communicate with all of the attendees at once to cancel the event or let them know of changes to the plan, or you can communicate with individual attendees to answer questions. How can you do all these things? Simply surf to the Event tab and create a new event. Fill in as many details as you can to include the event name, location, time, and entrance fee, and be sure to indicate if you will accept online payments. You may also create reminders for yourself at this time. Save the event. Then forward the event to the people that you would like to participate. Once they accept your invitation, you will be able to accept their payments and communicate with them, one on one or all at once.

Zeringo Event Reminders

Setting up a reminder for an event is easy! Here is how to do it: create an event by adding a title, description, time, and payment information (if any). Next, at the bottom of the page, there is a space for adding a reminder. Add the date, time, and a message to be emailed to you when the time comes. Save the event and you are done! This is the standard procedure for creating a new event. Now, suppose that you created and saved the event but forgot to add a reminder? Well, it is not too late – you can still add a reminder. Simply click on the “View My Events” link, and then click the “Edit” link. You will be placed back on an event editor page that will allow you to add reminders and make any other changes you need to make.

Field security and your profile fields

So, you don’t want everybody to be able to read your personal information. Good -  we have a solution for you! Here is what to do to protect your personal information. First, surf to the Profile tab and click on the “Field Security” link.  This page sets your group security and you will see the My Contacts, Private and Public groups. Whenever you create or import any contacts by default they will be in the My Contacts and Public groups. You may move them to the Private group or create your own groups and move them there. The neat thing is the ability to determine, field by field, what fields go with which group. Then when you assign a member to a group, the member has the right to view the fields for that group. So if you took all fields except for first and last names out of the Public group and moved your friends into the Public group, then all that your friends would be able to see about you are your first and last name! Of course, you want them to be able to contact you, don’t you?

Selling through a Zeringo classified and getting paid for it

Here is how to get paid through Zeringo with your classified! First, create your classified using one of the many categories that Zeringo supports. You can sell practically anything through the Zeringo classified system. Pick your category and fill in the details. The details consist of the classified title, the price, the location, availability, and the type. You may add additional details such as pictures, links to external websites, and other details that will distinguish your classified. Save the classified. The difficult part is over! Now, copy the classified using the clipboard link. Surf to www.craigslist.com or any other site that supports classified advertising. Create your ad in Craigslist and paste your ad in the details section. People will find your ad in Craigslist and be able to follow the embedded link to your ad in Zeringo where you will be able to sell your product, either by using a credit card or in person. Using Zeringo you can hide your location until you are ready to reveal it and you can also verify that the buyers that contact you are really coming from where they say they are coming from. Zeringo allows buyers and sellers to exchange messages and converse with each other without the clutter of email. This feature allows the two parties to arrange one or more meetings to close the deal.

How-To: Share a business contact with a friend

Your friend calls you with an urgent problem. Bedbugs invaded their home and they need your sage advice in hiring a competent and inexpensive exterminator. What do you do? Well, since you are the expert problem solver that you are (otherwise your friend would have called somebody else, right?) you turn to Zeringo where you have diligently stored your favorite business contacts. You open up your SmartBook, sort the entries by “Business/Organization/Group” and click the “Forward” hyperlink next to your favorite exterminator. Zeringo pops up a window from which you select the email address of your friend. Next, you click the “Send” button. Your friend receives the contact information, and you can take a well-deserved break, knowing that you have performed your good deed for the day. If your friend is also a member of Zeringo, he will see your forwarded contact filed under “Received Contacts” in his SmartBook.