How To Advertise Garage Sale

If your planning a garage sale, one of the most important things you need to know to get the most foot traffic is how to advertise a garage sale.You can put a hundred items on the tables, offer soda, have great prices, and be the most organized garage sale of the summer. But, if you don't know how to advertise a garage sale, nobody will come. 

To get people to come you need to do a bit more then just make a few signs and put them at the end of your street. You want people from everywhere in your town and local area to be able to find you. So give them the opportunity too!

Call up at least 2 of the local newspapers in your area and ask to have your garage sale listed in their garage sale listings. People really do cut these out and use them to plan their weekend of garage sale shopping. It's important to include the following in your listing.

• Your address
• The date and time your garage sale will be open
• A describing word that tells the garage sale shopper there will be plenty to find at your garage sale. Big and Huge are common but I've found great success using the words multi-family. So long as someone outside your home has items in your garage sale, it is multi-family. Using this describing word tells shoppers their will be a good variety of items available.

Everyone knows to place signs near your home to advertise garage sales, but many people miss how many signs and where to put them. It's reccommended to have at least 6 garage sale signs. Have 2 facing opposite directions just before the street you live on, and have 4 placed and all the closest major intersections.

In addition, if you can place more, post them up at near by busy intersections that get alot of traffic. Even if its not very close to your house, as long as you have your address and the name of your neighborhood, the odds are it will get some shoppers.

Your Garage Sale Signs Should Say

• Your address
• The date and time your garage sale is open

Those are the required and its important that it be legible and visable from a distance. If you live in a major neighborhood or near one, try to get that on the sign to help give drivers an idea of which way to head. 

In main cities and suburbs, Craigslist can bring so much foot traffic, you won't even need to advertise anywhere else if you do it right. Here's what you do.

1. If available, post your garage sale on your neighborhood community websites and message boards at least one day in advance.
   
2. The morning before your garage sale. Make a listing to advertise garage sale on craigslist in the garage sale section. Make your headline say that our big, huge, or multi-family garage sale will start tommorow. This will attract early birds who pre plan their garage sale weekend. Put your ours of operation 1 hour later then you really plan to open. This will keep the early birds from planning a stop at your garage sale while you are still setting up. In the body of the post put your address and your neighborhood name, or the name of one near by. Anything that will help the garage sale shopper find you better. Include a picture of a garage sale sign or of anything. Posts with pictures get opened more often.
   
3. The morning of the garage sale, immideatly after your have set everything up. Take a picture of your garage sale. Make a new craigslist posting and include this picture of your garage sale. This will give buyers a chance to see that you really have a lot of stuff to offer and that your garage sale is worth driving to. Include the correct hours open and the address along with anything big or the types of items available. You want it posted first thing in the morning because many times people only look at the first page of results, sometimes but rarely the second. They want to see whats going on this weekend, and not get old results.