Own A Self Storage Business? Here’s How to Market It
We often have more stuff in the house than we can manage in a limited space. So, people struggle to find the right place to keep their belongings. Some people opt for adding countless shelves and cupboards in their house. But what is the best way to manage your belongings and ensure their safety without cluttering the house? A self-storage unit! A self-storage unit offers space in a well-guarded facility to keep your extra stuff. The facilities often have weather-controlled units to keep things that are often impacted by weather and humidity changes.
As more people prefer smaller homes due to rising house rents, the self-storage businesses are experiencing a boom in their demand. However, with more demand comes more competition. So, it has become unavoidable for facility owners to effectively spread the word about their business and make it stand out among others. The best way is to implement creative marketing campaigns and properly use all marketing channels. Most owners lack proper marketing because they don’t consider the potential of marketing activities to create a visible change. Hence, they focus more on investing in daily business activities. In the end, they fail to create a pipeline of potential customers to boost their revenue in the future. If you own a self-storage business, here are some brilliant self storage marketing ideas to make your business more visible.
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Have A Website Presence
People spend more time getting information from the web and shopping from online stores than going to brick-and-mortar shops. This might be due to lifestyle changes or the convenience of online shopping. Either way, it has become imperative for all businesses to have an online presence that details all their services. Similar is the case for a self storage business targeting people who love to get all the required information without any delay. Now is no longer the time when people want to pick up the phone, book their appointment with the facility manager or come to the facility to fill all the tedious papers just to rent a unit. Therefore, make it easier for people to benefit from your business by making it easy to rent online.
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Make Your Website More User Friendly
The storage business websites get more than 200 million Google searches in a year. A customer may come to the website to rent a unit, pay the bills, or simply look for information. Hence, how your website looks to the user plays an important role in turning them into a customer. All the information must be easy to understand and readily available to the customers. Another aspect of your website is the time to load all its features. The ideal website load time is two to five seconds; beyond that, there are high chances that the visitor will abandon your page. In fact, 40% of the pooled internet users have reported leaving a website that does not load within 3 seconds.
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Work On The SEO Of Your Website
There is no point in developing an attractive and user-friendly website to drive your rental business if people can’t find your website upon searching online. What makes your website visible in the search results is your website’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO). You need to carry out on-page and off-page SEO to attract traffic to your company’s website. For the proper visibility of your website, make sure to write the Name, Address, and Phone Number of your business accurately.
On-page SEO is done by adding keywords and searchable phrases in your website content and tags to the pages. Off-page SEO is ensured by improving your listings across the web. It is based on how many other websites lead people back to your website. This was the original algorithm of Google. Though it has become more complicated today, the idea is still the same. One of the best SEO strategies is to make your website content more localized by adding the name of your city and area along with searchable keywords.
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Invest In Referral Marketing
Word-of-mouth marketing has always been an important and effective marketing strategy for businesses. When it comes to trusting a storage facility with their belongings, people often believe the word and experiences of others. Therefore, referral marketing is an excellent idea to boost the presence of your self-storage facility in the eyes of the public. You can think about sending promotional referral marketing letters to your current customers, and they can earn a discount if someone uses your facility with their reference. However, make sure to develop your incentives and discount deals carefully. You may want to attract new customers, but you cannot do so at the expense of your business.
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Collaborate With The Community Groups
Another marketing strategy is collaborating with local community groups such as the local chamber of commerce. This can help you access local mailing lists, which can be used to distribute marketing material through emails. Through these promotional marketing materials composed of deals and discounts, there is a high chance that you can attract new customers and bind the existing ones. Collaborating with community groups also involves sponsoring local events such as charities and fundraisers to attract new customers. The more present you are in the community events, the more limelight you can get. Moreover, such events often lead to free coverage in the local newspaper.
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Put Some “Old School” Ideas To Use
There are undeniable perks of an online business presence, but some old-school ideas never go out of style. One of them is distributing printed marketing material such as flyers and business cards in your locality. You can spend a weekend dropping the flyers and your business card at doorsteps in your locality. Make sure not to miss the small houses because they specifically struggle with managing their stuff in a small space.
More people today are opting for self-storage to keep their extra stuff. The demand for these units is also driving more competition in the market. The only way to stay ahead of this race is to implement innovative marketing strategies. With effective marketing, you can help your business stand out in the crowd.