Increasing Occupancy At Your Self Storage Facility Through Effective Marketing

1. Acquire New Customers (Increase Occupancy)

2. Increase The Value Of Each Customer

3. Lower Operating Expenses/Increase MarginsIf you think about it for a few minutes, you’ll quickly realize that everything you’ve done to increase profits has fallen under one of those 3 categories.

If you find yourself engaged in a discussion about ideas that don’t fall into these areas, you’re in a danger zone and need to back up and make sure you start with this foundation prior to continuing.

I’ve seen millions of dollars wasted on ideas that fall outside of these 3 areas and I would be doing you a disservice by not cautioning you on the danger of even exploring the ideas if they don’t fit snuggly into these categories.

So, let's get started with point number one: Acquiring New CustomersAlthough there are other ways to increase the profitability of your storage facility, increasing occupancy is the most obvious and talked about method.

However, since there are so many ways to acquire a new customer, there is a lot of confusion and therefore a lot of money wasted in this business on bad marketing and sales tactics.

Before we get into the tactics of actually acquiring new customers, we need to take a holistic view of what is actually happening in your marketplace when a prospective customer needs storage and begins the hunt for a facility to store their belongings.

In order to create powerful marketing strategies we need to first see the world through your prospects eyes, in an effort to understand their motive in deciding to use storage in the first place. Then to understand their motive in choosing whatever facility they do. You’ve likely heard the maxim: “If you want to know why John Smith buys what John Smith buys you’ve got to see the world through John Smith’s eyes”.

As a marketer, that is one of the most valuable, underused maxims of all time.

See, marketing has many definitions. But ultimately it all boils down to MOTIVATING somebody to use your product/service to satisfy their need or want. But, in order to motivate, we must understand motive.

We uncover motive by – now this is real rocket science here so brace yourself – asking your customers and prospects what their motive is!Imagine that!Now, this must be done correctly since we know that a person’s first, surface level answer is usually not the complete and real answer but it really boils down to asking them why…Why, after all of these years of a cluttered closet or garage, did you finally decide to use self storage?Why, Businessman, did you finally decide to use self-storage to expand your distribution reach?Why, of all the choices in town, did you choose us?Why, why why?After asking the right questions, the right way, enough times, you’re able to start drawing some good conclusions. But we’re not finished…After we know what their motive is, we still need more invaluable information from these ever important people. After all, my opinion, your opinion and your marketing department’s opinion doesn’t matter one bit!Know why? Because we’re not the one paying the money for the space. We’re not the one that pays the bills…your customer is! Getting in their head is absolutely critical and one of the most valuable things you could spend your time doing.

But uncovering their motive only tells us what motivated them to use self-storage and maybe why they chose you over the competition; we’re out to win a lion’s share of the market -aren’t we? So, we need to learn their frustrations, ultimate desires and non-motivators so we can learn what INNOVATIONS to implement to motivate them to choose us, over our competition.

In short, we need to find out what their buying motive is and how to get them to give us their money instead of giving it to your competition. That knowledge is most important!The process we just described is a part of Storage Marketing Solutions “Discovery Process”. To date, we’ve done thousands of surveys across the country and already have great insight into your customers and prospective customer’s minds. But, since each competitive environment is slightly different, we always conduct new surveys for new clients to ensure the data is similar to maximize the return on their marketing investment.

In addition to uncovering buying motives, we do competitive analysis by shopping your competitors and conducting in depth staff surveys to gather further perspective.

After this is complete – we now can create the right strategy and begin developing the message and tactics that we will deploy this powerful message with.

Before pro sports teams prepare for their next game, what do they spend time doing? That’s right, reviewing game film of their toughest opponent actually playing. They do this so they can watch the play patterns, defense style and coaching moves of their competition. This helps them prepare and practice for their specific opponent. The same holds true for a court case. Before a case ever goes before the judge or jury, both attorneys do as much as they can during a discovery phase to create their case/game strategy.

Why should marketing strategy be any different? It shouldn’t! Most “marketers” don’t think twice about strategy. Rather, they’re artists. They create stuff that looks good and might get a laugh out of somebody without ever considering a solid strategy…They do this without ever considering what to say, how to say it and who to say it to in order to motivate the prospect to pick up the phone, call you and choose you to store their belongings.

After innovations have been made to make you the obvious choice to store their belongings with, it’s time to talk about delivering this powerful message we’ve just created.

This is done through advertising mediums. This includes Television, Radio, Direct Mail, Yellow Pages, Billboards, etc.

Rather than go into each medium, I’ll get straight to the point on this…For most facilities, spending advertising dollars on anything but Yellow Pages, Internet and Direct Mail is a giant waste of your money. Convenience and location are by far the biggest decision factors in the self-storage business. People want their belongings close and within easy access! This is why most of your customers live so close to the site they store at.

So, advertising to somebody 20 miles away by using mediums like radio, TV and sometimes even Yellow Pages is absolutely pointless. Why would you make somebody an offer who won’t accept it even if they wanted to?Rather you should focus on the closest 30,000-60,000 households to each of your facilities. They are close, you are convenient and you can inexpensively deliver them a message that motivates them to use you. To fully occupy each facility, you probably only need 1%-5% of that universe to become a customer.

All of your marketing tactics should focus on those who live and/or work by your facility. Period!Now, before you say something along the line of: “Direct mail doesn’t work” or, “I trash every piece of direct mail that comes my way”, consider this: according to the Direct Marketing Association, “Direct Mail is still the most efficient and effective way to advertise.

”If you’ve tried direct mail in the past, and it didn’t work, don’t challenge direct mail. What you need to do is challenge the way you did the direct mail. Almost every client we have has moved very cautiously towards making a small test investment in direct mail only to be proved wrong. Remember, most people WILL trash your piece…that’s fine. All we typically need is a measly 1%-5% to respond and we’re in the money…I hope you've found this article helpful, insightful or at the bare minimum, a reinforcement of your existing beliefs.