Businesses are growing and so is the demand for self-storage facilities. But the choices that businesses have for self-storage facilities are also growing due to competition in this sector. This is resulting in many self-storage business owners reducing their price for getting orders which is, in turn, decreasing the profit margins. To bypass the competition and to continue growing your self-storage business, what you need is a solid promotion strategy. This post about self-storage marketing ideas can provide you with some of the best ideas that you can adopt to remain booked every time. To get business benefits, start working on the ideas given below:
1) Boost Revenues from Your Website
If you too are among those business owners who are just satisfied with having a website, then you are missing out on many business opportunities. Very small factors, if taken care of, on your self-storage website can make a big difference in the number of visitors your website is converting to customers. To make a greater number of your site visitors call/contact you for renting out your storage space, take note of these factors and execute them if they are missing from your website.
a) More site visitors will book your facility if you provide a direct booking option through the website interface. So have a booking widget on your website along with providing the storage quarter details like room size, photos, etc.
b) No text content can match the quality of explanation made through a video. So get a video with all your best features explained and placed on the main page of your self-storage website.
c) To give stronger chances for your site visitors to trust you, list out the best safety features, affiliations, media mentions, testimonials, etc related to your business.
d) Two most ignored factors that cause loss of visitors for websites are slow loading time and non-compatibility with mobile devices. So make your site loading time swift along with resolution being mobile-device compatible.
e) Don’t make your site design complicated to navigate from one section to another. Check for its ease of access else any confusion can cause the visitor to shift from your website to another self-storage business.
2) Increase Your Worth with Press Releases
To separate your self-storage business from many others, getting your name mentioned by news agencies and news portals is a big achievement. Instead of hiring any expensive PR agency to do so, you can conveniently get this done if you send out a press release with the syndication network of any good press release distributor. By doing this, the content in the form of a press release will get publication across hundreds of sites along with many reputed news sites too. Such big distribution will also have ripple effects in the form of providing more backlinks and traffic to your self-storage website.
3) Be Visible for Self Storage Terms on Google
For search queries like “self-storage business in [name of location city/town]”, if your self-storage business website doesn’t appear on the first page of Google, then your business is already losing out many customers from your location to other competitors. Enabling your site to rank high to get organic Google traffic requires executing good SEO (search engine optimization) principles. For understanding and executing these SEO principles, you need to go through various tutorials and guides for the same. As a more convenient way to get good SEO implemented for your website, using an SEO agency can be worth considering.
4) Start Using and Optimizing GBP
Make a GBP (Google Business Profile) created for your self-storage business and start optimizing it with more reviews, citations, etc so that this GBP would appear in Google Local Listing and will start bringing local leads. As such local listings always display on Google’s first page, ranking in local listings brings value in form of more visitors and bookings. Optimization of the GBP page can also be outsourced to a third-party agency for professional work.
5) Get Ads Running for More Bookings
Ads placed above the fold on Google search is the prime location where you can advertise your self-storage business. By getting your ads in this place through Google Ads, you can get many hot and targeted leads for your business. The competition to be one of the first-page advertisers on Google is high and this is why it will cost you more budget. A slightly inferior alternative to Google Ads is Facebook Ads where you can get decent quality traffic at a lower budget. Whatever be the ad platform used, the success of your self-storage business ad campaign will mostly depend on how well you can set up ad campaigns. Private ad agencies or digital marketing agencies can also be hired to get a professional display of your ads on Google and Facebook.
6) Social Media Can be a Long Term Asset
Your self-storage must be known by more people locally to get a competitive advantage. One powerful way to bring local recognition is through active presence and growth of a business using social media marketing. To perform social media marketing for your self-storage business, you need to put a few months of effort into growing your social media profiles by sharing new posts, communicating with local groups, making use of hashtags, etc. Getting your social media profiles into big assets for lead generation will take some time but will give long-term returns.
7) Start Selecting and Utilizing Authority Sites
Yelp, Crunchbase and all similar directories that enjoy millions of traffic monthly due to their first page ranking on Google for thousands of keywords are hotspots for business promotion. If you start locating such directories on Google for keywords like “self-storage in [city name]”, you can easily locate at least 3-4 directories. After selecting these directories, you just have to put your business details on such directories and this simple process will get you extra leads every month.
8) Get Big Links and Orders from LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the aptest social network using which you can easily contact higher-level executives of companies and businesses functioning in your region. Once you get the privilege of high-end contacts, it will become easy to bag big clients and orders for your self-storage business. While paid features of LinkedIn provide extra benefits in terms of making contacts with new people, you can still use the free plan of LinkedIn to get started.
9) Start Getting More with More Content
Start writing content on your website for self-storage keywords that are commonly searched in Google and you will find that with every content posted on your site, your site traffic will start increasing. To get a fair idea of the kind of topics you must write about, consider examples like “low-cost self-storage in [your city/town name]”, “insured self-storage business in [your city/town name]”, etc. It is common to notice a few hundred extra visitors to your site after 3-4 months of posting content. This increase in visitors will also have a positive effect on the number of customers obtained through your website.
10) Take the Extra Leap with Videos
The more assets that start bringing you traffic, the better it is for your business. Videos posted on YouTube take very less optimization and effort to show up on Google searches. This explains why it is in your business interest to have a channel on YouTube. If you choose very low-competition keywords in your self-storage niche, ranking these videos on Google will become effortless. You can also get more reach and recognition on social media if you begin sharing your professional videos on social media. This is why having a video marketing strategy for your self-storage business can be beneficial in many ways.
11) Start Working on Email List
Emails collected through an opt-in form placed on your site are your long-term assets for growing your self-storage business. The first advantage of collecting emails on your website is that it gives you additional chances to convince those website visitors who visited your site but didn’t avail of your self-storage services for some or other reason. The second advantage is that remaining connected with customers through email marketing increases the repeat orders from your customers. The third advantage is that you can announce your new offers, and discounts to a targeted group of people during the lean season of your business and can get more occupancy. Considering all these advantages, do integrate email marketing.
12) Complement Your Business With Offline Marketing
To start the offline promotion, you can promote your self-storage business by giving ads in newspapers, sending out brochures to companies in your area, booking billboards in industrial areas near your city/town, doing one-to-one meetings with business owners, etc.
13) Get Involved with the Chamber of Commerce
The local Chamber of Commerce is a great place to get your self-storage business introduced to many business people from your region. If the Chamber of Commerce publishes a weekly or monthly newsletter, then you can advertise your self-storage business in this newsletter to get noticed by local business people.
14) Offer Writing in Local Newspapers
Reach out to the local newspapers and offer to contribute your opinion on issues like the significance of goods safety, various options available, how can people choose a good self-storage service, etc. You can write on many similar topics occasionally in local newspapers so that you can not only help people in choosing good storage but can also promote your self-storage business side by side.
15) Establish Good Partnerships
Those businesses who often get queries for self-storage related services can be the best partners who can send you new customers. The two most prominent groups of businesses that you can partner with are real estate agents and moving companies. To increase the efficacy of this partnership, you can offer good commissions for every successful lead sent by them. As the average subscription cycle per customer is long in the storage business, you can offer 1 month fee as a referral commission.
16) Be Visible in Crowded Areas
If there are industrial clusters in your region, get your billboard and banners displayed around such regions. You can also do the same process for crowded areas of your region. By displaying your business to as many local people and businesses offline, you will get many customers using this strategy.
17) Get More Customers with Easy Booking Options
Many people who are looking to book a self-storage unit want to avail convenience and for this, providing a direct online booking option for self-storage is a great start. On your website, provide the option to view all the self-storage units available along with the option to book them directly. To provide even more convenience, you can also offer directly transport their goods to your self-storage facility along with unloading them.
18) Community Involvement
Be it any local gathering or any special event, any occasion that is likely to attract a local crowd can be a great opportunity to introduce your self-storage business. Reserving a booth or becoming one of the sponsors of such events can be a good way to market your self-storage business on such occasions.
19) Earn More with Related Materials
Keep stock of all the materials that are required during the process of self-storage. These materials can be boxes, covers, tapes, etc. You can also partner with a transport business and can share the profits for loading and unloading the goods of customers. By providing these extra elements to your business, you can increase your profit margins.
20) E-Commerce and Startup Seminars
Keep a watch on all the e-commerce and startup seminars taking place in your region. Participate in them and offer your service for storing the merchandise of such businesses. As such businesses can give you more revenue due to their big inventory, you can quickly book many of your storage units by landing contracts with such businesses.
21) Adopt the Latest Security Features
One of the most crucial features that get attention from customers looking for self-storage services is security. Track down all the best features provided by your competing services and get one step ahead of them by providing the latest advancements related to safety features.
22) Build a Live Chat Support to Get More Customers
When people search for self-storage services online, they are presented with many options due to which they quickly jump from one website to another. In such a case, having a live chat option on your website can engage them due to which the chances of converting the visitors to customers will rise up.
23) Use Your Previous Customers for New Leads
Your previous customers can refer you to new clients and so establishing a continuous line of contact with them is necessary. You can use options like text, email, and cards to be in constant touch with your old customers.
24) Establish a Good Image of Your Business Online
Typing the name of a business to find its review online is becoming very common nowadays. Many people and business owners will search for the reviews of your self-storage business before dealing with you. In such a condition, if your business has negative reviews online or has no reviews at all, then there will be more chances of losing the deal. Positive reviews attract people and negative reviews repel people. So it is a good idea to ask every of your customer to take five minutes of their time in leaving a review about your self-storage business online.
Found this article on self-storage marketing ideas useful? Do let us know in the comments section.
