Increasing Occupancy At Your Self Storage Facility Through
Effective Marketing
Copyright 2006 Derek Naylor
There are only 3 ways to grow any business - including your
self-storage business.
1. Acquire New Customers (Increase Occupancy) 2. Increase The
Value Of Each Customer 3. Lower Operating Expenses/Increase
Margins
If 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
Customers
Although 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.