How to Promote a Self-Storage Company
Promoting a self-storage company can be tough. It's a highly competitive industry which relies as much upon ongoing and repeat business as it does on new customers.
This can lead many self-storage owners to focus solely on their storage facility, from investing in improvements to optimising day-to-day operations. Coming up with marketing ideas can easily slip down the priority list.
But marketing strategies are important. Word of mouth will never be enough to keep your storage units full, and you have to keep those new customers coming in.
In this post, we'll look at 7 important storage marketing techniques to help you bring in more customers, fill more units and see more profit for your self-storage facility.
Top tips for marketing your storage facility: keep it local
Before we get into the nuts and bolts of self-storage marketing ideas, here's one tip that applies whatever marketing approach you take. This tip is to locally target your marketing.
Self-storage is a matter of necessity and convenience. When using a self-storage facility, most customers have to visit their storage unit a number of times. This means they'll want self-storage facilities that are nearby.
In fact research from the Self Storage Association confirms that in 2021 75% of self-storage users travelled less than 20mins to access their storage unit.
This makes local targeting the most effective marketing strategy that self-storage businesses can follow.
For more information on the importance of targeting audiences in your local area, read through our guide on local targeting.
7 ways to market a self-storage business effectively
- SEO
Search engine optimisation (or SEO) is all about improving your website so that search engines like Google view it more favourably and make it appear higher on their search results pages.
These improvements can range from web design and development factors, like making your website responsive, quick to load and easy for search engines to index through to the written content you have on the site.
Off-site SEO is also important, though harder to control. This involves making sure that reliable, relevant websites are linking back to you - this signals to search engines that your site is also reliable and useful for their users.
For the self-storage industry, local SEO in particular can deliver excellent results. This will help ensure you show up on 'near me' searches, catching that all-important local audience.
The many mechanics of SEO are too intricate to explain in this quick guide, but there is plenty of online help out there (as well as digital marketing agencies) that can help you learn more.
- Pay Per Click Ads
SEO is a great way to increase organic traffic to your self-storage website and will deliver strong long-term results. But it rarely rewards you with quick wins.
If you want digital marketing ideas that can deliver an almost-instant increase in traffic to your website, then Pay Per Click ads (PPC) are a great alternative. With PPC you do have to pay for this visibility increase but you will be seen whenever people search for your chosen search terms.
Building any marketing strategy around PPC will always cost more than an organic campaign like SEO. Unfortunately, the moment you stop paying, all the benefits to your storage marketing will also be lost.
Still, if it's done correctly it will deliver guaranteed results making it a great option for a self-storage business in need of short-term gains. You can also limit your PPC cost using local targeting to limit the geographic area of your ads.
- Social Media Marketing
The key to a successful social media marketing strategy is talking specifically to your target audience.
Think about who your potential customers are. What age are they? What is their income bracket? What other services might they need? You need to create social media content that speaks to them, and shows them why your self-storage business is better suited to them than any of your competitors.
You also need to make sure you're finding them on the channels they use. Be it Facebook, YouTube, Instagram or any other social media platform, you need to make sure that you pick sites where your potential customers already are.
Although nearly every demographic these days uses social media, there are still strong generational and occupational divides across which sites people use.
Make sure your self-storage marketing is appearing on a platform where potential customers will see it.
- Direct Mail Campaigns
These days, direct mail marketing is often overlooked when it comes to storage marketing ideas. This is a shame because it can have impressive results when handled correctly.
Unlike PPC or social media marketing which can easily be missed by scrolling fingers, direct mail will definitely reach your audience. And unlike email marketing, where your message can be quickly drowned beneath a busy inbox, direct mail will be seen. People have to clear their doormat, and whether your direct mail is a postcard, pamphlet or letter, they will probably scan your headline in the process.
Of course, it can cost more than digital alternatives. You have to pay for the printing and postage of your self-storage marketing and these costs can quickly add up. And it is certainly not a channel that works for every business.
When it comes to the self-storage industry though, direct mail can definitely pay off. You just need to keep costs down and engagement high by targeting your self-storage marketing to people who need your services.
- Community Involvement
Community involvement is a fantastic way for local businesses to attract new customers. Morally, it is a brilliant thing to give back to the local community, and it is also a positive way to boost brand awareness.
It can even have a beneficial knock-on effect for other areas of your self-storage marketing too. For example, if high-profile, reputable websites post coverage of your actions you can earn valuable links that will impress search engines.
There are a number of ways self-storage owners can support their local community, including sponsorship (for local sports teams, causes or at local events) or holding charity events.
But for self-storage companies, perhaps the best way to support your community is to offer free storage services for local charities, community groups or start-ups. Speak to local organisations such as food banks or other charity drives and offer up free storage space.
This is a great way of using otherwise-empty units and will reflect well on your business. Beyond this, you will also be drawing more people into your storage facility who may go on to engage your storage space on a personal basis or recommend it to others.
- Referrals and Networking
When it comes to local targeting, referrals can be a brilliant way of finding new customers. People trust the opinions of their community and with local self-storage marketing, this can be valuable.
Offering referral incentives to existing customers can be a great way to get new customers and repeat business. You can also encourage word-of-mouth referrals via online reviews.
Another way to gain access to referrals is by partnering up with other small businesses. Partnering with estate agents and other home mover services such as a removal company is a great way to find people who are likely in the market for your storage services without having to sink a lot of time or money into seeking out your target audience.
- Target Your Marketing Using Relevant Leads
The key to effective marketing for self-storage companies is always going to be targeting relevant leads. Those leads could be relevant due to their location or due to their current circumstances. What matters is to not waste your time talking to people who have no need or interest in your storage space.
Marketing your services to the local community is one way to target your marketing. Another demographic that makes a fantastic target audience for self-storage marketing is home movers.
Whether they are looking to ease the burden of moving day or find a home for longer-term downsizing, a lot of people in the process of moving home need storage units. Marketing your self-storage facility to them is likely to lead to a much higher uptake percentage than it would across a much broader cross-section.
MoverAlerts are here to help with your self-storage marketing
Here at MoverAlerts we can equip you with homemover leads covering 99% of moves in the UK. Our subscription service allows for geographical targeting, so you can set the postcodes or areas your leads cover.
With our fulfilment service we will even create and send your direct mail marketing or home movers service locally, contact us today.