What are your marketing ideas?

AdvantageStorageR

I have been pushing marketing a lot lately but I am running out of ideas. What do you all do for marketing your location?

sanzel

What avenues have you used for marketing?  I do the basic networking with movers, apartments, realtors, etc.  I also hosted a charity event at the facility that turned out quite well for the charity and over time, brought in several rentals for us.  This particular property had poor visibility, so the event brought people out to the facility and allowed us to show case our property. 

Climateguard

I try to hit up any location that has a lot of foot traffic like your local Cleaners, Laundry Mats, college bulletin boards, your local Chamber of Commerce office, Home Builders Associations, as well as moving companies, apartment managers, insurance groups, and realty groups. Its great to set up a referral program where you reward those who actively give out your materials with a gift card or $50 check. Helping those who help you.

Amelina

Here in Galveston were located on the Historical Strand so lots of locally owned shops and restaurants utilize our storage facility as well as the college, hospital and Coast Guard. So flyers in all the shops, my manager makes it fun by walking the strand and meeting people and employees and offering the best customer service because word of mouth can go over well in places like ours where we see the same people on a daily. We also offer $25 off your next month rental if you refer a friend.

Storage4Less

Hey I'm interested in the charity event, how did you go about doing that? what kind of charity? sounds like a good idea!

AzStorage

A Couple Ideas I've used:  I send out referral coupons to people on their birthdays and when they move in.   We have a newsletter that goes out once a month with specials (See attached)  .  I also go to local Real Estate offices and put a plastic (99 cent store) bowl with candy  in there sitting area with business cards and brochures.  You can Check the progress by stopping by to refill the candy.  Also.... Referral bucks are fun too.

sanzel

The charity event was a huge yard sale, but before you groan, let me explain. We partnered with a charity that was willing to work to raise funds for their cause.  All we did was provide the venue.

Here's how it worked:

•  We donated a 10x10 to the charity several months before the event. 
• The charity began collecting items for the yard sale and we began offering to let customers leave unwanted, sellable items when they vacated (stuff they were going to give to charity anyway or otherwise dispose of).  The customer just needed to take the items to the charity unit and the charity provided a tax receipt.
• We would slowly add on additional free units to the charity as they needed them.
• A couple weeks before the event, we would open up several other units to the charity.
• The charity would price the items and then stage each unit, one would be a baby's room,  one would be a kitchen, an entertainment room, etc. By the time it was done, the charity would have 10 to 12 units staged and priced with good quality, sellable items.
• Any items that were left after the event were consolidated into one or two units and sold at auction, and of course, the money was give to the charity.

The event was held inside a climate control building that was clean and sparkly.  People attending often commented they had no idea a storage facility would be so nice. Or, they had no idea there was a storage facility at that location.  Everyone was impressed, everyone had fun.  We did this for 4 years until we no longer had the space to accommodate the event.  We raised a lot of money for  the charity and consumer awareness for us.  Over time, we received several rentals from people who had attended the events.

I should mention, current customers were not allowed to participate.  They could not just open up their units and sell their property.  If they wanted to donate something to the charity for the charity to sell, that was fine, but they could not use the charity event to personally benefit.

We also invited the local police and fire departments.  The fire department brought out a truck and police addressed different issues with children and teenagers.

All and all, it was a fun thing to do and every one benefited from it.

Sue_C

Great idea sanzel! Thanks for explaining how you set up the event and how it all worked out. Nice!
If anyone else has held an "event" feel free to chime in with your story...

DerekBrett

this summer we are hosting out 6th annual charity dog wash and auction. the local animal shelter brings in their new recruits to train them in proper dog washing and we have an auction for their benefit. we also bbq. everything is free, we ask for donations though.

we also have a customer appreciation dinner every December. Free food and door prizes for our valued tenants.

Sue_C

@DerekBrett, that's a great idea! After your event, we'd love to see some pictures.
 Thanks for posting

Orkocean

Events, business marketing are always good. But something I've always tried to embed into my managers was the fact that just because they are "off the clock" does not mean they should stop "working". Now what I mean is they should always be open to networking and have cards on them. I'm a bowler and when I'm settled in somewhere regular and get to know the people in the area everyone I get to know will know where I work. Before I started traveling for this industry and moving around the country my original town I had typically 1-2 rentals a week just from the people at the bowling alley that I talked with in my down time enjoying a hobby.

sanzel

 Same here, Ork.  I've picked up a few customers at the bowling alley myself.  This is an easy business to talk about.  Once you mention self storage, people a generally curious.  Thanks, Storage Wars, for making our business a good conversation topic. 

holly_fiorello

I have spent the first half of this year really working on Facebook advertising. There are sooo many options to target within your neighborhood. We spend $25/week to boost a post here and there and get thousands of views. There's a little bit of a learning curve, but it's been paying off. 

Orkocean

How big of a town are you operating in Holly and how many rentals coming in do you truly attribute to the $$ spent on facebook? My past and current companies never spent $$ on facebook, i'm curious how well it's working for you. My past company wouldn't even allow the sites to have their own facebook page, only the company itself which was never really updated, lots of missed opportunity's imo.

Currently we'll spend $100's on a couple events a month, which are nice attention getting times for the site but out of all of them I can only account 1 rental from any of it which was the ribbon cutting and that was because of a email blast the chamber of commerce sent out afterwards, not from the event itself.

ThriftyStorage

Google, Bing, and maybe Chamber of Commerce...will be meaningful. I have managed this property for three years, and all of the customers will say Google, referral, or  Drive-By.

Sue_C

Orkocean said:

Currently we'll spend $100's on a couple events a month, which are nice attention getting times for the site but out of all of them I can only account 1 rental from any of it which was the ribbon cutting and that was because of a email blast the chamber of commerce sent out afterwards, not from the event itself.

Email marketing still has its place, some stats say it works better than ever because of mobile devices. 
Not what I expected!

Anyone have success with emails?

Orkocean

We used to do "We want you back" email. Simple flyer with a few key features and a special listed on them. We'd do it monthly and for the few moments it takes to send them we'd get maybe 1-2 a month at least via it.

LADY_DOES_A_LOT

Most of our customers live here in town. My favorite marketing idea is in photo's below. I get to decorate for all holidays. People brings there children to take photo's. I find most of my decorations at garage sales, tenants give me items. It may take a few minutes to load.

khise

I do the usual...flyers, brochures, etc at local businesses, network with realtors, moving companies, etc. But the majority of my focus is on making our website visible and mobile friendly. We have a fantastic app on our website that allows a customer to rent online and takes them through the entire process, even including the renter's insurance, photo ID, assigned gate code, etc. They sign the lease online and are emailed a copy. So in order to take full advantage of this app, our website has to be "out there," for people to find. Search Engine Optimization is too important to leave to chance, especially now that people tend to "live" online via their mobile devices. Fresh content on your website is a necessity as is having content that is useful. Search engine algorithms look for that content and whether it is pertinent to your site. 

I'm now currently playing around with facebook post boosts, trying to get more likes to the page itself which I hope will eventually translate into leases but so far, I've not seen results. What does everyone else do with their facebook page to garner likes? Do you keep your posts strictly storage related? Or have you tried posts that are complimentary to storage? For instance, I've done posts that are related to upcoming holidays, decorating tips, organization tips, etc.