21 Nov 2023
Storage operators are starting to feel the pressure.
The industry grew quickly in 2021 and 2022 - this encouraged new investment, new facilities, and new competition. We saw enough demand that operators could go on autopilot and still fill their self storage facilities.
Now that the market is slowing down, there’s not enough demand for everyone to do well. The REITs are consolidating and snapping up facilities across the country.
How can an independent operator (or even a mid-size storage company) compete with those giants?
Talking with Tommy Nguyen of StoragePug, one of the best ways to keep up with the biggest players is by getting back to your marketing fundamentals.
In short, you need:
The very first building block for any self storage marketing campaign is the facility itself. What product are you offering, and is it better than what the competition can offer?
You may be going up against a brand new 5-story REIT property that’s backed by a million- dollar budget - but small storage facilities can still compete.
Obviously, you can’t just build a premium storage facility just to help your marketing - but what you can do is make sure that what you have is in good shape and it looks good!
There’s a market for simple, affordable storage units. Depending on your area, there may be a huge amount of demand for those! However, there’s not much demand for dingy, dirty, dented storage units.
Photography lets you prove to your prospective customers that your facility is the former rather than the latter.
So, what makes for good photography? You don’t need to hire a professional to portray your facility well (though a pro’s advice could certainly help). Take your photos on a bright, sunny day, and take a lot of them so you can choose the best ones.
First, prep your facility for its photo shoot. That means:
Your facility doesn’t need to look fancy, high-tech, or brand new - but it should definitely look like someone cares about it.
Good, clean photographs should go on every bit of your marketing. Fliers, billboards, signs, sponsorship plugs, everything. And your best photographs should definitely go on your website.
StorageMart invests over one million dollars a year on its website alone. There aren’t many storage operators outside of the REITs that can compete with that sort of budget.
But you don’t have to. Your Google Business Profile does the work for you.
Self storage is a hyperlocal business. Think of restaurants - you might drive across town to go to a particularly intriguing restaurant. They need to market to the people 20, maybe 30 miles away from them.
No one does that for a storage unit. Partially, this is because there are lots of us all over the place, and partially, it’s because the average renter doesn’t know much about storage, so all facilities are the same to them.
According to the 2023 SSA Demand Study, proximity is the most important factor when a customer chooses which facility to rent from. And when someone uses Google to find a local service, like self-storage, Google will give them results that are nearby, relevant, and high- quality.
Google uses your Google Business Profile to determine if you fit that criteria.
If your GBP isn’t perfect, that should be the absolute first thing you do for your marketing. Be sure that yours has:
Reviews are the hardest factor to improve, but they’re also incredibly valuable. Reviews are social proof that your business can be trusted, and they count both for people looking to rent and for search engines looking to serve up the best business to searchers.
Your Google Business Profile will provide you with more clicks than your organic ranking in almost every circumstance. Plus, the traffic that comes from your GBP is people looking to rent a storage unit. Your website just needs to convert them into customers.
To do that, you need a website that feels good and looks good. Your website should be well- designed and should offer the same amenities that the industry leaders have, including:
Of course, those good photos you took before are part of making your website look good and feel good, too!
If someone is trying to shop online, you need to let them shop online. Think about the successful online shopping businesses - Amazon, eBay, Wayfair, and the brick-and-mortar stores that have joined them, Walmart, Target, Home Depot, etc.
They want the shopping experience to be as quick and as easy as possible. Billions of dollars and thousands of employees are directed toward building websites that convert shoppers into customers.
For self storage, the job is straightforward. Let them rent the unit they need fast.
Try to eliminate as many clicks as possible from the process. Every step a customer has to go through is a chance for them to change their mind, go elsewhere, or be interrupted.
The rest of your website should function to build the trust of these shoppers. As above, that means good photos, but it also means a professional website. People don’t want to give credit card numbers to sites that don’t look secure.
Many operators may already have these bases covered - and if you don’t, you need to get started! But even if you’ve touched up your GBP recently, and even if every photo of your facility is clean and bright, it’s still vital to focus on these basic aspects of your facility.
Remember, for every customer that comes your way, you’re making a new first impression. Chipped paint, stray weeds, or a slow website can permanently turn a customer off your business.
Once you have a strong foundation to build from, you can start to embellish the details and improve your conversion rate, offer special discounts, focus on rate management, and all the other tactics that help a storage business thrive.
Your business is built on the fundamentals; the path a customer takes from deciding they need a bit of extra space until they move out of your storage unit months or years after. If that path is clean, clear, and well-kept, customers will use it.
David Austin is SEO Content Manager for StoragePug, a self storage website design company working out of Knoxville, TN. David worked for StoragePug for two years as an SEO specialist and content writer. He's dedicated to helping small self storage operators compete with the big players in the industry. To reach out to David, email him at david@storagepug.com.
