essential marketing - inside...
TRANSCRIPT
Essential Marketing
for the Self-Storage Manager
Presented by
Marlene Corpus, Marketing Director
21st Century Storage
Barry Finder, Director of Client Relations
SpareFoot
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Definition of Marketing
Webster’s dictionary defines marketing as “an aggregate
of functions involved in moving goods from producer to consumer.”
When that definition is applied to how storage managers market
self-storage facilities, you come up with several functions, tasks,
and behaviors that make up the essential elements of a successful
self-storage marketing plan.
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Definition of Marketing
The irony is that for all of the visibility, those companies still make up less than
20 percent of all the units that need to be rented to meet customer demand.
After many years of working in the self-storage industry and training facility
managers, I’m convinced the marketing essentials you’ll learn today can be
performed by every self-storage manager.
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Where to Begin?
There are a few things you need to focus on
before you even start thinking about marketing.
First, you need to have real data about your
business area.
It is critical that you know what the demographics are for the area
you service.
There are companies that can provide this information to you, but with a little
researching and effort on your part, you’ll be able to collect enough information
to begin marketing your facility to the right groups of people and businesses in
a short time.
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Identifying Your Target Audience
and Buyer Personas
In years past, the best way to market
a self-storage facility was to put an ad
in the phone directory and wait for phone
calls. Today, that approach hardly ever
works. You need to be where your
customers are—online.
Having a simple website and online marketing presence isn’t enough in
today's competitive marketplace.
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Who Is Your Target Audience?
You may think it’s any person or business
within X-miles of your self-storage facility.
That approach isn’t going to work when
you’re marketing your facility.
Instead, you need to identify the people
most likely to use your facility, and then
build your marketing around them.
That’s called “building a buyer persona.” For example, if your
facility is in the heart of an upscale neighborhood, you want the marketing
department to use language and graphics you use on your fliers, e-mails, ads,
brochures and website to represent that demographic.
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Is It?
Homeowners Retirees Students
Military Business owners Wine enthusiasts
People moving
or relocating
Women looking for more
household space
People needing
seasonal storage
FOR
SALE
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Target Audience
If your self-storage facility is in an outdoorsy
area to which nature enthusiasts flock,
you’d want to think about creating e-mails and
tweets, and blogging about self-storage for
sporting equipment and camping gear.
If your self-storage facility is near your city’s
business district, shouldn’t your content appeal to a professional crowd? Then
you’ll start to drill down even deeper … now you’ll be identifying the buyer
personasof your target audience.
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What Is a Buyer Persona?
Creating a buyer persona is like drawing a picture of a person.
It’s a fictional representation of your ideal customer. That persona will detail all
the pertinent information that you will need to provide the marketing
department, such as typical age, profession, family details, and even their
favorite past times.
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Things Managers Need to Know
About Buyer Personas
Where are your buyer personas spending time?
Example: If your buyer personas have all
switched from Facebook to Twitter or Instagram,
but you’re still primarily on Facebook, you need
to switch over.
You or the marketing department would be spending more time on those social
media sites, assessing which up-and-coming sites your buyer personas are into,
and switching your marketing dollars around
and funneling them into the places your personas live.
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What Do Your Buyer Personas Want?
They want to read content that's created solely
for them. The marketing department needs you
to be their distinctive voice, so you can report
that information. Then you can create special
content tailored toward your buyer personas,
such as blog posts, videos, social media,
organized events, specials, fliers and signage,
to better trigger their interests.
Speak the way your buyer personas speak so
you can relate to them on their level.
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What Problems are Your Buyer Personas
Experiencing?
You want to eliminate irrelevant topics and focus
on the ones that truly matter, like what your
personas’ daily challenges are, what their needs
are and what their life goals are. This helps
you narrow your focus and create content
that's unique to your buyer personas.
Essentially, you need to align yourself
with those needs.
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Untapped Markets
I chose Apple for this example. Apple used to market
its products to young, hip, trendy consumers.
Now with the advent of the iPad, Apple has
expanded its buyer personas to include
business people, seniors and military, which
has resulted in selling even more devices.
Once you’ve begun to drill down and identify the buyer personas in your target
market, get creative, and don't limit yourself to specific buyer personas when you
can tap a new audience and widen your reach.
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It’s Never Going to Be Just One
Example:
Your site may be closer to an
industrial or office park area and
have a large percentage of
business customers.
You may be in a single-family residential area and see
more homeowners than renters.
You may be close to an educational institution and see a lot of students
needing rental units.
Even a facility in a residential area will have several businesses that rent storage
units. Many people run businesses out of their home and use self-storage as their
warehouse or equipment storage space.
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Grassroots Marketing
Managers will use grassroots marketing to reach out to their communities
when building brand awareness.
Over the last several years, self-storage marketing has been catapulted to a
whole new level. Long-term sustainability and success requires frequent and
creative marketing campaigns encompassing traditional, online and grassroots
marketing.
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Benefits to Using GR Marketing
1. It’s getting your brand out there for newly acquired properties.
2. It’s keeping your brand on the customer’s mind for
established properties.
3. It’s cost-effective.
4. It’s highly effective marketing strategies that can be quickly put together by
most managers.
5. In most cases, grassroots marketing yields a great return.
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Grassroots Marketing
The idea of grassroots marketing as it
relates to self-storage is to saturate the
residential and business community with
talk about your brand name. To do this
effectively, you need to keep your brand
name in front of people and on their minds.
The message you send out needs to be updated often or it’ll become repetitive
and ignored. Keep your message exciting by marketing on a number of channels
and combining strategy techniques.
Keep your company brand alive with local events, giveaways and bargains, and
sustain the buzz with local partnerships you’ve formed in your communities.
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Grassroots Marketing
By using a grassroots-marketing strategy, you’ll be initiating what’s
usually inexpensive marketing, but mostly very effective for self-storage
businesses in all stages of development.
When branding or rebranding your company’s image, grassroots marketing is a
key component to your overall marketing strategy and highly effective in quickly
establishing your image.
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Community Sponsors, Events and Fundraisers
The most import thing to remember when prospecting for sponsors is you have to
make it about you and the sponsor, not just your business.
Sponsors seem to be everywhere in today’s world,
and it’s not just the big events that draw them,
either. Small, local events (10-K runs and
neighborhood festivals) usually have a slew of
sponsoring logos in the accompanying literature.
Why do you need sponsors? Quite simply, it makes money. When done correctly,
you’ll build relationships that add value to your business through traffic sources
you’d otherwise never see.
I’ve put together a five-step guide that offers tips on soliciting and retaining
sponsors, so let’s jump in!
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Step 1: Determine Your Audience
Sending “blind” proposals usually doesn’t work well. Knowing your audience helps
narrow down who to solicit for sponsors.
Think beyond storage: Consider hosting a fundraiser for the local SPCA. You could
invite veterinarians, pet-store owners and other nonprofit
organizations that have the resources to drive traffic by the masses and add financial
support.
Keep it industry-related: Consider hosting a community event, such as a “block
party.” Getting all your neighbors together for an afternoon or evening has some nice
advantages; you can develop more than a nodding acquaintance with the folks who
you’re doing business with.
Planning a block party doesn’t have to be that big of an undertaking. Pick out a location
and send out invitations via the many marketing channels we’ve discussed. Arranging for
food and designating cleanup detail follow pretty organically once you start strategizing.
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Step 2: Determine Sponsorship Level
Sponsorship levels should be based on the benefits to the company. Put a price on
each benefit you’ll offer and include that price in each level.
If Comcast sponsors your “block party,” and it wants its logo on your event flier,
inclusion in your social media blasts and a table with a banner, you’ll need to
work up the cost for all the above and include
it in the sponsor level. This may be what you’d refer to as a
“Gold Sponsorship.”
If you the local wants to sponsor your event, you might offer it a small table and
include its business cards in your move-in packets. This could be your “Silver
Sponsorship.”
If the local bakery sponsors your event, consider a sponsorship of food and
drinks. This could be a “Bronze Sponsorship.”
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Step 3: Make Lots of Phone Calls
The most time-consuming but money-saving step: Get on the phone and pitch
your event or fundraiser as a great marketing opportunity.
Call local businesses to find out if its interested
in reaching your market, and focus on how the
company will benefit.
Example pitch: “This is Debbie from Such & Such
Storage, and I thought you might be interested in
marketing your company’s products/services at an
upcoming event we’re hosting. Do you have a few seconds?”
Keep your pitch, explaining the event, audience and some benefits, to 20
seconds or fewer. If they’re interested, you can add more details from there.
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Step 3: Make Lots of Phone Calls
Once you’ve made all your calls, you’re ready
to review your notes and compile a list of
businesses you’ll solicit. This takes some time,
but it will save your organization money.
Instead of blindly sending out proposal letters and
e-mails to hundreds of businesses—potentially
ignoring their guidelines and focus areas—
you’ll be much more effective sending your proposals
to companies who’ve already expressed interest in
your event or fundraiser.
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Step 4: Send Out Proposal Letters
Sponsors want to feel important! They want to know you’re specifically asking
for money/other means of support from their company, and that they’re not just
a name in the masses.
Keep your letters short: Focus on the exposure the company will receive for
its money, not on how the money will help you.
Customize your letter: The proposal letter sent to XYZ Fitness may not work
for your local bakery or cable company.
List sponsor benefits and deadline: Use bullet points to make the benefits
stand out with your name, address and phone number, date and time of the
event, and the deadline.
Lastly, include a brochure that details sponsor benefits for each level, and
include some details from previous sponsors/events.
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Step 5: Follow Up and Cultivate
Relationships With Sponsors
Don’t be afraid to contact potential sponsors to find out their thoughts on
sponsorship, and don’t drop your sponsors once they’ve agreed to send you
money!
Here’s why:
Few companies will call you to say they’re interested; most will not.
Some companies request face-to-face meetings. You won’t know if you don’t
follow up.
Sponsors want to feel important. They need to see you value their support,
and a thank-you letter works well for doing this.
Sponsors want to be updated, so add your sponsors to your
monthly newsletter.
Finally, once you receive the check, send another thank-you letter.
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Explore the Unknown!
Be thorough and don’t settle for subpar research. Do your best to market your
facility with an open mind and willingness to explore the unknown. I promise,
you’ll be glad you did your research in the end!
You’ll see more phone calls, leads, increased occupancy and revenue!
Ahhhh! Doesn’t that sound wonderful?
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E-Mail Marketing
Call to Action (CTA)
Subject Line
Content
Anatomy of a Marketing E-Mail
Supplemental Content
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Goals and Platform
Subject Line
Track: Open Rate
Keep it short.
A/B test.
Best practices words:
“new, free, instantly”
vs.
“register, available, $”
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Goals and Platform
Subject Line Content Call to Action (CTA)
Track: Open Rate
• Keep it short.
• A/B test.
• Best practices words:
“new, free, instantly”
vs.
“register, available, $”
Needs to guide the person
toward the CTA.
Any supplemental
information goes below the
CTA.
What singleaction do you
want the end user to take?
Lease online, complete a
form, download a coupon,
etc.
Track: Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Tracks open rate and click-through rate
• Subject line analyzer
Extremely affordable (freemium)
Easy import lists (from PMS)
Professional – look and feel, unsubscribe compliance
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Call to Action (CTA)
Subject Line
Content
Supplemental Content
Recipients need to open
your e-mail.
HOW you get recipients to
engage.
WHAT you want recipients
to do.
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CTA: What Do You Want
E-Mail Recipients to Do?
Depends on where they are
in the funnel:
Cold calls vs.
grassroots follow-up vs.
inquiry vs.
referral, etc.
Use drip campaigns:
Same CTA
Sweeten the deal
Inquiry – Provide
full contact
information
Schedule a visit
Text message directions
Download a coupon
Reservation – Sign
Lease Online
Price lock
Price lock and unit guarantee
Download coupon –$10 off
Download coupon – 1st
month free
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Call to Action (CTA)
Subject Line
Content
Supplemental Content
Recipients need to open
your e-mail.
HOW you get recipients to
engage.
WHAT you want recipients
to do.
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Content
Your content is driving your CTR.
So, what content is
going to get your
audience
to engage?
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Coolsville
Self Storage
Target Audience
College students
Selling Points
Convenience
Technology
Tone of Voice
Casual
Approachable
Serioustown Storage
Solution
Target Audience
Businesses
Selling Points
Security
Accessibility
Tone of Voice
Professional
Trustworthy
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Coolsville
Self Storage
Serioustown Storage
Solution
Hi there,
Thanks for your interest in our
storage facility. We’re here to make
storage easy!
In just a few minutes you can lock-in
your unit using our easy online
system:
[ Sign me up! ]
If you have any questions…
Hello,
Thank you for the opportunity to earn
your business. Our facility is the
most secure in the area; your items
will be safe with us.
We have convenient hours from X-X
for you to complete your paperwork
and take a tour of
the property.
[ Schedule a visit. ]
If you have any questions…
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Content Overhaul in Action
Target audience
Online storage shoppers
Selling points
Fast, convenient experience
Trusted quality
Better ways to compare
Exclusive deals
Tone of voice
Problem-solving
Experts
Honest
Fun
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Content Overhaul in Action
Move-in rate up 10%
Experts
Problem Solved
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Call to Action (CTA)
Subject Line
Content
Supplemental Content
Recipients need to open
your e-mail.
HOW you get recipients to
engage.
WHAT you want recipients
to do.
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Recipients need to open
your e-mail.
HOW you get recipients to
engage.
WHAT you want recipients
to do.
Track open rate
Short and sweet subject line
Use best practices words
Track click-through rate
Know your brand
Market to your audience
Track click-through rate
CTA depends on stage
in lifecycle
Use drip campaigns
Subject Line
Content
Call to Action (CTA)
Supplemental Content
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Contact the Presenters
Marketing Director
21st Century Storage
970.518.0809
www.21css.com
Marlene Corpus
Director of Client Relations
SpareFoot
855.427.8193
www.sparefoot.com
Barry Finder