Marketing … How Much Do You Spend,
and How Do You Know If It’s Working?

In today’s environment, when many self storage facilities are looking for ways to cut expenses to compensate for some of the discounts that are being given, is cutting the Marketing Budget a wise decision? Should the focus radiate from cost cutting – to reallocation – or possibly a combination?

Many owners and operators are eager to find out “what the rest of the industry is doing’, so we asked Travis Lawhorne of Accountable Management and Matt Van Horn of Cutting Edge Self Storage to share with us some of their strategies, and how they know what is working for their facilities.

We are all feeling the effects of the current economy on our self storage facilities. Knowing that we are in a different place economically, what marketing techniques are you using this year that is different from last year?

Travis: We try bringing foot traffic to our stores by having onsite events with local businesses through network marketing. It could be a fall or Summer Festival with a car show and food vendors, as well as, local businesses wanting a place to display their products or services to the community at no cost to them or the facility. Fusion marketing is a “no cost” way to help other businesses thru your customers and get new customers thru other businesses. Use your website to share links of other businesses and your website link on other businesses. All of these are either no cost, or certainly, low cost marketing ways to generate rentals.

Matt: I think the techniques are not necessarily different, but facilities in general need to be more aggressive. I like to make sure that site managers don’t lose confidence in the current market. Not one manager reading this article forgot how to run a self storage facility overnight, but some are more complacent than others. We are working in a different economic environment then we have been in the past. One of the items I have been using aggressively is door hangers. Door hangers are great for two reasons. One, I can visit neighborhoods or apartment complexes and hang them on doors, which is quick and direct. Second, they fit wonderfully in plastic flyer holders which can be strategically placed at businesses in a radius from the facility such as a laundromat, convenient store, home improvement store, etc. In addition we have become much more aggressive with internet marketing. We introduced a new internet management system this year and the dividends have been phenomenal. Working with local businesses is very important as well. Everyone you meet is a potential customer or referral and they should be treated as such. It is difficult to create demand; there are a certain number of people in any market that need storage in any given month. It is our job as managers to close as many of those potential customers into our facilities on a monthly basis.

What percentage of your marketing budget and operating expenses are you using for yellow pages?

Travis: Much smaller than years in the past. The yellow page advertising used to be #1 and now we see it as #3 (even lower, depending on the location) behind location referral and internet.

Matt: We are slowly moving away from Yellow Page marketing. Yellow Page marketing used to take up the largest amount, by percentage, of our marketing budgets. Unfortunately the return on investment is becoming smaller and smaller each year. Only about 14% of all of my new rentals are from the Yellow Pages, where as referrals and the internet each brings in closer to 17% to 20%. This is something we have to pay attention to as managers. The ways people communicate are changing and our industry must be ready to change with them.

What are your opinions of the current value of yellow page advertising and do you see this as an effective marketing vehicle?

Travis: I feel the “current” value of the yellow pages still exists for some of the population to use in order to find storage, but it may also be a combined effort from the yellow pages delivered to your drive way and at the same time, yellow pages on the internet. I don’t feel it is as “effective” as it once was, but at the same time, I feel that at least the “presence” in yellow pages is important ... For example, once you may have spent a fortune for a huge ad and color, but now, it may be just as effective for a smaller, non color, in column ad.

Matt: I don’t believe we can write off the yellow pages yet, but we can adjust advertisement size and money we are willing to allocate on this particular marketing item. We are still renting units to customers who use the yellow page platform. We are in the middle of a shift from printed yellow page material to a completely digital society. This change is happening rapidly. Between computer usage and smart phones, such as the iphone and Blackberry, we are moving away from printed materials. A perfect example is Amazon.com’s Kindle device; people are now comfortable buying books digitally. I think you really need to plan yellow page marketing strategy in advance and negotiate very hard with your yellow page representative. Track everything, it’s better to negotiate when you can fall back on hard numbers.

In reference to internet marketing and individual facility web pages, do all of your facilities have unique domain names, if yes are they optimized for search engines?

Travis: I do feel that a website has more internet strength when a facility has its own, unique domain name and appropriate optimization in place. If one domain name is used for multiple sites, there are many ways to gain strength, as well.

Matt: All of my facilities have their own unique domain names. I believe this is important to the identity of each individual facility and helps branding with existing and potential customers. Along with each facility having a unique domain name, I have them grouped through the web to help with search engine optimization.

What percentage of your marketing budgets and overall expenses are you using for facility web pages?

Travis: More and more as technology / internet has become the way of the future. We share web page and internet expenses with 40 plus stores, so we are able to disperse these “investments” much more effectively.

Matt: I would say right now the amount is running 40%-50% of the marketing budget, based on the market and individual facility. This number will continue to increase in the coming years. As much as I am a proponent of internet marketing, it has to be strategic and tracked. I doubt I will move away from print marketing completely, but the percentage of the marketing budget allocated to print marketing will continue to drop.

How are you tracking the results of your marketing efforts?

Travis: We use an advertising effectiveness or tracking report that each one of our managers and assistant managers use for every phone call, walk in or email that comes in to a store. It is imperative that every person is asked how they heard about your store and documented, so you know where to invest your marketing / advertising $ in the future. We also attach tracking phone numbers to many advertising methods, so not only we know where the potential customer came from, but if it’s a call, it is recorded for training purposes.

Matt: We are tracking results in multiple ways. Our managers track each phone call, visit, and email to the facility. I also have tracking numbers on different forms of marketing to help determine not only how many people are reacting to a particular campaign, but to help calculate a return on investment and the cost per lead. Tracking numbers are essential to our marketing efforts. These numbers allow you to allocate your marketing budgets efficiently. In addition tracking numbers record each phone call, which is invaluable for training purposes. These are resources we din’t have access to in the past. The accuracy of these resources allows us to make informed decisions.

Are you using Social Networking Websites: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and LinkedIn? Yes. If yes, how are you integrating it into your day to day operations?

Travis: This is very new to us, but one way that we are getting this type of “buzz” out there is by showing this info on our website, in our email signatures, mentioned in our “email blasts”, or just plain old word of mouth.

Matt: We have been testing these mediums at various facilities. I just recently completed a marketing effort on Facebook with good results. It was especially effective with college students. I think social networking websites make great tools for flash information and marketing. Twitter is a great example of this. Self Storage marketing on these mediums is fragmented. Facebook is a great example of this. A paid advertisement on Facebook can be viewed on a computer, but if the customer is using an iphone the advertisement does not show. I am not sure consumers have really acclimated to receiving quality advertisements, not spam, through social networking websites to make it a consistent and reliable forum. Although in the future this will change. As a manager you really have to keep up on these websites to stay current. Facebook and Twitter is the flavor of the month, with Myspace slowing becoming the AOL of the social networking sites. We don’t know what the next Facebook or Myspace will be, but we need to be prepared to learn and use these sites to help existing and potential customers find self storage.

Are you using a unique tracking number for your marketing? Are you recording the calls and if yes, do you believe this has taken the place of the standard mystery shopper.

Travis: Yes, yes and absolutely yes I do believe that it has taken the “mystery shopper’s” place ... Tracking number method gives more “real world” results and does more for the money spent, i.e.: advertising effectiveness.

Matt: We are using tracking numbers extensively. Not only does it allow us to track the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, but we are using the tracking numbers to record phone calls for training purposes. This is the future of phone training and mystery shopping will be a thing of the past. Previously every manager would play the “mystery shopper game”. The manager of a particular facility would try and figure out who the mystery shopper was and put on the best phone performance of their life. Typically the facility manager would be correct in guessing the mystery shopper and in turn their performance was off the chart. With tracking numbers we have eliminated this issue and now every call is a potential mystery shopping call. I believe it allows you to gain a better gauge of how a particular manager approaches the phone over a number of calls and not just a few mystery shopper calls.

We would all love to have the ‘magic pill’, the ‘silver bullet’, or the ’sure thing’ – but it doesn’t exist. What will work for you and your facility? Thinking outside the box, trying something different, and tracking everything you do. You don’t need to throw your current plan out the window, but a few tweaks and modifications could make a big difference on the successful marketing of your facility.

Matthew Van Horn is Vice President of Operations for Cutting Edge Self Storage. Cutting Edge Self Storage is a full service management company specializing in Facility Management, Feasibility Studies, Consulting, and Joint Ventures within the self storage industry. For more information, contact Matthew Van Horn at (772).370.1273 or visit our website at www.cuttingedgeselfstorage.com.

Travis Lawhorne, Accountable Management & Realty, Inc., located in Lutz, Florida, has been involved in self storage facility management for the past twenty years, with 40+ stores currently under contract. They have created a comprehensive training & marketing program for their 150 + employees that now is being taught as well through consulting and auditing. Accountable Management has been an active member of the Self Storage Association and the Florida Self Storage Association for many years. Visit us at www.FloridasStorageSolutions.com or call (813) 929-3088 for more information.

Marketing … How Much Do You Spend, and How Do You Know If It’s Working?

Accountable Management & Consulting
By: Travis Lawhorne Vice President, Accountable Management & Realty, Inc. and Matt Van Horn

This article is provided courtesy of Accountable Management with the permission of Florida Self Storage Association Inprint magazine. ©FSSA. All Rights Reserved. It is not intended for further reproduction/distribution without the exclusive permission of the FSSA.