Self Storage

Marketing For Self-Storage (How To Leverage Automation)

December 7, 2022
6 minutes

Even with facility occupancy at all-time highs for many self-storage operators in 2022, this is your moment to begin exploring fresh ways to market your self-storage facilities. In a booming market, you can build momentum and capitalize on steady demand for storage units. This guide will consider how you can leverage automation to power marketing for self-storage facilities.

By embracing new solutions for marketing self-storage units, you can stay ahead of the curve, engage new tenants, and educate prospects on your facilities and location features. If you are not already using software automation tools for marketing self-storage, now is the time to start. The labor shortages are making it challenging to hire staff to spearhead your marketing efforts.

Marketing For Self Storage Facilities (Current Challenges)

New digital marketing touch-points

The rise of digital marketing has created different touch-points for customers to engage with your brand. The goalposts have shifted and prospects are now further down the marketing funnel when they eventually talk to a salesperson or interact with a chatbot. They will have already visited your website, read some reviews, and perhaps browsed through your rates.

Offering instant support

Prospects are already well-informed by the time they reach out to you. To successfully market your self-storage facilities today, you need to deliver consistent and seamless customer experiences. When prospective customers visit your landing page, you must have someone ready to answer any questions they may have through any given customer support channel.

For instance, websites can offer online payments to enable prospects to seamlessly make reservations. To reduce incoming calls from prospects and streamline the sales process, operators can leverage a tool like Calcumate to help prospective tenants understand the amount of space they need without having to speak directly with a sales representative.

Ranking for competitive keywords in the SERPs

Alongside this, you must ensure your website is well-optimized and ranking in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for target keywords. This is important for self-storage businesses that serve communities and only have units in a few locations. You can leverage tools like Hotjar for real-time analytics on how prospective customers are navigating your website.

If you are struggling to rank for competitive keywords on Google due to weak domain authority, you should consider increasing your online presence and exposure through marketplaces like Sparefoot or StorageArea. With established user bases and plenty of eyeballs, these can make up for a lack of presence in the search engine results pages.

Collecting customer reviews

Prospective customers want to see an abundance of social proof on your website (perhaps subconsciously) to inform their decision-making process. You can use reputation management platforms to easily collect reviews from current customers and add these to your website. If you are using an SMS solution, you could collect immediate feedback after customers move-in.

Prospective customers expect 24/7 support

While prospective customers may expect you to readily answer their questions, the reality is that most self-storage operators are not equipped to provide 24/7 customer support. This is where automation can help by providing round-the-clock assistance to both existing and potential customers, even when your offices are closed.

With the support of automation, your self-storage business can: 

  • Reduce your reliance on admin staff and on-site personnel.
  • Deliver a consistent and seamless customer experience across all channels.
  • Reduce incoming calls by offering reservation modules for scheduling appointments.
  • Provide 24/7 assistance to both existing and potential customers.
  • Educate prospects about your self-storage facilities and location features.
  • Engage new tenants and keep existing tenants satisfied.

How can facility operators embrace automation?

There is no shortage of automation tools capable of supporting your marketing efforts for self-storage. While we have mentioned a few examples of how you can enhance your landing pages and increase their conversion power, you should also pour your attention into driving targeted traffic to these pages. After all, without steady traffic, they are not of much use.

Optimizing your content around keywords and phrases can help build a solid foundation in the SERPs - but this won’t happen overnight. Google needs time to index your content and you will need to obtain high-quality backlinks from authoritative domains to elevate your domain authority. Without this, you will struggle to rank for competitive keywords. It’s a long game.

In terms of embracing automation, you can leverage Google Ads and Facebook Ads to attract a steady stream of website visitors in the short term. Even though SEO presents a cost-effective way to attract qualified leads to your landing pages, you cannot turn this growth channel “on” at the flick of a switch. If you keep your cost-per-click under control, PPC can work well.

We recently produced a report on automation and AI trends in self-storage. To find out more about how the industry is adapting to consumer demand, grab a copy of the report below.

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