Community Marketing and your Storage Facility

July 11, 2018

img-blog-article-bg@2x
To develop brand awareness in self storage, it means you have to be involved in the community, and that will usually mean your facility gets used for hosting various events.
3 min

Getting involved in your community is a great way to bring awareness to your storage facility!

Most people in your community will need self storage at some point.

Community marketing can bring your facility new tenants, increase brand awareness and can be a cheaper alternative than traditional advertising.

You want to be the facility that comes to mind first!

Another great way to capture your local community is to make sure your Google Business Profile is filled out with correct information.

That way you show up in the Google 3 Pack for searches that take place close to your facility.

Download our Self Storage Marketing Playbook eBook here for free.

The Challenge of Self Storage Awareness

If there is a hindrance to having strong brand awareness, it is the belief that all self storage facilities are the same.

The only difference is the facility that is most convenient to the client.

At StoragePug we have found that most tenants live within 5-10 miles of the storage facility they rent from.

To develop brand awareness in your self storage marketing strategy, you have to be involved in the community.

That means that your facility can host various events, or get out there and network with people -- and probably both. 

If your self storage facility has a website, you can use that as an outlet to show your community involvement.

Make sure your contact info is accessible for all website visitors to find quickly.

Show Some Versatility

There are many ways to extend the use of your storage facility.

Here are a few examples of ways to use your facility:

A car show

Use your larger spaces to house individual classic cars. You can put some museum-type pieces in smaller units.

Lastly, put a live band in one of the units to provide entertainment.

Coordinate with some car facebook groups that hold local meetups and get them to have one on your property.

A food drive 

Food banks and shelters always need food, so challenge the community to fill one of your bigger units with canned goods.

Give your card to all the donors, get their information and those who donate X number of cans get an offer of a free month’s rental, for example.

Let the community know this is happening through your website, facebook page, & by dropping flyers off at local businesses nearby.

A haunted house

Who doesn’t love a scary haunted house on Halloween?

A few of your units could be converted into rooms of the macabre, and proceeds from the event go to charity or a local school.

You can scatter food, drinks & candy around your storage facility.

A fashion show

Does your community have a local college that provides fashion courses?

Why not open your facility to a student fashion show, allowing students to store some of their pieces in a unit before the show, and then use a unit for the runway.

Club meetings/events

Are you a member of a rotary club or the local chamber of commerce?

Consider opening your facility to a regular club meeting or a special Chamber event, which may include a tour of the facility and promoting your other services.

During these events post extra signs around the property, so they know all the amenities that your facility offers.

Have a Glad Hand

Another aspect of marketing your self storage facility is by you getting out of the office just a couple of hours a week, taking some referral or business cards, and shaking a few hands in some networking.

Whether you go to a chamber of commerce or rotary club meeting, or you do a “lunch and learn,” where you take lunch to an office and give them a short spiel about your business, there are a number of ways to get awareness in the community.

People are easier to remember than inanimate signs and buildings, so make your brand memorable by meeting as many different people as you can.

Every business card you collect adds to your email database!

That means 10 to 20 more leads for every two one-hour lunches you take off-site each week!

The bottom line is, good marketing is about relationships, and relationships take time to build.

Target the groups that your target renters are most likely involved in.

Have patience, be creative, have perseverance, and your self storage facility will soon become the go-to facility to meet the community’s needs.

To read more about my favorite StoragePug features, take a look at: 

StoragePug is a modern marketing company for self storage. We create intelligent marketing websites that allow you to rent units & take payments through your facilities' website.