Optimizing Your Google Business Profile | PugTalk

Optimizing Your Google Business Profile

Are you getting the most out of your Google Business Profile?

Join our very own Tommy Nguyen as he highlights tips and tricks to ensure that your Google Business Profile is fully optimized and gives your storage business the attention it deserves!

How to update and change info in your Google Business Profile
Important features that you can be using!
Best practices for keeping up with your Profile
How to understand Google insights and data

Featured Speakers: Tommy Nguyen

Aired: January 18, 2023
Duration: 1:47:42

Overview

If you don't have time to watch the whole session, here are some of our favorite parts:

At 9:00, Tommy notes why your Google Business Profile is so important.
10:00, Tommy discusses the elements of Google Business listings in search results.
Starting at 13:10, Tommy highlights how distance factors into search results.
At 20:00, Tommy covers sponsored placements in the Google Business listings.
25:40, Tommy explains how Google decides the relevance of certain listings to customers.
Around 28:10 Tommy answers a question about setting the exact location of your business.
At 32:30, Tommy shows how you can reach Google Support with any issues.
36:10, Tommy highlights why zoomed-out photos of your facility make the best cover photos.
Starting at 40:00, Tommy covers Google Posts for your business.
Around 45:30, Tommy talks about the importance of photos to your profile.
51:30, Tommy discusses whether or not you should be responding to reviews.
At 56:25, Tommy shows how to update your profile's cover photo.
Starting around 59:00 Tommy goes over the main categories you can update in your profile.
1:16:30, Tommy starts the live Q&A

Resources

Questions Answered in this Session

I tried editing our Google Business page, and it's linked to the previous owner's email. I cannot get access because they aren't answering my email. What are my next steps?
We have 5 storage facilities in our city, but we only have one office. So I've tried to claim all the addresses, but Google confirms those by mailing a postcard to the physical address. There are no mail receptacles at 4 of our locations, so I can't complete the verification process. When I type in our company name and city, 3 locations come up, but I'm not managing the bottom 2. The top one is our office location, and two of our locations are missing. Do you know how to remedy this?
How do you claim an account that is remotely managed with no office? It doesn't give me the option for a postcard or phone call, only a video.
We have multiple sites, should we set them all up separately? Do they need different content?
What about responding to a bad review? What if they tag the wrong place?
How often should we be updating or posting on our GBP?
What are important features to highlight on our GBP?
When you are selling a business is it better to shut down your GBP or let the buyers decide how they want to handle it?

Carol Mixon-Krendl

SkilCheck

Website: https://www.skilcheck.com/
Email: carol@skilcheck.com

Hailey Teal

Jenkins Organization

Website: https://www.jenkinsorg.com/
Email: hailey@jenkinsorg.com

Resources from this session

Awesome Quotes

“Once your operation is in place, you can become more dynamic with your pricing, but that requires data. You need some method of being able to record the data that you need to know whether your price is in the right place - whether you need to move it up or start giving some concessions.” - Warren Lieberman

“I never want to downplay to what someone else is doing. I'm better than they are, then I'm going to be worth a higher price. That's what value is. If you go out to a restaurant and get really good service, would you go back? Yes! What if it was pricier? You'd still go back because you got better service and a better product.” - Jim Mooney

"It's good to be informed on your competition. I don't want to ignore them, but I don't want to respond too strongly to them either." - Warren Lieberman

"We did a survey of 10,000 facilities on their pricing. We found out that two-thirds of those operators didn't change the price of a single unit of the course of a month." - Warren Lieberman

“Rate increases and value pricing are the number one ways to grow your revenue.” - Jim Mooney

"Tenants in more convenient units tend to be less price sensitive." - Warren Lieberman

"The size of the unit is only one aspect of what people are willing to pay for." - Warren Lieberman

Highlights

Foundational marketing strategies to have in place - whether leasing up or stabilized:

Website
Set up listings (Yelp, Google My Business, Apple Maps)
Social Media
Establish Local Partnerships

Lease up marketing strategies:

Lead Generating Strategies (like digital ads)
Aggregators (Sparefoot, Storagefront, etc.)
Awareness Campaigns (like billboards, flyers, and sponsorships)

Your average customer value
Find the average stay length of all tenants. Next take your economic occupancy and divide by how many units you have. That will tell you what the average customer pays.

Multiply the average length of stay by what the average customer pays, and that's the average value of a customer.

For example, if a customer stays for 12 months and pays $100 per month, then their value is $1,200.

Your average lead value

Figure out your closing rate (or conversion rate) i.e. how many leads do you turn into tenants? Multiply that by your average customer lifetime value to figure out what your leads are worth.

Pro Tip: see which lead sources are converting the best. It may be that certain sources have a higher conversion rate, so those leads are worth more to you than a source that barely converts.

Typical Lease-up timeline

According to our panelists, it's typical to see a 3-4% increase each month, putting your facility at 36% after the first year, and 72% after the second.

Alternately, you can look at your lease up goals through the lens of your units, aiming for 20 units rented per month.

For Nick and StorageMax, they pro forma their economic occupancy at 85% with their sweet spot at 92%.