Turning Locals into Renters with Great Content | PugTalk

Turning Locals into Renters with Great Content

Want to stand out from your local competition? With most of your customers coming from only 3-5 miles away, making sure your website. content is hyper-local can help you convert more leads into paying customers. Join us as we dig into the information, photos, videos, and more that will really make your website stand out!

How do you identify what matters to your local customers?
What copy and local information should you include on your website?
How can you use photos of your business to better market it?
What unique types of content should you consider adding?

Featured Speakers: Ross Pfeifer, Tommy Nguyen, Garry DuBay Jr, & Mary Cate LeBoeuf

Aired: June 3, 2025
Duration: 1:25:26

Overview

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

4:20 - How do you identify what amenities and information matter most to your local self storage customers?
7:50 - What questions can you or your managers ask to learn what matters most to your customers?
15:30 - How can you work with your managers to improve your self storage website content?
16:30 - What should you feature in your website content to convert more leads?
20:40 - How do you differentiate yourself from the competition down the road with your content?
29:20 - What is important to highlight in your website photos?
33:00 - When taking new photos, how do you know which photos to prioritize?
35:30 - Should you always hire a professional to take every photo for your self storage business?
37:30 - What are some real examples of photography that highlights unique self storage features?
41:10 - Why is it important to let people know you if you are locally owned and operated?
45:20 - How do you know how to position your product in your local market against what competitors are offering?
50:50 - How do videos and drone videos help convince more website visitors to click rent?
56:40 - How can you better communicate that you are a local self storage business on your website?
59:30 - What are live examples of self storage websites with unique content?
1:12:30 - How can you highlight the special features of remote self storage facilities with your content?

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%.