Marketing What Matters | TNSSA Webinar

Marketing What Matters

Case Studies of High-Performing Operators

Marketing strategies aren't one-size-fits-all! Every self storage business has its own challenges and strengths, and the needs of your facility are going to be a little different. But how do you know what's the right mix for you? In this session, we'll dig into the marketing strategies of successful operators to show what tools and channels they find effective, and what you may be able to use at your business.

Which marketing channels are they using?
How do they track the effectiveness of their marketing?
Who manages each marketing channel for them?
What marketing tools do they use in each channel?
Which channels aren't as effective anymore?

Featured Speakers: Alex Keller

Aired: August 28, 2024
Duration: 55:09

Overview

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

At 3:20, Alex highlighted what sets great marketing apart from good marketing.
4:20, he discussed the questions that were asked to each of the highlighted operators.
Starting at 6:00, our expert dug into each of the marketing strategies and channels that these operators have in common.
At 8:30, Alex covered the various marketing channels that each of these operators are using, and to what degree they are.
9:40, he highlighted Spacebox Storage and their focus on community efforts, seasonal marketing, keeping their managers happy, and more.
Around 14:20, Alex showed how Spacebox Storage handles their PPC ad budget.
At 15:40, he covered the case study of Argus and their focus on phone-friendly marketing, tailoring marketing plans to communities, customer service, and more.
23:40, our expert covered how Argus identifies trends that they can target.
Starting at 24:40, he went over the Universal Storage Group case study including their focus on locality, competitive knowledge, data that matters, and more.
Around 32:50, Alex talked about USG's advice for utilizing Sparefoot.
34:50, Alex discussed how USG calculates their cost per lease.
At 38:00, he highlighted Storage Asset Management and their focus on use of channels, the basics, identifying where customers are coming from, and more.
Starting around 45:20, our expert covered how SAM handles value pricing.
47:40, he highlighted how you can apply all of these different marketing strategies at your own business.
51:00, he reviewed the no-cost strategies that you can utilize, followed the the strategies that will cost you.

Presentation

Want the slides from the workshop? You can download those here!

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%.