It can be tough to get an advantage over your competitors.
If you're struggling to outspend them or to beat them in other arenas where they're very strong, consider this: find a valuable tactic they're overlooking.
Simply put, follow the path of least resistance to your goal!
Listen in as Melissa Stiles of Storage Asset Management gives us her take on what the most underutilized marketing tactic is in the self storage industry.
Question: "What's the most underutilized marketing tactic in self storage?"
Check out the video clip below to hear their answers:
In this Gabfocus Session: Marketing That Gets Clicks, Tommy and Melissa got the chance to chat with Melissa Stiles from Storage Asset Management. They talked about all things marketing in self storage.
Check out the full Session to dive deeper!
Don't want to watch the clip? Here's what Melissa had to say:
You know, asking for reviews is super important. Not only is that how you show up, it's relevant, consistent reviews flowing in and just making sure that you're having that program where you give them a space to ask. But it's also the consumer behavior is 50% of people have never used storage before.
So you need to understand that. And just like if you were going to a restaurant, people want to read what other people think about it. And it's like really the new word of mouth, right? They're reading those before they even call you or go to your website. And then the other piece of that and why I think it's underutilized is because you can use them to improve.
So, when you get a negative review, it can like hurt, right? But it's really something that you can use to improve your facility. So if it's about that there's something broke on your website or the customer service or where we use it to look at month-over-month data, if we pull out using AI, different pieces.
So if it's about customer experience or if it's about rates or if it's about pricing, we're able to see that trend and to really use that feedback and then implement it in our different operations, revenue management strategies as well."
—Melissa Stiles
"I'm going to add something to that. I think absolutely, reviews are 100% where the focus should be.
But if you're not offering good customer service to begin with, what are you asking them to review? It's like the restaurant that hopes for five stars, but their food stinks. Like, you know, make sure that you're actually offering a product that is worthy of a five-star review and then it makes the ask a whole lot easier and it makes getting those five stars actually."
—Melissa Huff
"Lane and Darby do a roundtable together about how to get more reviews, and step one is to deliver service that's worthy of a five-star review. So Melissa, you are spot on. That's awesome. I'll throw in my underutilized, and I think it's the physical appearance of your facility.
I think that's probably an under underutilized tactic. The operators who care about their lawn and their landscaping and their signage doesn't have mold on it. You know what I mean? Those shout out Lee, Lee Creech. Love you.
But I think the operators who care about those small details ultimately generally do better. Surprise. Right? Because I think if you, if you sweat about the small stuff, you probably care about the big stuff too. And I heard that recently, I think David, our SEO manager, he said that to me, and I love that.
I think it's so true. Because everything communicates. Whether you intended to communicate it or you didn't, you're communicating something to your customer base."
—Tommy Nguyen
