The marketing landscape has changed drastically for all industries over the last three decades or so. So what does it look like for self storage marketing in today's world? Where should you focus your time, energy, and money? Is digital marketing really the end-all-be-all in today's marketing climate, or are old methods still viable?
In this Gabfocus Spotlight, we hear from Guy Middlebrooks (CubeSmart) and Darren Kelly (Right Move Storage) about marketing then and now.
Question: "What is the self storage marketing environment like now?"
Check out the video clip below to hear their answers:
In this Gabfocus Session: Lessons from Large Operators, we hear from Right Move's Darren Kelley and CubeSmart's Guy Middlebrooks. They took the time to sit down with Tommy to talk about what small operators can learn from the industry's largest players.
Check out the full Session to dive deeper!
Don't want to watch the clip? Here's what Guy and Darren had to say:
The foundation of marketing in today's world is the internet, and it's your website.
There's a lot of other things you can do and you should do. And I'm not saying grassroots isn't important, having a wine and cheese social or whatever, some of the groups do. All that's fine, and you probably will get a rental or two. And that's great.
[But] without a doubt, digital marketing is what we are built on now. And if you don't do that right, really, really right, you miss opportunities.
So that is it.
There's a lot of pieces to that, but that's putting it simplified. Comparing to ten years ago, we were in the digital age, we were out of the Yellow Pages, but there was no sophistication in the digital aspect of it. And so what we can do now versus back then is tremendous. And what a customer can do online now, it's so different than ten years ago.
It was very early on. And back then, the large operators were even charging a reservation fee, a $25 deposit to reserve a unit. And if you came in and rented, you would get it credited back. And you can imagine how that went. And when we started testing free reservations, the number of reservations, like, tripled immediately.
—Guy Middlebrooks
Ten years ago, it was the wild west with marketing in my mind.
Prior to that, everyone $150 a month or $125 a month, maybe up to 400 on the property per month, was ridiculous marketing. I mean, if you spent over 150 for a website and everything else, people are like up in arms, "you're just wasting money."
And I went on the quest ten years ago, and I've been on it all along. When you say, what's the environment now? I'm still bringing people to understand that spending a $1,000 in marketing for 20 rentals or ten rentals is unbelievable.
It's a great investment.
Because people still to this day don't understand that the value of a rental on my average day is 16 months. If I get $100, every call I miss, everything I miss is $1,600. I mean, if I spend $1,000 in one month, and within that month, I gain even three rentals, I've gained three times 1,600. So I got $5,000 for a thousand.
—Darren Kelley
