Owning Your Local Market | Self Storage Virtual Workshop

Gabfocus Episode 70 | Owning Your Local Market

The majority of your customers come from 3-5 miles away - that's a small pond to fish in, and you can't afford to get it wrong! We'll be sharing tips and advice on how to identify what matters to your community and how to capture the demand in your neighborhood.

Featured Speaker: Stephanie Tharpe
Moderators: Tommy Nguyen & Melissa Huff

Category: Marketing & Sales
Focus: Owners, Operators, & Managers
Aired: March 20, 2025
Duration: 1:10:50

Overview

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

At 5:20, our expert discussed how a local focus helps a facility stand out and succeed.
6:25, Stephanie talked about the geographic distance you should consider when finding your target customers.
Starting at 8:50, she discussed other, unique ways to identify your target customer.
At 14:40, our guest highlighted the importance of hiring local employees at each of your facilities.
17:40, our expert shared how to balance the liability of hosting events at your facility with the benefits.
Around 21:30, the guest gave examples of local charities and sponsorships you could support.
At 23:40, Stephanie covered budgeting for sponsorships and donations, along with how to track the success of your efforts.
29:15, the expert touched on how to market the good things that you're doing at your business.
At 31:40, our expert discussed how to use grassroots marketing to reach customers in need of vehicle parking.
35:30, Stephanie talked about how to start a referral program to bring in more customers.
Starting at 38:30, she discussed whether to make your referral program tenant-only or open to the public.
At 43:30, our guest highlighted whether or not she currently uses direct mail to market her businesses.
49:40, the expert touched on how to make sure you're hiring the right person to be your manager.
At 54:20, our expert discussed the importance of training your employees on the value of your product.
57:30, Stephanie talked about how to localize your website content to catch the attention of locals.
1:00:30, Stephanie answered the question of the week!

Gabfocus Takeaway

Every community is different, but learning what matters in the community surrounding your facility can help you stand out from the larger competition down the road. The majority of your customers are coming from only 3-5 miles away, so, while this is a small pond to fish in, it also allows you to make your marketing hyper-local! You can support the local causes to drive your brand awareness, network with local businesses to drive more referrals, and so much more. Getting involved in your community can easily promote your business at a very low cost!

What are Gabfocus Sessions?

Gabfocus Sessions are virtual workshops for self storage owners, managers, and operators. Brought to you by the team behind Gabfest: StoragePug and Lighthouse Storage Solutions.

Each session features hand-picked industry pros who will dive deep into relevant topics surrounding our industry, share best practices, and explore trends in the market. It's our hope that these sessions help you navigate your self storage business better during these uncertain times.

Want to learn more about self storage? Join us on select Thursdays for Gabfocus.

Questions Answered in this Session

How can a local focus help a storage facility succeed?
How do you identify your target customer?
How do you identify the geographical area of your market to focus on?
How can you identify local causes, events, and activities that matter to your target customers?
How can knowing what your community cares about help you market locally?
Which grassroots tactics do you find most effective?
How can networking help promote your business?
How can you increase brand recognition of your business locally?
How do you start a referral program?
How do you identify niche markets within your community?
How can you reach these niche markets?
Is social media useful for local marketing?
How do you track and measure the success of your community marketing?
How can you build trust with local customers?
How do you explain to a customer why they should choose you over a REIT with a lower rate?
How can you localize your website content to convince people to click rent?

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%.