StorageMart President, overseeing acquisition & development, finance and operation of the largest privately-owned self-storage company.
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How were you acquiring your customers 15 years ago? What about your marketing efforts? A decade and a half ago, the storage industry was passive, relying on facility location and traditional advertising efforts to create brand awareness and to funnel customers through a very linear buying process. The only marketing decisions involved how big the Yellow Pages ads should be, and I made all those calls.
Fast forward to 2020, and while we’re not quite in the future of Skynet and the Terminator just yet, we have seen a significant shift in how online data has impacted the way we approach our business. Google and other search engines have changed how consumers behave, transforming the storage industry into true, operating, digital-driven businesses. Now, our company has half a dozen team members in marketing and an army of consultants — and that’s just for customer acquisition.
The Impact Of Data
Our first online reservations were available in June 2011. However, it wasn’t until June 2015 that we were able to accept online payments (the first in the industry) and we had our first rental online. We had no stats about those early reservations and rentals, which is quite a contrast to today’s focus on data and tracking. That shift in mindset has given way to a wealth of information about our customers to which we didn’t have access previously.
Since then, the advent of digital business intelligence has given the self-storage industry the genesis of revenue management and effective product pricing for better yields. We now understand more about our customers in real time and can use that information to leverage marketing budgets and advertising dollars more effectively and efficiently. Having that real-time digital data has forced business owners to shorten decision curves. It’s allowing storage companies to forecast and get ahead of those curves proactively, rather than reacting, as we were required to do previously.
As business owners, we’re given almost immediate insight into the success of promotions and pricing changes on both a market and a facility level. We’re able to see how customers are using search engines to find specific value-added features. We gain a granular understanding of seasonality trends and a more thorough map of a customer’s journey. Even in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, data continues to provide indicators of how we need to pivot marketing efforts, operations and business as a whole.
The Impact Of Reviews
In addition to the advent of instant data, the digital age has ushered in a customer-centric world where online reviews and managing customer expectations has become a critical part of business. Fifteen years ago, choosing a storage unit was straightforward, but now the consumer has been empowered with knowledge they carry in their back pockets, morphing the buying process into something nonlinear. Price point, location and value-added options certainly have an impact on purchasing decisions, but what can truly make or break a customer’s choice is online reviews.
Northwestern University released a study with PowerReviews that indicated nearly 95% of online consumers will read at least one review before committing to a purchase. Reviewers have incredible influence on prospective customers’ buying decisions. This means a single negative review can have a long-lasting impact on a facility’s occupancy and revenue, which is why asking for a variety of online reviews should be a key part of your acquisition strategy and your customer service.
Not only do typical online consumers analyze reviews before hitting the “reserve now” button, but they also take into account the company response. Being proactive, consistent and transparent in your replies to reviews — both positive and negative — instills confidence in the customer that they’ll also receive quality online service and responses to their questions, concerns and comments.
What The Future Holds
Storage is becoming an increasingly crowded space, and the competitiveness of the industry has only continued to increase throughout the past 15 years. As we move into the next decade and a half, it’s essential that we continue to embrace technology and the knowledge it can equip us with so that, ultimately, our bottom lines grow as we provide valuable services to our customers.
As to the specifics of what the more immediate future holds for those in self-storage, aside from the inevitability of Skynet, we’ll continue to operate in a data-driven world that will be changing constantly as we balance customer behavior, staff performance and effectiveness of operations.
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