We mainly spend our marketing money in phone books but I am looking to expand and wonder what others have tried and what has worked.

Let me know what you have tried and the success of the program.

I am an avid opponent of advertising in phone books, for so many reasons. Mainly because so many people today don't consider the phone book to be the end-all, be-all to finding a business. The internet is. In fact, I can't remember the last time I used the phone book myself. I use my computer to find anything and everything.

It's so much easier to create a website and find other avenues to reach people. And SO much cheaper! Why is the phone book still charging so much money for so little returns on investments? I just don't get it.

My marketing techniques are successful because they are local. Self storage is a community-based industry and your advertising and marketing should reflect that. Reach out to your local businesses, politicians and organizations. Don't fish for minnows, get a vehicle and fish for the whales. Do tie-in and co-op marketing with other businesses nearby.

One of the things I've done is reached out to our Police Department. I offered the Superintendent FREE storage in exchange to offer the rest of the police department a 10% discount on storage. I created a professional-looking flyer (you can have a graphic design college student do this for you) and had them post it on their bulletin board. I got 3 new rentals! It went so well, I created one for the Fire Department, too! The Fire Department promo did even better. It costed me about $30 (time, effort, ink and paper).

No one ever gets excited about storage, so don't give away the farm to bring possible customers in. People get excited about what you can do for them. Try new promotions and things your competitor doesn't think of. My competition hires people to just open the doors, sell boxes and lock the doors to go home. My team does WAY more to affect our bottom line. (Big difference.) Let me know what you come up with...

Keep in touch!

I would not be so quick to write off the yellow pages. We track our customers as to how they found us an even though our yellow page usage at some stores may be down from years ago, we still generate enough business to justify spending money in this area. I agree that there are other ways to advertise, and depending on where your facility is located you certainly want to explore them, but make sure before you eliminate anything that you are confident in that decision.

__________________
Mel Holsinger, President
Professional Self Storage Management, LLC
3434 E. Kleindale Ste. E
Tucson, AZ 85716
O: 520.320.9135
F: 520.320.9435
www.proselfstorage.com

I really like your ideas about the Police Department and the Fire Department. Thank you

__________________
Mel Holsinger, President
Professional Self Storage Management, LLC
3434 E. Kleindale Ste. E
Tucson, AZ 85716
O: 520.320.9135
F: 520.320.9435
www.proselfstorage.com

I agree with Mel. Especially if you are off the road and not very visible you must have some sort of presence in the yellow pages. Check out the suburban books as they are many times more cost effective and can be useful. In some markets Yellow Book has a nice chunk of the market share and is much less than the utility provider.
Track, Track, Track to be sure you are getting a decent Return on Investment before pulling out!

Wed believe we have wasted our time and money on phone book ads, but...here is why. We are in a resort community with a population of about 50,000. To be effective we would have to be in 10 phone books to cover a 60 mile radius. 85% of our customers drive at least 300 miles to get to us. We are the only storage facility in a 60 mile radius that offers "Temperature Controlled Mini-Storage" (Yes Mr Greenberger we heard your thoughts on "Climate Controll"). Bottom line what works for us may not work for everyone. If you are still reading here is what works. We have a comprehensive web site we sell advertising, we make money off of our classifieds page and 85% of our tenants found us on the web. They pay their rent via the web. They get their specials off our site. We even have a message board. To date we have about $2,000 invested. Check it out...feel free to borrow any ideas..Lake Havasu RV and Boat Storage, Climate Controlled Storage, Mini Storage. If you need any help contact us we would be happy to help you get started.

I would say the Yellow Pages is our most effective. Second, the Internet - USStorage.com and Craigslist.com.

Don't forget that a large number of self-storage users are the elderly and the older baby boomers who are more resistant to change and prefer the Yellow Pages over the computer. So I wouldn't rule out the power of the Yellow Pages.

Also another good group to go after are college students. Often if a community college or university is near by you can print up fliers and contact the student union to distribute them or hang them in the dorms. I know as a college student I rented a storage unit for several years. Also discounts upon graduation are great too!

Before you can begin to determine the value of YP you must first know where your inquires and tenants are sourced. This involves tracking your leads and determining how many are phone generated and how many are purely walkins. You may find that 70% of your leads comes from the phone. At first blush it would seem print has a lot of value. However, the follow question needs to be asked...'how did you get our number?' You may find that because of your location and signage it was obtained by familarity due to being a regular commuter by your store. This would tend to demish the value of that 70% phone source.

Before anyone can make decisions on the value of a 20-30k (YP cost in most metro markets) expenditure you have to have empirical data to evaluate. Ask questions when interacting with leads and record the responses.

I just wanted to shed a little light on the Boomers and their affect on the industry. This is the largest generation making up about one-third of the country's population, numbering 80 million. You will see varying dates for this generation, but most commonly, they were born from 1946-1964. This makes them 44-62 years old...hardly a group of people who are hesitant to use the internet.

This is a powerful group - not only do they want to spend their retirement days in boats, RVs and second homes, but they have a significant influence on their children. Generation X and Y have grown up in an environment where much of what they needed and wanted was provided for. This way of living has been adopted by the younger generations and they are beginning to accumulate possessions faster than their parents.

While Boomers are in a different life stage than Gen X and Y, the way they purchase goods and services are not all that different. The internet makes it so easy to research when looking for anything - a new TV, a car, a vacation destination, even storage.

__________________
Barb Moseley
Director of Operations
USstoragesearch.com