Digital Marketing for Self Storage Facilities: Multi-Channel Approach to Acquire More Customers

Imagine this scenario as an owner of a self-storage facility:

  • You drive thousands of monthly local website visitors

  • You convert daily leads from your website

  • You close deals at an amazing cost per conversion

  • You upsell and cross sell existing customers on autopilot using email automation

  • You have 100% clarity on how your digital marketing performance is going

  • You have 100% occupancy rate, and are turning away so many prospects you’re considering building more units

 

 

You’d definitely be loving every minute of that, right!? (you know we couldn’t help ourselves with the Storage Wars GIF).

The good news:

Having a high-performing self-storage digital marketing campaign is possible.

The better news:

In this guide, we’re going to share the exact process to execute it.

We’re a Marketing Agency Specializing in Self-Storage

We know the industry.

We have experience on what works and what doesn’t.

Reach out to us for a free initial consultation with no strings attached.

FREE SELF STORAGE DIGITAL MARKETING CONSULT

The Holistic Playbook For a High-Performing Self-Storage Digital Marketing Campaign

 

As a top-performing Houston Marketing Agency, we have clear processes and strategies to get our clients results.

There are three different components of the digital marketing journey that we focus on:

Set up data analytics so you can track performance → Drive inbound traffic to your website → Convert that traffic into customers.

Seems pretty straightforward to get results, right?

The thing with results is that they have to be trackable.

Ask yourself these questions right now and if you can answer them, then you don’t need to read the rest of this entire page.

  • What’s your cost per qualified lead from Google Ads?

  • What’s your website’s conversion rate?

  • How many organic visitors did your website get from Google last month?

  • What percentage of your existing customers buy more than one “product” (car storage, etc)?

If you asked yourself all those questions above ⬆️ and, while trying to answer, looked like the GIF below ⬇️, then keep reading.

 

While we’re a digital marketing agency, we’re also basically a “data agency,” getting clarity on what works and what doesn’t to build a holistic, high-performing campaign.

Phase 1: Build Robust Data Analytics

Trackable KPIs

Self-storage digital marketing best practices start with data. If you don’t have locked & loaded data analytics tracking and you’re making decisions based on gut or intuition, that’s a problem.

There are a few dozen KPIs that you should be tracking.

Some of them have nothing to do with digital marketing, but are incredibly important, such as:

  • Occupancy Rate

  • Net Move-In Rate

Others are centered around digital marketing performance:

  • # of website visitors, by channel

  • Cost pers by channel:

    • Cost per website visitor

    • Cost per lead

    • Cost per qualified lead

    • Cost per conversion

Data Fidelity

A lot of other digital marketing agencies lack data fidelity. We’ve inherited digital marketing campaigns from previous freelancers and agencies and have uncovered issues like:

  • Double counting conversions

  • Tracking irrelevant conversions, such as someone requesting a Google Maps “direction request” to your facility

  • Not tracking every step of the funnel to truly understand conversion rate and drop-off rates

Phase 2: Maximize Affordable Inbound Traffic

For the sake of this section, let’s assume you run 3 self-storage facilities in the greater Houston area.

Before we get into the nitty gritty, there’s a REALLY important piece of information we need to share.

Most folks will choose a self-storage facility within a 15 minute drive of where they either 1) live or 2) work. The majority of folks choose based on where they live.

That makes things actually pretty easy in terms of geo-targeting, right?

You can reverse-engineer what a 15-minute drive is from your self-storage facility.

 

Google

People search for self-storage facilities on Google. Duh…

And they search locally, using keywords like “self storage near me”. Take a look at the trend below.

 

The downward trend is due to changes after covid, but while it’s technically trending down, there are still over 270,000 people per month in the US searching for these types of keywords. That’s over 3,000,000 per year.

 

Folks also search using city-specific keywords. You’ll see that over 9,000 people per month search for Houston-specific keywords.

 

Why are we sharing all of this?

Because if you’re not performing well on Google in both organic and paid, you’re missing out.

 

Organic

There are two places you can rank organically on Google for keywords like “self-storage near me.”

First, is the Google Local Pack.

 

How do you rank in the Google Local Pack?

While local SEO is complex is and there’s a lot that goes into it, here’s a basic formula:

  • You need an optimized & highly-reviewed Google Business Profile

  • You need localized content on your website (yes, the content on your website helps you rank in the maps!)

Second, below the Google Local Pack is the Organic results.

 

How do you rank below the Google Local Pack?

While SEO is complex is and there’s a lot that goes into it, here’s a basic formula:

  • Create a content-rich, comprehensive website

  • Make sure your title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and other on-page elements are correct

Paid

Not every paid channel performs the same. It depends on the type of self-storage. It depends on the location.

 

Google Ads

All of the SEO information above is also relevant for Google Ads.

People are looking on Google for what you have to offer today. It’s not unlikely that someone in your perfect ideal audience will be searching in the next hour.

And as you can see, Google shows Sponsored links throughout the search results.

 

You can rank at the top of Google through a paid option, which is Google Ads.

And yes, if done right, your target audience will..

Search on Google → click on your ad → come to your site → submit a form → become a client.

Note: There are different types of Google Ads (Search, Performance Max, Display, etc) and we can test different types of campaigns to maximize performance.

YouTube Ads

YouTube Ads for self-storage allow for affordable, highly-geotargeted visual ads.

The visual side of things is really important.

When folks are choosing a self-storage facility, they want somewhere that’s:

  • Secure

  • Clean

  • Well-maintained

  • Safe

With video content through a YouTube Ad, you can show all of the things that your target audience cares about.

Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads

Facebook and Instagram are both Meta products, so they generally work hand-in-hand.

When it comes to Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok (see the next section) it’s important to understand that different types of demographics use these platforms.

It’s also important to know that certain demographics are more likely to be interested in self-storage facilities…

“Gen Xers are the most likely to be self storage users (54%), followed closely by baby boomers (51%)”

There’s an interesting article out there with a title of “Facebook has 3 billion users. Many of them are old.” They found that…

“28% of U.S. Facebook’s users to be between 18 and 34 years old, compared with nearly 46% for TikTok and 42% for Instagram. The numbers are more stark for teens aged 12-17.”

And, it’s kinda true… Without getting too into the specifics, you can assume that…

  • Facebook users: Better platform for GenX and even Baby Boomers

  • Instagram users: Better platform for GenX and Millennials

  • Tik Tok uses: Better Platform for Millennials and Gen Z’ers

Facebook and Instagram can be used for both driving new inbound and remarketing to existing inbound.

Let’s first talk about remarketing.

  • When someone visits your website for the first time, only a small percentage will convert on that first visit.

  • Just because someone doesn’t convert doesn’t mean that they’ll never convert.

  • By remarketing to them, you’re able to continuously stay in front of them and hopefully drive a conversion at a later date.

With new inbound…

  • You can capture a different audience segment that may be interested in your self-storage facility

    • For example, someone may be interested but doesn’t go to Google to search

  • You can use algorithmic learning to help the tools further refine the audience to get in front of your target audience more often

Tik Tok Ads

We’ve talked with many self-storage facilities who say things like…

“Tik Tok is for people too young. Our target audience doesn’t spend time there.”

Well, we’d like to argue with that one.

According to this research, the numbers are quite interesting:

  • 170 million Americans use Tik Tok

  • Nearly 20% of Tik Tok users are aged 35-44

  • If you do the math, that’s 3.4 million Americans aged 35-44 using Tik Tok

While Tik Tok may not be the perfect platform for every self-storage facility, it can be leveraged in a holistic marketing strategy to supplement other channels.

Phase 3: Increase Conversion Rates

Everything above talked about getting people to your website.

Which is cool and fun and all that…

But we don’t think you’re in the business of driving website traffic. You’re in the business of getting new customers and keeping existing customers happy.

The whole point of driving website traffic is to get users to convert.

 

CRO Best Practices

There are many things you can do to increase conversion rates.

  • Adding testimonials to your website

  • Ensuring imagery and video content is unique and high-quality

  • Having a mobile-friendly website that’s easy to navigate

For the sake of time, we’re only going to speak to a few strategies. With our clients, we dig deep with our conversion rate optimization approach to

Split Testing Landing Pages

The fastest way to understand if website copy, design, or other on-page elements are increasing conversion rates is to run split tests.

No, not that type of split…

Here’s how it works:

  • Landing Page A: This is the control.

  • Landing Page B: You take Landing Page A and change one component on it

    • For example, you may change the buttons on the page from saying “Take a Tour” to “Choose Your Unit”

Iteratively, you can quickly make substantial progress. This may look like doubling the conversion rate within just a couple months.

Clear CTAs

When someone comes to your self-storage website, they need to know the exact next steps. You do this through CTAs (Calls To Action).

Depending on the self-storage facility, that may be:

  • Scheduling a tour

  • Buying a unit online through a more self-service onboarding process

Whatever your process is, the CTAs need to be clear and simple.

You’d be shocked at how many self-storage facilities have confusing and complicated CTAs.

Pricing Information

You’re in the commodity business.

I know… I know… Your staff is amazing. Your air conditioning is next level. Your security system is unmatched.

But being in a commodity business, people are price sensitive. And they compare prices.

Having clear pricing information that’s easy for the user to find is critical. Whether you’re a budget self-storage facility or on the higher-end doesn’t matter. What matters is that the pricing structure is quickly comprehensible on the site.

Optimizing the Funnel

There are usually a few steps that folks need to take before converting on the site.

Click a button → arrive at a landing page where they can see different available units → button click to Unit A → form with first name, last name, and email → new screen with payment details → confirmation screen

There will be drop-off at every point in your funnel. Some areas will have really low drop-off while others have extreme drop-off.

You need to:

  1. Have clarity where the drop-off points are

  2. Optimize those drop-off points through data-driven tests

  3. Monitor performance

  4. Continue testing

Increase LTV On Autopilot

Just because you acquired a customer doesn’t mean the job is done!

Email Automation for Referrals, Crosssells, and Upsells

Many self-storage facilities have secondary services:

  • Wine storage

  • Truck rental

  • Climate controlled units

  • Vehicle storage

  • RV storage

  • Boat storage

  • Etc

Just because someone only purchased your climate controlled 10×20 unit, does NOT mean that they aren’t interested in wine storage as well.

Through email automation that’s integrated with your CRM, you can cross-sell and up-sell customers based on where they’re at in the journey.

For example, you may want to build an email automation campaign that’s structured like…

  • After someone is a customer for 12 months with a non AC controlled unit, trigger a 5-email sequence campaign offering to upsell them to an AC controlled unit with a discount on your white glove service to move their belongings for them

Scroll to Top