|
Articles (Courtesy of Derek Naylor, http://www.storagemarketingsolutions.com/):
If Your Self Storage Facility Was A PlayStation 3
Making your product or service irresistible to you target market is the most important step in marketing. This holds true in self storage marketing and advertising. Sony recently demonstrated the power of this with the release of their new gaming console, the PlayStation 3... Read Full Article
Are You A Wimp? Why Being Bold Pays Off In Self Storage Marketing
Being wimpy in your self storage marketing efforts will only hurt you. Making bold, risk reversing offers in your marketing will drastically increase the ROI you get from your advertising budget. This article helps you distinguish between the two kinds of offers and teaches you how to make great offers... Read Full Article
Revealed! A Major Secret To Success In Self-Storage Marketing And Life
A major secret to success in life also applies to successful marketing in the self-storage industry...or any marketing for that matter. This article reveals this secret and teaches you how to leverage it to maximize your success... Read Full Article
How To Lower Your Advertising Budget And Increase Results At The Same Time
So, you've acquired a customer, they're paying you a monthly rental fee, referred a friend, purchased packing supplies and a lock from you and just insured their grandmother's heirlooms... Read Full Article
What Does Your Penny-Pinching Friend Have To Do With Self Storage Marketing?
Your marketing should give your prospects every bit of information they need to make a decision to do business with you. Don't force them to look elsewhere for information they're starving for. This article discusses the 3rd step to the marketing code...
Read Full Article
If Your Self Storage Facility Was A PlayStation 3
By: Derek Naylor
Imagine showing up to your self-storage facility having thousands of eager tenants waiting through the cold night and fighting just to pay you money. In fact, several of these "tenants to be" are so eager to pay you money for your space that they've physically beaten a few people who were ahead of them in line…
Today, November 17th 2006, Sony released their new gaming console, the PlayStation 3 (PS3).
So far, one person has been shot and is hospitalized…
Two Wal-Mart stores shut completely down due to unruly crowds…
One 22 year old from Seattle was physically mugged in the parking lot of a Best Buy when somebody tried to steal his new PS3. His tooth was knocked through his lip and had to get stitches. When asked if it was worth it, his response?
You guessed it, "DEFINITELY!"
Not all aspiring PS3 owners were struck with violence. Many turned the late night waiting into tailgate parties complete with music and finger foods.
There are many marketing lessons to be learned from today's madness and I won't cover all of them. But, I want to make a point that will make you a lot of money if you really grasp it…
You see, Sony wasn't offering anything for free. They weren't offering a cure for cancer or the solution to world hunger. They were offering a video game console that sells for $500-$600.
What's even more amazing is the demographic for these things…
$500-$600 makes up a significant amount of their monthly income. Yet they are still willing to get their teeth knocked out to get one!
Sony has made their offer to THEIR market so irresistible that they are willing to physically injure themselves and take food off their table or miss their monthly rent to get one.
So, the question becomes, how irresistible is your offer?
What can you do to make it more irresistible?
Now, I'm not suggesting that any self-storage facility in the world can create the same demand that Sony has. We're talking apples and oranges here. However, I am saying that focusing on making your offer better, will exponentially make your self storage marketing much more effective and easy to create. The first step to accomplishing this is to study YOUR target market and ask yourself what would make your offer better and more acceptable to them. In Self Storage, this can be a little more difficult, but it's definitley possible.
top of page
Are You A Wimp? Why Being Bold Pays Off In Self Storage Marketing
By: Derek Naylor
Are you making wimpy offers?
In my last article, I discussed offers and their importance in life and self storage marketing. As a self-storage operator, you are making the offer to relieve locals of their cluttered home or yard. You offer a safe place to store valuable belongings. You offer them the option of parking their shiny new car in the garage, and so on.
There are really 2 types of offers that are relevant to self storage marketing or marketing in general:
1. Your Value Offering and, 2. Your Action Offer.
Your value offering is simply what value you offer to the marketplace. By far, this is your most important offer. After all, without one you won’t be in business for long. Your value offering is something that should always be reviewed and improved.
Many people get caught up in marketing tricks and techniques and they forget all about creating an irresistible offer that the marketplace will gladly pay hard earned dollars for.
Enough on that for now…
The second type of offer is your action offer. This is the call to action in your marketing materials. This is the offer that causes most business owners to whimper in fear.
Some of the most “positive thinking” business owners I’ve worked with instantly transform from bold, assertive, confident characters into pessimistic children when it comes time to creating a good, risk reversing call to action for their marketing materials.
Here’s the deal:
Even if you have a brilliant value offering, there’s probably somebody down the street (especially in self storage) who has something almost as good, just as good, or better. Without a good action offer you’re almost back at square one in the consumers mind.
Here’s the deal #2:
Most people are lazy procrastinators who need a really good excuse to get off the sofa. Your action offer must be strong enough to entice them to organize their garage, closets, yard, office, etc. In self storage, this is especially relevant since nobody likes moving.
Here’s the deal #3:
There’s risk in taking action. Not always financial risk, but there’s always a risk that we will find displeasure in our experiences…even in self storage. The more your action offering reduces or reverses risk, the more people you’ll get to take action and rent your space.
Examples of good action offers in self storage marketing include:
• One month free rent • ½ month free rent with free packing supplies • One month free rent with free use of moving truck • First months rent goes to favorite charity • Any combination of the above or other risk reducing offers
While it might seem like you’re giving away too much, consider the lifetime value of each customer. Also consider the fact that full monthly rent for a space without a tenant puts absolutely NOTHING in your bank account.
Some of the world’s most successful direct marketers, who earn 7, 8 and even 9 figure annual incomes, consider breaking even on the first sale perfectly okay. Smart marketers realize that the “back end” is where the money is made. In self storage, your back end is future rent, tenant insurance, locks, packing supplies, etc.
The job of external marketing is to acquire a customer. If that means you must give up a month of rent to do so, by all means do it!
Listen, I’m not saying to give away the farm here. In fact, I’ll be the first to advise you to give away the least amount possible to acquire a customer. But, if the arithmetic works out, giving away a month of rent, even two months of rent to acquire a customer will put way more money in your bank account than not having any renters because you’re too scared or proud to give a decent offer.
Remember the article I wrote about the car dealerships and their differences in offers? I highly suggest going back and reading that again while we’re on the subject of powerful offers.
Take 2-3 hours, ASAP, and nail your value and action offerings to the ground.
First identify what they are. Then get creative and come up with as many ideas as possible to improve them and make each one irresistible…
From there creating marketing materials will be 100 times easier.
top of page
Revealed! A Major Secret To Success In Self-Storage Marketing And Life
By: Derek Naylor
I have a major secret to success…
Not just success in the self-storage business. Not just the secret to financial success. But the secret to success in every area of our human lives. And – as you’ve probably guessed - I’m going to reveal it in this article.
But before I do, I want to warn you that it will appear extremely simple at first glance. In fact, you’ve probably heard it a few times before. You’ll probably read it, your brain will translate a meaning to you based on your background or previous experiences and you might completely miss the relevance of this secret.
So, before I tell you what it is, I would like you to commit, right now, that you’ll read it, re-read it and re-read it again. Then think about it before continuing.
Okay, here it is:
Make people offers they can’t refuse!
Simple enough right? Maybe, depending on how you think about it. Allow me to expand that thought to help you understand the point I’m trying to make.
See, our life is spent making offers to people and considering offers presented to us. We must offer something to somebody before they’ll hire, date, marry or befriend us. And, we must make our offers irresistible. Offers so strong that the person would feel foolish for not taking you up on it.
I offer my wife the satisfaction of romance and love. I offer her a good father to our children and an extremely close friendship.
When we go out to dinner with friends, we offer friendship, laughter and sometimes a shoulder to cry on or support with a challenge in their life.
When you signed up to receive these articles, I offered you valuable tips on self-storage marketing. The real offer I’m making to you is more money through increased expertise and knowledge. I offer my clients more money and more time through more effective marketing strategies and turn-key systems.
When you market your self-storage facility, what are you offering your prospects?
If your marketing looks like most self storage marketing I’ve seen, you really don’t communicate an offer at all. You offer “matched prices” or “secure access”…
Is that really an offer? To a degree it is, but you’re not offering something that people really want. You see, people don’t want matched prices, or gated access. Those things are great compliments to the real offer you’re making.
The bottom line is this…
Whether we realize it or not, everything we do is based on what we offer others and what others offer us. It sounds selfish, I know, but even charity work offers us something. When I do charity work, I get the feeling of self-worth and the satisfaction of helping somebody in need.
Make sense?
So how do we tie this into self-storage marketing?
Well, there are a lot of ways that this thinking is relevant and can help you make more money at your self-storage facilities.
But there are two things that I’d like you to think about as you read this article:
1. What is it that you really offer people as a self-storage marketer? 2. What offer can you make to lower or reverse the risk for people to accept your main offer?
This brings us to the 4th and final step of the marketing success code. Offers or Action is the final step.
To review all 4 steps here they are:
1. Interrupt/Attention
2. Engage/Interest
3. Educate/Decide
4. Offer/Action
If you follow those 4 steps properly, you can’t fail at marketing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s impossible to hit a home run every single time. But it’s not the equation that fails, it’s us as marketers that don’t follow it properly.
We might think we interrupt but we miss the boat. We might think our offer is right, but it’s completely wrong. The world’s best marketers and advertising geniuses strike out more than you’d think.
This is why testing is so important, which we’ll discuss later.
For now, I want to keep your focus on your offers. Think about that everyday and your level of success will only get better.
And before today is over, make somebody an offer they can’t refuse. Be it your spouse, boss, customer, employee or child. Think about what they want, what their self-interests are and offer them a way to fulfill that interest.
You’ll be amazed at how easy it is to get what you want…
top of page
How To Lower Your Advertising Budget And Increase Results At The Same Time
By: Derek Naylor
So, you’ve acquired a customer, they’re paying you a monthly rental fee, referred a friend, purchased packing supplies and a lock from you and just insured their grandmother’s heirlooms and son’s baseball card collection they have stored with you…
What else could we possibly ask for?
A lot. What if it cost less to acquire this fine customer? What if we were able to lower your cost of acquisition by just 10%? 20%? 50%?
Don’t laugh, it’s possible.
Most facilities have advertising dollars spread out all over the place. Some of it is working, some is not, but in most cases the facilities have no clue whether it’s working or not, and if they do, they’re not quite sure how each medium is performing.
How about knowing your cost per call and cost per acquisition for each medium? This information will not only be extremely insightful, but will help you cut your budget where it’s not performing. You can either put that money back in your pocket or re-allocate it to mediums that are performing extremely well.
That’s one way…
But pretend for a moment that all of your advertising efforts are producing efficiently and there’s no room for improvement there.
Can we still lower your cost per acquisition and increase your profits?
I’ll put money on it - here’s how: You’re paying real cash to make that phone of yours ring. Yet, you’re not answering it each time it does. If it costs you $100 to make the phone ring and your staff misses the call due to a line at the counter, a troubled tenant or an exciting game of solitaire, you might as well take a $100 bill and walk it down to your local church or branch of the Red Cross, it’ll do more good there.
In addition to that, even those calls that are answered are under-leveraged. Do your people convert every phone call into a paying customer? Not likely. Not likely for anybody. But it’s a worthy ideal to strive for. What if you were able to increase your global conversion rate by just 5%? That wouldn’t drop your cost per call, but would definitely drop the most important figure, your cost to acquire a new customer.
To do this, you can hire an outsourced call center. There are many good ones in this industry. Or you can build a “sales center” in house, which is not an easy feat but can prove very worthwhile if properly built, trained and operated. A properly built sales center not only answers calls but also makes outgoing calls to customers thanking them for their business and performs other sales functions needed by your organization.
Work everyday to lower the cost to make your phone ring and the cost to acquire a new customer. Do this by getting a better response from your advertising and by increasing your phone call to paying customer conversion rate.
top of page
What Does Your Penny-Pinching Friend Have To Do With Self Storage Marketing?
By: Derek Naylor
Imagine for a moment that you get a call from a good friend…
They invite you to dinner to discuss something “very important”. You have no clue what this “very important” subject is, but they’ve peaked your curiosity and accept their invitation. You have other things to do but are dying to know what’s so darn important that they’re willing to buy you dinner. After all, this friend is the biggest penny-pincher you know, they never buy you anything, let alone dinner!
They pick you up from the office and take you to the nicest restaurant in town. You think to yourself: “Wow, this must be really important if they’re taking me here!”…
After a brief wait in the lounge, you are seated at the dinner table with your friend and you place your drink order.
You just can’t take it any longer, you break the tension with a question: “So, what is this very important thing you need to discuss with me?”
They reply with, “Oh, nothing, it’s not a big deal”
They continue, “I just need you to call this phone number or stop in at this address and give them your credit card number”
“What on earth are you talking about, have you lost your mind?” you exclaim.
“Oh, it’s nothing major, just call or stop in, everything will be okay”…
I’ll end this simulated conversation here for the sake of brevity. But think for a moment. What would you do? Would you stop in or call with your credit card info?
Of course not!
You need more information to help you decide if this is something that you are willing to invest time and money into.
This brings us to the 3rd step of cracking the self-storage marketing code, which is: Educate/Decide.
In the past articles you’ve received from us, we’ve discussed getting the prospects attention and engaging them into the advertisement by peaking their interest.
Now, you need to deliver the goods. Help them make a decision to take profit generating action in your favor. You might call this the “body copy” or “main text” of a print piece or the majority of any advertisement.
Call it what you will, but it is absolutely critical that you give the recipient of your advertisement a good reason to accept your offer or to do business with you.
This copy should differentiate you from one or more of your 3 forms of competition, provide emotional triggers to the recipient’s hot buttons and work with the major human motives.
But, when it comes to self-storage marketing, you absolutely must communicate why they should choose you over the facility down the street. Your reasons better not be the canned fluff that everybody else uses…
You know what I mean, stuff like: Secure Access, On-Site Managers, 24 Hour Surveillance, We Match Any Competitors Prices, Blah, Blah, Blah…
Everybody says that stuff, be bold, be different and by all means, don’t copy everybody else.
top of page
|
