Online marketing in Self-Storage - 3 tips you can implement today!

Online marketing may very well be the largest opportunity in European self-storage at the moment! Customers all over Europe are used to shopping online, when researching online presence of self-storage businesses it is clear that there are so many opportunities in online marketing that are yet to be fully used. Online marketing expands traditional marketing (often referred to as offline marketing), and is especially interesting because results are measurable in detail. Most interestingly, there are opportunities for both smaller operators and larger chains! This blog will give you insights into online marketing in general and you'll walk away with three practical tips you can use today to grow your business!

Online marketing can be a great way to

accelerate growth. A study conducted in 2016 showed that 84% of the European population used the internet and 55% purchased something online. Numbers for some individual countries are even higher; in The Netherlands 95% of the population used the internet and 74% bought something online. Based on the market analysis we have conducted at Hi-Tech, we can conclude that a lot of self-storage operators in Europe only use online marketing opportunities to a certain extent, and that there is a lot of unused potential here!

The beauty of online marketing is that it can benefit everyone, no matter how big or small your self-storage operation is. A huge benefit of this kind of marketing over other marketing channels is that you are able to measure results and quantify your return on investment, contrary to activities like sponsorships, signage and advertising. In addition, online marketing can be as expensive (or cheap!) as you want it to be. 

As a self-storage operator, you can use both SEO and SEA to attract visitors to your website. When your visitors arrive at the website, it then becomes all about converting these visitors into customers. But first, let's take a closer look at Search Engine Optimisation, also known as SEO. 

Search Engine Optimisation

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. This technique is part of "free" online marketing, I mention free because it does not require a cost per click or advertisement structure. However, working on SEO requires time and effort which cost money.

Before you start working on SEO, you should consider your goal(s). Most companies use SEO to attract more visitors to their website and that makes perfect sense. However, the important part is how you try to achieve this. The answer almost always should be: "by creating quality content for our target audience". Sometimes, people think of SEO as being a set of 'tricks' you need to know to get better search engine rankings and it is true that you can achieve better rankings by doing certain things in a certain way. However, the overall goal should still be to strive for quality content, which will eventually result in increasing visitor numbers in the long run, therefore creating quality content should beyour goal and increasing visitor numbers are a positive side-effect. SEO is all about your target audience and quality and relevance of your content decide whether your SEO tactics work of fail.

I mentioned "doing SEO correctly", but there is no-one who actually knows the perfect SEO strategy. This is considered "the impossible" because there is no perfect SEO strategy. Focussing on being as relevant as possible, within your scope, should be your aim while working on SEO. But what can you actually do when aiming for SEO?

There are lots of actions you can do while working on SEO, we will explain two subsequent ones which can help you getting started:

1. Keyword research 

Since self-storage is a specific market with a limited target audience, we do not need to spend a lot of time in defining the target audience. However, we do have to conduct keyword research! Before you start creating content for your website, you should be clear on which keywords you want to target in search engines. For example, if you own a self-storage facility in Berlin, it would be interesting to rank on "mini lager Berlin" or even more specific, "mini lager Charlottenburg". Since Berlin is a large city with citizens from several nationalities, targeting people in English could be interesting too, so you could also decide to target "self-storage Berlin" and/or "self-storage Charlottenburg". Keyword research can be explained in much more detail and if you want to know more, check out the keyword research article from MOZ. 

2. Creating content

So, you finished your keyword research and know which words you want to target. Your second step is creating content which is interesting and relevant to your target audience so they will visit your website and read (or watch) your content. Let's assume we want to create written content. The hardest thing normally is writing the first few sentences, after these the content will flow with more ease, especially if you have some experience in writing. If you find it hard to write content, make an outline of your content by writing down headings and sub headings first. Then just start writing! After you've finished, ask a few people to read the content and give you feedback. TIP 1: While writing your content, take the following into account:

• Include your keyword in the page title

• Include your keyword in the meta description

• Include your keyword in the first 300 words and make it bold

• Try to write at least 600 words, but be critical! Write only relevant content, avoid repetition and excessive use of your keyword

SEA

SEA stands for Search Engine Advertising. Terms referring to similar concepts are SEM (Search Engine Marketing) and PPC (Pay Per Click). These terms are not identical, but there is a lot of overlap between them. The essence of SEA is paying for clicks on a link or ad which refers visitors to your website. The most common SEA channel is Google Adwords. SEA is becoming increasingly interesting for self-storage operators because more and more consumers are looking for storage online. In Google, advertisements are presented above the organic (SEO) results. For some companies, using Google Adwords (instead of SEO) can save time while still attracting visitors (potential customers!) to your website. 

If you want to start out using SEA for your business, consider all this as part of TIP 2:  

• Start a Google Adwords account

• Build a campaign for your business

• Make one advertisement for your company name

• Make one advertisement aiming at keywords related to self-storage and the location where the store is based (self-storage München, for example)

• Target your advertisements to the city you are based.

Website and conversion

So, you first wrote good content for your website and you are ranking on the desired keyword(s). In addition, you are running a few locally targeted advertisements. Both tactics attract new visitors to your website, who are interested in renting storage space. In itself this is interesting information, but is your website designed to convert those interested visitors into customer?  

If the answer to the previous question is yes, then you are doing a really good job! If you are not sure, then there could be some opportunities here for you. To answer the question, you need to be clear on what a "conversion" is on your website. If you have an online booking integration, then a conversion could be defined as a new booking via the website. If you do not offer this service, then a phonecall or an e-mail enquiry could be considered a website conversion.

To achieve good conversion rates you need to make sure you have a clear call to action. TIP 3: Make sure your call to action is highlighted on the website, an easy way of doing this is giving all of your conversion buttons a distinct color. For example, if the main colour of your website is blue, all the buttons towards the online booking page could be orange. Doing this will make it clearer for your customers how to take the next step and get in touch with you and ultimately become a customer.

Hi-Tech Online Marketing Consultancy

This article provides you with a high level overview and introduction to online marketing in self-storage, and gives you a few ideas to get you started. If you would like help getting your online marketing just right, and accelerate the process of creating a powerful online presence for your business, why not let us help? We can help with online marketing in a number of ways:

• Set up and manage your locally targeted Google Adwords campaign

• We can conduct Keyword research for you

• Website quick scan on how to improve your conversion

You can get in touch by calling +31 348 415 295 or e-mail me personally: iwouters@hitechsoftware.eu