Buy digital advertising for your self-storage operation

Let’s say your self-storage company is well established in its market. You have competitors, but you are all doing well. There is a good balance and everyone keeps their facilities at or above the ideal 90% occupancy rate. None of you needed more publicity than your signage, maybe an occasional ad in the local paper and a website. It’s going great, everything is running at full speed.

Then one day you learn that Bob, who owns a property up the road, is retiring and selling his property to a real estate mutual fund. This also applies to Roberta, another camp owner in your area. Now you switch from economic stability mode to panic mode. But you should not do that! Instead, all you need to do is scale up your marketing efforts.

An inexpensive and rewarding way to reshape the playing field is paid digital advertising, where you buy space on various online channels to promote your products and services. Let’s explore the ways you can boost your self-storage business.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

The most common type of digital advertising is PPC, a powerful tool that helps businesses increase their online visibility and increase sales. It offers a range of ad types to target your self-storage audience including search, display, social and video. Search ads appear on search engine results pages, while display ads appear in the form of banners on third-party websites. Social media ads appear on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, and video ads appear on platforms like YouTube.

PPC offers several advantages:

• It offers precise targeting and allows you to reach your audience based on demographics, interests and behaviors.
• You are in control of your ad spend and can allocate your budget to the most effective channels.
• You only pay when someone clicks on your ad, making it cost-effective.
• Tools like Google Analytics allow you to track real-time performance.

This type of advertising also has some disadvantages:

• The competition for ad space can be fierce and drive up the cost per click.
• PPC requires a certain level of expertise to set up and optimize campaigns.
• As consumers get used to seeing the same ads over and over again, fatigue can set in.

The cost of PPC varies depending on the pricing model you choose. You can pay per click, every time someone clicks on your ad. per 1,000 ad impressions (cost per mille); or when a user performs a specific action, such as making a purchase (cost-per-acquisition).

social media

Social media ads are so popular today for good reason: With billions of active users across different platforms, businesses have access to a massive audience. This form of marketing uses algorithms that analyze potential customers’ online behavior and interests to identify the most relevant viewers for each campaign. This level of precise targeting can lead to higher engagement and a better return on investment.

Social media ads come in a variety of formats: image, video, carousel or sponsored content, providing flexibility and creativity for your self-storage marketing campaigns. For example, sponsored content allows you to seamlessly integrate your message into the user’s feed, creating a more authentic experience.

Like PPC, this form of digital advertising is inexpensive because you can set budgets and bids and control your ad spend. Real-time performance tracking allows you to monitor and optimize campaigns in real-time to achieve the best possible results. All in all, these ads can help you increase brand awareness, engagement, and conversions.

Programmatic Advertising

This method of digital marketing has evolved in recent years. Programmatic advertising uses some of the same platforms as PPC but in a slightly different way, using software to automate the buying process. This allows you to target your audience more efficiently and access a broader ad inventory.

Some programmatic software and agencies even allow smaller businesses access to traditional advertising platforms that they might otherwise not be able to afford. It works by pooling the purchasing power of several small brands to make one larger purchase, especially as local TV and radio stations look to create new revenue streams in the digital world.

A popular form of programmatic advertising is Streaming television advertising. Your self-storage business can purchase space on platforms like Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, or Netflix. The approach uses data analysis and algorithms to target specific customer segments based on demographics, viewing behavior and interests. You can also choose between ad formats such as pre-, mid- or post-roll, as well as targeted overlays.

In addition to precise focus, high reach and engagement, and measurable performance tracking, streaming ads can be more cost-effective than traditional TV ads because you can set a smaller budget and target it exactly where you want it. This is becoming increasingly popular for businesses looking to reach a wider audience.

Other types of programmatic advertising include:

• Advertisement: This allows you to place banner ads on websites or apps. Choose between different sizes and formats, for example static or animated.
• Indigenous: This type of advertising is inserted into the content of a website or app. It appears as sponsored content or as an advertorial and offers a seamless user experience.
• Audio: This targets users based on their listening habits. Choose between pre- and mid-roll ads.

Digital PPC, social media and programmatic advertising bring a number of advantages for self-storage companies: precise targeting options, cost-effectiveness and real-time performance tracking. They are powerful tools to efficiently reach your prospects across a range of channels.

It’s also worth noting that you don’t have to do this alone. There are several industry companies that focus on this type of marketing. They can help you build what you need to be competitive in today’s changing landscape. Talk to them, learn their philosophy and find a team to work with to take this important but complicated business off your hands.

CJ Pomerantz has been in digital marketing for more than a decade and has clients in industries ranging from pets to powersports to real estate. He is currently Product Manager for automatism, which provides digital marketing services for the self-storage industry including website development, search engine optimization, paid search, call tracking and more. For more information call 520.214.3628.