Everything starts with a sale.
No selling, no business.
No business…no income…no jobs… nothing. It all starts with a sale, or in the case of self-storage a lease.
As we spend the next two weeks finalizing our look at the structure of a self-storage company, let’s focus on the Director of Marketing. As we have been saying, for many, including myself at the beginning, the Owner does everything. However, to create the space for real growth, it is critical for the Owner to separate the functions of owning a company and document what is to be done in each area.
There are three areas all companies must develop to be successful (1) Operations, (2) Marketing, and (3) Finance. The CEO is accountable for all of them. But the Director of Marketing role has a very unique duty in self-storage.
Perhaps no part of this industry has changed as much as marketing. When I owned my first facility in 2000, 84% of our new tenants came from the yellow pages. In 2013, when I ran my last yellow pages ad, only 1.2% of our new tenants came from yellow pages. I would have been better off if I had not attracted them because each one cost me $3,200 each.
No part of the business landscape is evolving faster than the marketing side. Each quarter, the percentage of new customers in our facilities coming from “internet” goes up by 3% to 7%. What we were doing a year ago is not relevant to what needs to happen today.
Did you know that Google places more relevance on how many web sites link back to your site than they do on how many people “hit” your site? Well, a Director of Marketing better know it! If you are functioning as a Director of Marketing and you don’t know that, or the million other things relevant to marketing a facility today, fire yourself.
If you don’t know what SEO is, and you are the Marketing Director, fire yourself!
Does your facility website take payments? If not and you are the Marketing Director, fire yourself!
Does your website allow customers to transfer, to make payments, or even something as basic to your business as rent a unit? If not…well by now you know, fire the Director of Marketing.
If you do not have the money to hire a Director of Marketing, hire a vendor to function in that role and report to the CEO, you. There are lots of good companies in our industry that can support you in that role and our Resources page list shares who we use. The SSA and ISS also have many great vendors.
As the Owner, the CEO, it is your responsibility to yourself, your employees, your customers, and if you have them, your investors, to stay relevant in the fast changing business climate today. Having someone who wakes up every day focused on your facility or your company’s facilities and marketing is crucial to that.
Remember, if you are the Director of Marketing, in 9 cases out of 10, fire yourself.
