We all know self storage facilities have advertising budgets, but it is fun to imagine right?
What would you spend your money on if you didn’t have to stick to an advertising budget? Of course, we know you’d spend the normal money’s on great sites like www.usstoragesearch.com or other normal advertising areas (newspaper, yellow pages(maybe), college campus flyers, door hangers etc, but what would you do if you had unlimited funds to do anything & everything you wanted to advertise for your storage units?
I went out searching and found all kinds of fun unique areas where you can advertise your self storage facilities. Some of these may actually fall into your budget now and as long as the ROI is positive, why not?
1. Flyers on windshields – lots of leg work, but cheap – possibly effective if done in the right areas.
2. Paid Word of Mouth – There are actually businesses that will pay people to go to the malls, grocery stores, public areas and just mention to people how great of a storage facility or business you are.
3. T-Shirts – I’ve seen people at self storage trade shows wearing all kinds of branded t-shirts! I’ve even seen people wearing a t-shirt with a giant QR barcode – these you can scan in your mobile phone and it will take you to a website or unlock a video of a facility.
4. Hand Stamps – one of the more creative ones on the list. Think about going out and seeing a local band at an establishment in town. Most times they stamp your hand after paying a cover. What a great opportunity to put your brand on a whole lot of people at one event. Partner with the business/establishment doing the stamping (you may even give them the stamper for free) and every single person visiting that event will be your own personal billboard. Sure it’ll wash off, but the effect may gain you a tenant or two?
5. Publicity Stunt – Get someone to do something very cool or unique (while being sponsored by you) and make sure it’s an event that makes headlines. Older article, but some neat ideas big companies have tried – http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/marketingideas/article159484.html
6. Movie Theatres – if you’re like me you like to get to the movies early enough to get a good seat (and popcorn). The advertisements in movie theatres can be bought and reach a lot of people for sometimes very low costs.
7. Super Bowl – How cool would it be to run an ad on the super bowl. For the local single operators it may not return much of the investment, but for the national big brand, a $2.5 – 3 million dollar ad may return a positive investment. There’s a reason big business keeps paying the high cost of a Super Bowl ad, how awesome would it be to see some storage companies doing some?
