Online Marketing Webinar Focuses on Using the Power of the Web to Invest Advertising Dollars Wisely

Launching a website is one of the most powerful marketing tools a self storage professional has to market the business and begin leveraging all the online resources the Web has to offer for storage facility owners.

A free webinar entitled “Measuring the Effectiveness of Your Online Marketing” is being geared toward self storage professionals and scheduled for Dec.1, 2010. The webinar is being hosted by SpareFoot.com co-founder and COO Mario Feghali. During the webinar, Feghali will focus on making informed choices when investing advertising dollars by using analytics to track performance as well as using tools that help measure the effectiveness of marketing efforts.

Topics will include: determining positive or negative ROI, free tools to measure Web site performance, Identifying the factors that drive results, The importance of tracking move-ins, and Tracking phone calls including source of business data.

SpareFoot.com is a free self storage locator site. Faghali started the SpareFoot network from just one site with a few thousand visitors to more than 100 Web sites with about 80,000 visitors per month. He has a background in psychology, statistics and analytics. With this extensive backround, he assists thousands of self storage businesses attain more tenants online. He also frequently writes about free tools that help storage facility owners keep track of their online results and increase traffic to their Web sites.
Learning how to grow and develop a business’s online presence is the driving force behind the workshop. The webinar, a live event,  is part of the ongoing Mini-Storage Messenger Self-Storage Webinar Series, which offers informative webinars every month. They are free to self storage professionals and other interested individuals. For more information or to register, visit www. Ministoragemessenger.com. The event will take place at 2 p.m. EST. 

The upcoming Inside Self-Storage World Expo in Las Vegas, March 14-16 will feature Feghali. His speech is entitled “Free Ways to Get Self-Storage Tenants Online.” He will be teaching attendees how to use well-known online classifieds such as Craigslist and Kijiji, as well as get listed on local business directories. Plans also include going over how to set up local business listings on various search engines like Google and Yahoo. More details on the expo can be found at www. Insideselfstorageworldexpo.com
On-going advances in self storage marketing are taking place on the Internet. The self storage industry uses the Web to promote their business, attract new customers, and acquire tenants at a competitive rate. All facilties should have a website optomized for search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Search-engine optimization (SEO) services can cost an average of $400 a month.

It is recommended that social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedln be used to reach potential customers. These services are usually free. One way to make social media work for you is to have existing customers advertise for you by posting a link to your facility. An incentive to do this could be a discount on one month’s rent. Most social network users have at least 50 friends watching their posts. That is a powerful marketing strategy considering it only took one small posting and one small incentive to set the advertising wheel in motion.

Sources used:

“MiniCo: Sparefoot.com Co-Founder Hosts MiniCo Webinar to Help Self-Storage Businesses Analyze Online Marketing ROI.” My NewsDesk. Nov. 8, 2010.

“SpareFoot’s Feghali Presents Webinar and Seminar About Online Marketing for Self-Storage.”  Inside Self-Storage. Nov.9, 2010.

“Organizing a Comprehensive Ad Campaign for Self-Storage: Incorporating Print, Web and Other Media.” Inside Self-Storage. Nov. 8, 2010.