How Do I Grow My Self-Storage Empire Through Marketing? DIRECT MAIL

When you are in the self-storage business, you have to be proactive about finding people who own self-storage. Sometimes people don’t know that they are in the market to sell, until you ask them. Direct mail is a great way to reach out to owners. Some owners will realize that they are ready to sell when they get your letter while other owners will need be reached out to again over time. The key to direct mail is to make sure that when an owner is ready to sell, the first person they think of is you.

Many people will tell you that direct marketing is expensive and that it doesn’t really pay for itself. However, this is where most of our deals come from. We send out handwritten, hand stamped, number 10 envelopes to each owner. There are two things that make out direct mail campaign successful. We have a system set up for sending out mailers consistently to self-storage property owners. Second, we make sure that we answer every single call that we get from our letters.

You need to put together a marketing letter that is great. We have one that is battle tested that we have had for years. We get a 6%-8% conversion rate with this letter. You want your letter to let a self-storage owner know that you are a serious investor who is interested in their facility. Let them know that you have done your homework on their facility. Let them know that you really want their facility. However, no matter what you say, you need to handwrite the letter.

When you are new to the business and have a lot of time on your hands, you might be able to spend time writing the letters yourself. But, once you are busy, you are going to need to hire people to write your letters for you. There are many services that specialize in handwriting and mailing letters for investors. Have them write the letter and mail it for you. Automate the process by having the service handle everything. You simply give them the letter template and the addresses that you want them to send it to and the frequency that you want your letters sent.

You may have people on different mailing campaigns initially, but in the long run, after a year, they are all going to receive the same mailer. If you find someone who is an expired listing, you may send the first 4-5 letters to them that are targeted directly to an expired listing. Those letters are going to be different from the first 2-3 letters that you send to a self-storage property that is just something you drove by. It does not really matter how a property ends up in your funnel, you just want to make sure that it gets there so that when the seller decides to sell their self-storage facility, you will be the person they think of.

After you have sent out your first letter, follow up to make sure that they got it. Have a quick conversation. They may have a few questions about you and your busines model. Start building a relationship so that they remember you when your next mailer arrives. You want to continue to send out letters until they ask you to stop sending them mailers or they sell you their property. As always, happy investing.