The First Rule of Thumb and your Marketing Plan

There are 5 rules to help you be a successful self-storage investor. The first rule involves finding properties. There are a lot of self-storage investors and investment companies that buy properties. In other words, sellers have options when it is time to sell. Your job is to make sure that you are at the front of their minds when they think of selling.

If you have a strong marketing campaign, you will have put your name in front of that self-storage owner enough times and built enough of a relationship with them that when their circumstances change and they are ready to sell, they will think of you first.

There are multiple marketing strategies. No one strategy works all the time, but if you implement several marketing strategies all the time, one of the strategies will work. Every seller is unique. They are going to need a unique marketing strategy to catch their attention.

The first thing that you need to do is make a list of all the different ways that you can reach out to self-storage owners. For example, there is direct mail. After you send out direct mail, you can follow up with a phone call. Then you can follow that up with a postcard. If you really hit things off with the seller, are you going to meet for brunch? You might learn a lot.

Now that you have made your list of ways to contact a seller, which ones will you actually do? If there are great ideas on that list that you know you will never even try for one reason or another, cross them off. There is no reason to have something that you will never do on the list.

Direct Mail is a great ice breaker. It is a way to introduce yourself and it is something that you can send out consistently. However, it is very important to make sure that you are sending out the right mailers. If every mailer is I want to buy your self-storage property, they are going to stop opening them and then you are just wasting time and money sending your mailers.

Your first mailer should be an introduction. Tell them who you are. Let them know that if they are ever interested in selling, you are interested in making an offer. After that, you should send beneficial local economic information or self-storage tricks and tips. You can always put a one liner in your mailer that you would love to meet to talk about the possibility of buying their property.

Remind your owners that they may not be interested in selling their property today, but to hang on to your mailer because time and circumstances change. Let them know that when they decide to sell their self-storage property, you will be interested in buying.

When you create your mailer, make sure that you use high quality paper. Triple check it for grammar and spelling errors. No one is going to take you seriously if you have bad spelling errors or bad grammar errors. Use handwritten envelopes to catch the owner’s attention and regular stamps. You want them to open your letters. If your mail looks like spam, it is going to get thrown away without being opened.

Finally, set up a schedule. How often are you going to send out your mailers? You can’t just send something once. If you are going to do that, don’t even bother to start. You need to send a mailing campaign, that means multiple mailers. You want them to remember your name. You want them to remember your name in a positive way not a negative manner. Make sure that you find helpful mailers so that they don’t dread opening them.

You don’t need to reach out monthly, that is too often. Find someone with a strong mailing campaign and ask them how often they send out their mailers. Find out what works really well for them and then ask if you can copy it. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel.

Start reaching out to sellers. Get your name in front of them so that when they are ready to sell, they think of you. Direct mail is a great way to do that. As always, happy investing.