Southeast Management Co., a third-party management and consulting company and owner of self-storage facilities in the southeastern United States, held its third annual team-member retreat in Florence, S.C., on Feb. 21-22. The event included a social get-together on the first day, followed by team-building meetings on day two.

The retreat’s theme was “Listen 2014.” The featured speaker assisted team members with ways to expand the company’s culture and style to better recognize the customer’s storage experience, company representatives said in a press release. Southeast Management is in the process of implementing new procedures and policies to enhance its customers’ experience, according to the press release.

Awards were given at the close of the event, honoring individual team members for significant achievements in performance during 2013.

Based in Virginia, Southeast Management also has a regional office in North Carolina. The company manages and owns self-storage facilities in Florida, North and South Carolina, and Virginia.

By Tim Schlee

If social media marketing has become a necessity for any self-storage business, then so has Facebook marketing. With millions of users just a click away from your site, Facebook is an incredibly powerful tool. However, if you want to invest the time, energy and money into Facebook marketing, you need to do it the right way.

Facebook offers many options though which all kinds of marketing strategies can flourish, but it also has been flooded by so many businesses advertising their products that it’s easy to be drowned out by bigger, louder voices. Here's a brief rundown of some of the tools and strategies that will make your Facebook page a central hub of your self-storage facility’s marketing platform.

Brand Your Page

Let’s start with the most basic: Make sure you create a business page and not a personal profile. Facebook does not allow businesses to advertise through personal profiles. Hopefully, this seems obvious to you, but if you’re one of the millions of currently Facebook-less Americans, it might be advice worth hearing. You don’t want to penalize yourself right from the start by making such an easy mistake.

Once your page is created, it needs to be branded. A generic page is boring. No one wants to look at it, so no one will return, like it or listen to anything you have to say. Facebook allows a lot of flexibility with its pages. You can manipulate the tabs that already exist or create new ones better suited to your needs. Upload lots of pictures and add a particularly eye-catching image as your profile photo. A storage facility in particular will benefit from the image-addicted Facebook readership because you now have the opportunity to show all your visitors how wonderful your property is.

Another easy mistake to make is providing too little information. Fill out everything. And if you create new tabs, fill them with unique content. The more information you have on Facebook, the more personal you will seem to visitors.

Participate

Social media is useless without your participation. Post frequently with engaging photos, questions or other appropriate discussion topics (for example, current events). This will attract people to “like” your page, which in turn will introduce your brand to all the people who visit their profiles.

Facebook studies have shown its users are more likely to buy from brands in which they’re already engaged. The website can also be useful for finding other businesses. Networking with a local moving company, for example, could begin by simply liking their Facebook page.

Use Open Graph

This is a tool that allows you to control title tags, meta tags and other important information on your website to manage how it appears when shared on Facebook. Without manipulating any of the tags in Open Graph, you’ll probably have no picture next to your URL and possibly no content beyond the bare link.

Once you’ve used Open Graph, however, you can set a picture to appear beside any link that someone posts on Facebook and engineer a catchy meta description that helps draw and maintain the reader’s interest. A detailed description of how to use Open Graph is beyond the scope of this article, but there are resources available online.

Advertise

While a polished main page, engaging discussions and refined use of tags are invaluable to maintaining and increasing your Facebook fan base, they won’t do much if you don’t have any fans in the beginning. This is where paid advertisements can become so important, although they can always be useful regardless of how large your fan base is already.

Facebook has a few different types of advertising. The first and most obvious is its paid ads that appear either on the sidebar or in a user’s news feed. There are also promoted posts that appear like any other post in a person’s news feed but can be “bumped” to the top and a wider population than your ordinary posts would reach. Sponsored stories, similar to promoted posts but used to “bump” actions rather than posts, are ending in April and so won’t be addressed in depth here.

Paid Ads

These are generally cheaper than pay-per-click ads that you might place elsewhere, and they can reach a wide range of people. Facebook allows you to make various specifications for the target demographic—age, location, interests, etc., which determine the reach of your advertisement. This is a very useful tool because targeting more general audiences will cost more and can be a lot less effective. An ad designed to pique the interest of a student, for instance, will be a lot different from one targeting businesses in need of office storage.

Always be aware of Facebook’s size limitations. Create ads that work well in the space available, with a picture that doesn’t need to be full-screen to make sense. Try to include a call to action or a question, something that will keep the reader engaged beyond the text on the page. After that, there's a lot of freedom for exploration. Test various ads to see what works best for each demographic that you target and change your tactics accordingly. There's a lot to consider, so figure out what works best for your business.

Promoted Posts

Promoted posts are cheaper than paid ads, but they’re also limited to fans and friends of fans. As such, they’re great for promotions, events and other news that might be of interest to people who are already aware of your existence. While you might not get droves of new customers from promoted posts, they can definitely help solidify your Facebook presence and increase interaction with your online fan base.

Have a Goal

As with any type of marketing, have specific goals in mind before beginning a Facebook ad campaign. Do you want to draw more fans? Are you looking to send more users to your external website, whether or not they’ve “liked” your Facebook page? Whatever your intent, make it specific and measurable so you can determine the success of the campaign. If you don’t have a quantifiable goal, you’ll never know whether your Facebook page is helping your business or hurting it through wasted resources.

A good way to follow up on your success is through Google Analytics. Facebook itself does not reveal a lot about ad effectiveness, but there are external tools and conversion trackers that will allow you to access this very important information.

These are some of the primary tools at your disposal when trying to market your storage facility on Facebook. It is not an exhaustive list, but a solid foundation on which the inexperienced Facebook marketer can build. Don’t let other businesses drown you out of the discussion. Be smart and intentional with your marketing, and Facebook will reveal itself to be an invaluable resource for lead generation and customer relations.

Tim Schlee is a Kansas City native who studied English and linguistics at Truman State University. He is a content writer for StoreageAhead, which offers Web-marketing technology for the self-storage industry, including lead-generating search engines and facility management software. For more information, call 913.954.4110; visit www.storageahead.com.

Self Storage Group Inc. (SSG), an investment-management company with interests in self-storage, declared a quarterly dividend distribution of $0.065 per share payable on March 31 to shareholders of record as of March 17, 2014. SSG also announced that its audited net asset value (NAV) per share was $4.58 as of Dec. 31, 2013.

The company indicated it will publish its unaudited NAV at the end of each calendar quarter as part of its decision to qualify as a real estate investment trust (REIT) for federal tax purposes. At the end of last year, SSG announced its intent to change from an investment company to an operating company that “owns, operates, manages, acquires, develops and redevelops professionally managed self-storage facilities.”

SSG released 2013 financial results and self-storage operating performance figures in its annual report, which can be downloaded from the company website.

The company previously operated as Global Income Fund. SSG owns seven self-storage properties under the Global Self Storage brand in Illinois, Indiana, New York, Pennsylvania and South Carolina through its wholly owned subsidiaries. Those assets comprise more than 80 percent of its net assets, company officials said in a press release. As part of its new business plan, SSG also has invested in REITs, including Extra Space Storage Inc., Public Storage Inc. and Sovran Self Storage Inc.

SSG is a non-diversified, closed-end, investment-management firm whose common stock is traded over the counter under the ticker symbol “SELF.” The primary investment objective of the company has been to provide a high level of income, with capital appreciation as a secondary objective.

Update 3/10/14 - Zeke, the 4-month-old yellow Labrador retriever reported missing last week by the owners of Eagle’s Nest Self Storage in Lincoln, Neb., has been returned home. He was dropped off at a business in Omaha, Neb., but a television viewer who had seen a local news report about the dog helped get Zeke back to his owners, according to a report by KLKN-TV.

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3/7/14 - This week the four-month-old yellow Labrador retriever belonging to the owners of Eagle’s Nest Self Storage in Lincoln, Neb., was taken from the property by the driver of an unidentified vehicle. Video-surveillance footage from the facility shows that Zeke made his way to the front of the 3-acre property at 3700 Adams St., where a man pulled into the parking lot and coaxed the dog  into his car. The story was aired on a local news report from KLKN-TV.

Owner Donna Reis feared Zeke had runaway or been hit by a car until reviewing the video footage. The man in question had brown hair and a red T-shirt, and drove what appears to be a two-door, black BMW. Video did not pick up the car’s license plate.

It is not clear from the footage if the dog was stolen or the man was being a good Samaritan. Zeke was walking close to the street without wearing identification because he had recently outgrown his collar, according to Reis.

"We live here, it's a business,” Reis said. “You know the dog was well taken care of, so you know it's got to be somebody's pet."

The family has called police, posted an ad in the newspaper and checked area animal shelters.

The KLKN report includes several pictures of Zeke and the video footage. Anyone with information regarding the dog’s whereabouts is encouraged to call the storage facility at 402.432.0301.

Eagle’s Nest Self Storage also operates a boat/RV storage facility in Lincoln.

Phoenix-based AMERCO Real Estate Co., the development and acquisitions entity for The U-Haul Co., recently purchased the two-facility self-storage portfolio of AAA Safe Storage & Mini Mart in Kingman, Ariz., for $3.4 million. The facilities, 4011 Stockton Hill Road and 3179 Harrison St., encompass 100,600 rentable square feet and 659 drive-up units. The properties also include two retail buildings that previously operated as convenience stores.

In addition, AMERCO purchased an adjacent tract of land at the Stockton Hill location with plans to expand, according to a press release.

The seller, a family trust, was represented by Jeff Gorden of Eagle Commercial Realty Services. Gorden is the Arizona broker affiliate for the Argus Self Storage Sales Network, a Denver-based network of real estate brokers who specialize in storage properties. Formed in 1994, the company has 36 broker affiliates covering nearly 40 markets.

AMERCO Real Estate is owned by AMERCO, which also owns U-Haul International Inc., Oxford Life Insurance Co. and Repwest Insurance Co. The company acquires existing buildings for conversion to self-storage, existing self-storage facilities and bare land. It also sells its surplus properties, provides feasibility and market studies nationwide, and leases office, commercial and industrial space, including land for billboards and cellular phone towers.

Established in 1945, U-Haul has 36 million square feet of storage space at more than 1,000 owned and managed facilities throughout North America.

Strategic Storage Trust Inc., a publicly registered non-traded self-storage real estate investment trust, recently purchased AAAA Self Storage Big Bethel in Hampton, Va., for $6.7 million. The purchase is the company’s second in this market. In 2011, it bought a two-story, 70,175-square-foot facility at 815 Lasalle Ave., also in Hampton. Both facilities are near Norfolk Naval Base.

The newest acquisition, 1343 Big Bethel Road, was built in 2007. The single-story, four-building facility encompasses 71,500 rentable square feet in 500 units. It was previously managed by AAAA Self Storage Management Group (The Nicholson Cos.). It will be rebranded as SmartStop Self Storage.

“We acquired this facility for its newer construction and due to the growing military market in Hampton,” said H. Michael Schwartz, chairman and CEO. “This acquisition is a perfect complement to our other multi-story self-storage building five miles away.”

Strategic Storage Trust’s Virginia portfolio includes roughly 415,000 square feet of storage and 3,800 units. In addition to the two locations in Hampton, the company operates facilities in Chantilly, Fredericksburg, Manassas and Sandston.

The seller was represented by Stuart Wade, director of business development for The Nicholson Cos. and the Maryland/Virginia broker affiliate for the for the Argus Self Storage Sales Network, a Denver-based network of real estate brokers who specialize in storage properties. Formed in 1994, the company has 36 broker affiliates covering nearly 40 markets.

Founded in 1972 in Norfolk, Va., AAAA Self Storage Management owns or manages more than 45 facilities in the Southeast. The company’s services include staff training and evaluation, facility audits, consulting, facility startups, due-diligence inspections and valuations, brokerage, marketing, and more.

Launched in 2008, Strategic Storage Trust’s portfolio of wholly-owned properties includes 122 properties in 17 states and Canada. The portfolio includes approximately 77,000 self-storage units and 10.2 million rentable square feet of storage space.

Strategic Storage Trust Inc., a publicly registered non-traded self-storage real estate investment trust, recently purchased AAAA Self Storage Big Bethel in Hampton, Va., for $6.7 million. The purchase is the company’s second in this market. In 2011, it bought a two-story, 70,175-square-foot facility at 815 Lasalle Ave., also in Hampton. Both facilities are near Norfolk Naval Base.

The newest acquisition, 1343 Big Bethel Road, was built in 2007. The single-story, four-building facility encompasses 71,500 rentable square feet in 500 units. It was previously managed by AAAA Self Storage Management Group (The Nicholson Cos.). It will be rebranded as SmartStop Self Storage.

“We acquired this facility for its newer construction and due to the growing military market in Hampton,” said H. Michael Schwartz, chairman and CEO. “This acquisition is a perfect complement to our other multi-story self-storage building five miles away.”

Strategic Storage Trust’s Virginia portfolio includes roughly 415,000 square feet of storage and 3,800 units. In addition to the two locations in Hampton, the company operates facilities in Chantilly, Fredericksburg, Manassas and Sandston.

The seller was represented by Stuart Wade, director of business development for The Nicholson Cos. and the Maryland/Virginia broker affiliate for the for the Argus Self Storage Sales Network, a Denver-based network of real estate brokers who specialize in storage properties. Formed in 1994, the company has 36 broker affiliates covering nearly 40 markets.

Founded in 1972 in Norfolk, Va., AAAA Self Storage Management owns or manages more than 45 facilities in the Southeast. The company’s services include staff training and evaluation, facility audits, consulting, facility startups, due-diligence inspections and valuations, brokerage, marketing, and more.

Launched in 2008, Strategic Storage Trust’s portfolio of wholly-owned properties includes 122 properties in 17 states and Canada. The portfolio includes approximately 77,000 self-storage units and 10.2 million rentable square feet of storage space.

Marketing your self-storage facility in 2014 and beyond will be a different experience than in the past. Why? Because our potential customers are suffering from attention deficient disorder!

Every morning I wake up and check my smartphone. First, I go through my e-mail. I have multiple accounts, each full of “buy now” messages. After that, I review my social media sites. Again I’m bombarded with advertisements and video. Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Instagram are all trying to sell me something. Next I read online news, and there are advertisements everywhere. If I watch TV at night, I'm exposed to commercials there, too.

In the 12 to18 hours that I'm awake, I'm exposed to thousands of marketing pieces. This isn’t even including the material I see while I’m driving around my local area. Knowing this is what our potential customers also face, how do we reach our targeted audience and avoid getting lost in the "noise"? Let’s look at a few options.

Social Media

Social media today is where Google search was about seven years ago. Internet marketing is becoming more difficult. It used to be all we wanted was to appear on the first page of organic listings. In 2014, where does Web traffic really come from? Did your customers find you in a Google search or a pay-per-click advertisement? Did they find you on Google Places for Business? What search terms did they use? Did they search from a mobile phone or tablet? Did they find you on Yelp? Was the search influenced by location rather than keywords?

These days, customers find information in many ways. The options are limitless. If you already have a steady Web-marketing platform, try working on social media for your self-storage facility. At the very least, claim your facility’s Facebook page. Facebook, and other social media platforms, are free to use. The only thing they require is your time.

You want as many people following your Facebook page as possible. The idea is to “touch” people as often as you can without being irritating. No one wants to see “5-by-10s for $39” in their social media feed every other day.

Instead, post content that’s useful and interesting to your customers. Consider remarkable local stories, do-it-yourself projects, or funny jokes and pictures. Add one sales post for every three non-sales posts. Put some work in getting your existing customers to interact with your page and leave reviews or ratings.

In addition, consider running some social media contests to create interest in your page. Giving away a gift card can go a long way with your customers. Operators interested in upping their social media activity should read this great book, “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World,” by Gary Vaynerchuk.

Direct Mail

This is one of those marketing items for which everyone lets out a big sigh of boredom. Normally I hear, “I tried direct mail once. I didn’t get anything,” or “Direct mail is boring. No one reads it,” or “Everything is on the Internet now.” If that’s the case, why do you get so much direct mail during the election season? How many direct-mail pieces have you received from Visa or American Express over the last 12 months?

Remember, our goal is to touch our potential customers as often as we can. It’s very hard to ignore the mail. Yes, you can throw it away, but you have to at least scan it before it goes in the trash. So let’s think of ways to get people to review your direct mail.

First, consider the format. Your marketing cannot be boring. You don’t have to send a white envelope with a one-page letter composed of boring font. Try using multi-colored envelopes, handwritten names and addresses, and unique stamps. You can even have a direct-mail company transfer your letter into a hand-writing font. You can also purchase a mailing list for a reasonable price from a number of companies.

Consider sending to the same list multiple times per year. The head of a marketing company recently told me it takes up to five mailings to get a customer to respond. Direct mail is a marathon, not a sprint. If your facility has a tight marketing budget, try completing as many of these items in-house as possible.

E-Newsletters

Electronic newsletters, or e-newsletters, are another item you can use to "touch" your customers on a regular basis. But remember: Your customers don't want to read about self-storage. As with your social media, find some local stories or other items of interest. Of course, you also want to make your sales pitch. Maybe you have a special on packing supplies or you want to remind people about your referral program. Let customers know they can make payments online or follow you on social media. There are companies that can create these newsletters for you, or if you have time and gumption, you can do it yourself.

In a recent article, Darren Hardy, publisher and founding director of "Success" magazine, wrote, “By the age of 66, most of us will have seen about 2 million TV commercials. It’s like watching eight hours of advertising, seven days a week, for six consecutive years.” If your marketing is not interesting and worth reading, it will be ignored. The great thing about self-storage is if a potential customer is speaking with us, they need our product.

Our audience is fighting a barrage of marketing messages. Self-storage operators are battling increasing competition. Welcome to the new era of marketing. It’s a full contact sport. By touching your audience via social media, direct mail and newsletters, you have a better chance of winning.

Matthew Van Horn is vice president of Cutting Edge Self-Storage Management & Consulting, a full-service management company specializing in feasibility studies, consulting and joint ventures within the storage industry. He’s also president of 3 Mile Domination, a full-service self-storage marketing and strategy company. For more information, e-mail [email protected]. Visit www.3miledomination.com to download the free e-book, “3 Mile Domination.”

G5, a provider of Digital Experience Management (DXM) software and various marketing services for the self-storage industry, has released Customizable BluePrints as part of its G5 One Responsive Design Websites suite of products. The new offering enables storage operators to create a single Web design and URL that are designed to work effectively across a variety of computer and mobile devices.

The product uses “fluid and responsive” design to adapt to different screen sizes and types of devices, including common gesture and swipe-navigation features used on tablets, smartphones and other touch screens, company officials said in a press release.

Customizable BluePrints uses modular content to render across devices and is designed to “innovate” with the changing algorithms of search engines to maximize search engine optimization, officials said.

“This initiative is another example of our commitment to our self-storage clients,” said Dan Hobin, co-founder and CEO. “We’re enabling them to provide the very best digital experience for their customers, regardless of device and regardless of customer lifecycle stage. Prospects and tenants expect the delivery of exactly the information that they want, when they want it and on whatever device they’re using in the moment.”

Other products in the G5 One Responsive Design Websites suite include Design Collections and Custom Design.

Founded in 2005 and based in Bend, Ore., G5 was recently named one of the fastest growing private U.S. companies by “Inc.” magazine for the third consecutive year. It has also been named one of North America’s fastest growing technology companies by Deloitte for four straight years and one of Oregon’s fastest growing private companies for the past three years. G5 is backed by private equity investor Volition Capital.

The William Warren Group (WWG), a privately held real estate company that operates the StorQuest Self Storage brand, has entered the Texas self-storage market with the acquisition of three facilities in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and one in El Paso. The properties add 206,806 square feet of storage and more than 1,400 units to the company’s portfolio, which now includes 102 locations.

“Expanding the StorQuest Self Storage brand into Texas is another step toward achieving our ultimate goal of having a dominant storage platform,” said Bill Hobin, president and CEO. “These assets provide a tremendous value-added opportunity and an ability to capitalize on the continued economic growth of Texas.”

The properties are:

• DFW Self Storage Denton, 10333 Denton Drive, Dallas—The two-story facility encompasses 49,265 rentable square feet and 256 units, as well as six office suites and 10 parking spaces.
• DFW Self Storage Normandale, 9250 Normandale, Dallas­—Encompassing 44,820 rental square feet, the single-story facility has 392 units and 1,800 square feet of RV storage. It’s in the Western Hills community of Fort Worth.
• DFW Self Storage Shady Trail, 10317 Shady Trail, Dallas—The facility encompasses 49,881 rentable square feet with 334 units. It’s two miles northwest of Dallas Love Field in North Dallas.
• Trevino Self Storage, 10966 Montwood Drive, El Paso—The single-story building includes 61,040 rentable square feet, 378 units and 31 RV parking spaces.

Founded in 1994 and based in Santa Monica, Calif., WWG is a privately held real estate company that develops, acquires and operates self-storage facilities in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, South Carolina and Texas.

The professional cycling team sponsored by SmartStop Self Storage, the retail brand for Strategic Storage Trust Inc., has named its roster for the 2014 season and a new team director, Michael Creed. Team SmartStop Pro Cycling completed its transition from a criterium-focused team to a stage-race program. It will now compete in races on the USA Cycling National Racing calendar and major North American Union Cycliste Internationale stage races, according to a press release. The 2014 team includes:

• Zach Bell, Canada
• Michael Torckler, New Zealand
• Travis McCabe, United States
• Eric Marcotte, United States
• Rob Britton, Canada
• Julian Kyer, United States
• Flavio De Luna, Mexico
• Cameron Cogburn, United States
• Kristofer Dahl, Canada
• Shane Kline, United States
• Travis Livermon, United States
• Jure Kocjan, Slovenia
• Joshua Berry, United States
• Adam Myerson, United States
• Shane Haga, United States

The team has already completed its first race of the year. Britton placed second on the overall general classification at February’s Vuelta Independencia Nacional race. After eight days of competition, Team SmartStop earned half a dozen podiums including three stage wins, two second places and top tens on each stage raced. Kocjan, who won two stages, also finished third in the points classification, and the team finished third overall in the team classification.

Creed, who made his debut as team director at September’s Tour of Alberta, is a decorated amateur rider. He began his pro career in 2000 with 7Up-Colorado Cyclist before moving on to Prime Alliance, U.S. Postal Service, Discovery Channel, Slipstream, Rock Racing, Team Type 1 and finally Optum-Kelly Benefit Strategies, where he rode from 2011 until he retired this year.

“We are excited about the new direction for the 2014 season and are extremely proud of all our past and future riders,” said H. Michael Schwartz, chairman and CEO of Strategic Storage Trust, a publicly registered, non-traded real estate investment trust. “The 2014 team represents our philanthropic desire to keep our communities healthy and promote an active lifestyle. Cycling also demonstrates teamwork, which incorporates skill and camaraderie similar to the business principles that are practiced every day by our own SmartStop Self Storage corporate team.”

This year’s roster includes several notable riders. Bell is the Canadian National Road Champion, Torckler is the winner of the 2013 Tour of Utah KOM Competition, and McCabe is the Elite National Criterium Champion. De Luna, Kline, Livermon, Marcotte and Myerson were 2013 SmartStop team members. The team also recently secured two new sponsors, Mercury Wheels and Giro Helmets.

“It took a lot of dedication and hard work to get to The Tour of Alberta,” said Jamie Bennett, team owner. “This experience was not only rewarding but a validation that we are ready for the next step.”

Launched in 2008, Strategic Storage Trust’s portfolio of wholly-owned properties includes 122 properties in 17 states and Canada. The portfolio includes approximately 77,000 self-storage units and 10.2 million rentable square feet of storage space.

Team SmartStop’s Rob Britton (first row on the right)
placed second on the overall general classification
at February’s Vuelta Independencia Nacional race.