Branding for Your Self Storage Business

One of the basic principles of marketing a company is to develop a good brand. When you think of the most famous companies; McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Nike, etc., what sticks out to consumers is how recognisable each of them is. Anyone is able to invoke an image or feeling corresponding to that brand. Your self storage company doesn’t need to become the industrial giant the aforementioned companies have become, but it is still vitally important to create branding that connects with the consumer. Here are some pointers to push you in the right direction.

Why Is Branding So Important?

It might seem like a useless question, but many don’t fully understand the power of having a great brand. As mentioned before, great brands can evoke feelings or a memory. More importantly, branding shows what’s your company is about. Whether through signage, colour coordination, or even your employees and customer service, your brand is the holistic combination of all these things, all put together and showing to the customer what to expect from your company. Especially now, in an age of contactless transactions and social distancing, your brand and its presence in your online marketing efforts might be the difference in where your customers turn to for their self storage needs.

Assess Your Brand

If you’ve decided you need a re-brand, or are trying to strengthen your current one, there’s a long list of questions you’ll have to ask yourself about what your brand is now, and how you’re going to make it better. These can include, but are definitely not limited to:

• How long have you been using the current brand?

• Is your company name simple and memorable?

• Do you have signature colours? Are they used consistently?

• Are the fonts, designs, and colours outdated?

• Could your messaging be clearer?

• Can your branding be applied easily to your online, social, and physical marketing?

All of these questions allow you to recognise where your brand is lacking currently, but also where it might be strong. Answering them is key in knowing where your brand can improve.

Make the Move

After answering all these questions, where do you go now? You can start by looking up the branding of other self storage companies and seek out what they’re doing well. After that, you can start crafting your new brand, taking into account where it was weak before and incorporating the positive elements of other companies. Have a name that is memorable, which will strengthen your identity, and have a logo design that is eye-catching but not too cluttered. It should be clear what your company offers. The colours you incorporate should be a balance of being attractive and being subtle. Of course, you can outsource certain design choices if it makes it easier. The overall goal is to create a brand that leaves customers with good impressions and memories, which they can pass on when they recommend you to others.

When you’ve made all the design choices, you can then roll it out across all your platforms. Pick a day to make the wholesale switch - update the physical signage you use, your website and social media visuals.

Measure Success

With a rebrand, it’s vital to see the effects, whether positive or negative. The simplest ways to do this are to measure your online traffic and look at the click-through rate on online advertising. It’s also important to let your new branding take hold. While you can certainly start collecting data the day your rebrand happens, it usually takes a couple of months for it to settle in. You can also check how long visitors stay on your site, or how many visitors actually look into or purchase a service. Finally, check your social media numbers. Have engagements and followers increased? All of this will be important in measuring how successful your rebrand was.

Branding is vital to any company. It’s the first point of interaction between your company and the consumer, and the one that leaves the deepest impression if done right. If you feel your company is in need of a refreshed brand, hopefully, this has given you some points to consider as you kickstart the process.

Managing Your Self Storage With Storeganise

Leverage tools such as Google Analytics to track customer data on your site and customer app. Storeganise offers various integrations with its customer booking portal which can help you determine where customers are coming from and how they are converting.

If you’d like to learn more, feel free to book a demo or ask us a question in the chatbot.

Related Article: How to Increase the Conversion Rate in Your Self Storage Business