SSA Blog

You’ve seen them on the evening news or in your local newspaper — usually with images of a car that’s gone through the front windows of a convenience store, restaurant or other business. These crashes happen plenty to self storage facilities, too. Bollards can protect people as well as property.

New York recently passed a comprehensive overhaul of its data security and breach notification requirements called the Stop Hacks and Improve Electronic Data Security Act (the SHIELD Act).

When prospective tenants drive by your facility what message does it convey to them? When they visit your website what do the colors and images tell them about your company? When people hear your company name or see your logo what do they think?

A website is no longer just a placeholder for your storage facility on the internet, it’s an integral part of how you communicate to potential customers what you offer – and if you’re doing a lousy job, you could be saying that they should go elsewhere.

Websites play a crucial role in attracting and retaining self-storage customers. But even though your website is aesthetically appealing, it may not get the results you expected. Why? Because an effective self-storage website has to focus on the needs of its users (i.e., customers).

It used to be a pretty straightforward process for customers to find a self-storage facility. They’d either pop into the facility that they passed on the way to work every day, or they would crack open the Yellow Pages, call a few places, and book a unit based on a quick price.

Most of us are familiar with The Four D’s, the long-running mnemonic device that explains the drivers of self-storage demand. For those unfamiliar, The Four D’s are death, divorce, dislocation…