08 Aug 2019
We’ve all read the articles and heard the stories - REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) are taking over the self storage industry more and more by the day, but do we know the cold hard facts? REITs have been highly regarded as the larger, dominant players in the self storage industry, but could we all bewe might all be missing the forest for the trees here? Market saturation is evaluated on consumer purchasing power, competition, technology, and prices. With customers no longer practicing brand loyalty and technology constantly changing - who is the real MVP? If REITs are taking over the industry, why are mom-and-pop and small operators staying competitive in organic search results, and in some cases even outperforming REITs? The news about REITs taking over the self storage industry is all smoke and mirrors and the facts below speak for themselves, keep reading.
To date, the top five REITs in the industry are Public Storage, Extra Space Storage, Cube Smart, Life Storage, and National Storage Affiliates.
Gone are the days of placing ads in the paper or yellow pages to fill units or to promote your facilities auction. We are now in the digital age and all of the local competition has gone straight to your favorite search engines. According to Statista, Google still maintains over 88.47 percent of the search engine market, making it the most lucrative platform.
We are now operating in a world where small business owners understand the impact of implementing a comprehensive digital marketing plan. According to Clutch, nearly half of small businesses (48%) invest in content marketing for SEO, an increase of 16% from 2018 and the top 5 organic results earn approximately 60% of clicks on a search results page.
Bottom line, personalizing your facilities digital marketing landscape means staying ahead of the big box competitors. There is a place for small facility owners to stay ahead of the competition, and that place is Google, Bing and other search engines. By including SEO strategies, a mobile-friendly website, and content marketing into your plan, this platform provides your facility the opportunity to gain increased visibility and better conversions compared to the REITs.
