Technology Trends Influencing the Self Storage Industry

Transcription

1 Technology Trends Influencing the Self Storage Industry Presented by Bob Holden Co-Founder & CEO Boot Studios.com #tssa13 cell:

2 The technology trends I m going to discuss with you The proliferation of smart phones is driving two trends: #1 Responsive Web Design #2 - Convergence of Local/Mobile/Commerce #3 - Smart Businesses are buying ads on Social Media to acquire new customers #4 - Cloud based CRM system popularity with small businesses is continuing to grow

3 Quick facts about Smart Phone adoption* *Data Sourced from Pew Research Center Spring Tracking Survey

4 Mobile Internet Usage has driven trend #1 Responsive Web Design Mashable called 2013 The Year of Responsive Design Forbes magazine wrote an article in the March 26, 2013 issue called Why You Need to Prioritize Responsive Design Right Now But what is Responsive Web Design? It is an approach that allows websites to be viewed optimally on any device regardless of size Your website s elements can resize, move around and change depending on whether a user is looking at your site on a mobile phone, tablet, laptop or desktop The question is why should you care?

5 A poor mobile experience could mean a lost customer lead

6 a Responsive Design Experience

7 How to implement Responsive Web Design Leverage Platforms vs. Custom Coding Well known platforms (Wordpress, Square Space, etc.) support Responsive Web Designs Costs to implement are significantly less w/platforms vs. custom coding Implementation time is much faster (weeks vs. months) Design Firms Can Add Customization to Your Site Companies like Boot Studios take standard templates and customize them to your tastes Design firms can also build sites from the ground up & add unique features But customization isn t cheap and takes time

8 Having a Responsive Website isn t enough though Local Apps / Aggregator Services drive traffic to small businesses Now a fundamental part of a small business s marketing mix Their focus: Consumer Discovery & Community Enthusiast Building Traditional Business Model: Onsite advertising and Pay Per Lead Used on 10.4M mobile devices in Q2 13 Consumer gets directions to a local biz on their mobile app every second

9 Trend #2 - Local services integrating commerce into sites Example: Yelp s introduced a direct booking platform in certain categories this summer

10 Google Maps & Foursquare have integrated Ads into apps Opportunity be one of first adopters of this trend when it rolls out to self storage!

11 Trend #3 Small businesses leveraging Facebook Many small businesses have set up business pages on Facebook Facebook ad revenue is up 61% YoY Avg. week 645 Million views & 13 Million comments on Facebook local biz. pages Recently launched Facebook for business (

12 Thoughts on this trend 1. It s free to set up a business page on fb no downside here other than your time invested 2. fb has 1.15 Billion monthly users 4x the size of the United States you can t ignore it 3. Small businesses still trying to figure out how to translate Likes to Dollars Big companies are trying to figure this out as well you re not alone An important way for businesses to connect to your consumers 4. Remember the 2 V s - Vanity & Virality that s what fb is all about! People look at pictures on fb the top activity! Consider capturing consumer testimonials & post on fb people could pass it along

13 Remember fb is huge, but you can hyper-target your ads Set up a Facebook business page and use Advanced Options under promote a page to target your ads 1. Figure out your goal building audience, promoting a specific event/post 2. Figure out who you want to market to you can be specific here! 3. Test, Test, Test & Ask your consumers how they ve heard about you

14 Facebook advertising interface

15 Background on CRM Systems What is CRM? Stands for Customer Resource Management CRM systems enable businesses to store information about: Store Customers Prospective Contacts Sales Leads and Opportunities Historically, CRM systems were enterprise software implementations & focused on the sales organization Aimed at communicating across the enterprise to multiple functions Also highly Business to Business focused Systems were difficult to implement, required a lot of equipment and were expensive Things are different now with the migration of CRM systems to The Cloud

16 What s Trend #3 Cloud Based CRM mean? It means that the CRM software runs on the web not on your desktop The benefits and opportunities for your business: 1. Manage, track & profile your current and prospective tenants get insights into your customers 2. Cloud CRM systems (also known as Software as a Service CRM or SaaS CRM) are cheap For example salesforce.com offers sales cloud for as little as $25/user/month 3. Cloud based means you can access the data anywhere & anytime via the web Easily share the same consumer information at each of your business locations 4. You don t have to worry about upgrading the software it s done in the cloud 5. Because it s in the cloud, many CRM systems integrate multiple online business activities into one system

17 Popular Cloud CRM systems Most CRM systems integrate online & marketing campaigns into their systems all your tenants at once and track open & click rates Some systems have online chat features for your website and can also tie into your customer support phone systems Many of these systems have now integrated Social Listening into their products Scan the social network activity of contacts in the system for triggers that you set up and alert you to consumer reengagement opportunities Simple example Identifying contacts birthdays and notifying you before it occurs Remember there is no one size fits all approach

18 Thank You! Bob Holden cell: