About 6 weeks ago Poppy Behrens, the editor of the Ministorage Messenger, asked me to write an article about how self storage marketing professionals can use testimonials and reviews to help sell more self storage spaces.
This got me to thinking. If testimonials and reviews are a proven way to persuade people to buy what you are selling, and if they are easy to get, then why aren’t more operators getting and using them?
My guess that you are falling short in one of four areas.
- You are not worthy.
- You are not asking.
- You are not making it easy for the person giving the review.
- You don’t have a system for collecting and leveraging them.
Today we touch on step one, being worthy.
Worthy = Surprising + Good
People don’t give you credit for meeting their expectations. Meeting expectations is, well, expected. It is invisible. No one talks about mediocre. No one is excited to recommend boring.
What can you do that is worth recommending?
- One of my employees decided she was going to put a hand-written thank you note and two bottles of water into the cab of the rental truck that we loan out for free to new move-ins. Since the truck is being used without charge, our customers are always pleasantly surprised.
- We started sending a follow up email or phone call to every new move in, double checking that everything was to their satisfaction. When was the last time a company did that for you after a purchase?
- At one of our locations we do a series of free outdoor movies each summer on a giant inflatable screen. This landed us on prime time news and gave hundreds of families a first-hand experience at our facility.
I’m sure you can come up with better ideas than these.
The Marketing Benefit and The Sales Benefit
As online shopping grows, so does the value of online reviews on sites like www.Yelp.com, http://local.yahoo.com, and www.citysearch.com.
Having a heap of positive reviews helps people decide to call you (the marketing benefit).
They also make people primed and ready to believe you and trust you when you are talking with them on the phone or in person (the sales benefit).
Both benefits are waiting for you. You just need to be worthy.
P.S. The article I mentioned above will be published in May 2010