ave you ever seen a storage billboard and wondered if it’s a viable self-storage marketing strategy? Will your ad get you more renters?

We have good news: Billboards can serve your marketing campaign when used correctly.

What’s the best way to use a billboard? We’ll outline the most effective ways to see returns on your local marketing investment, including what to put on your billboard ad and best practices for choosing a location.

Like with any marketing campaign, you want to make an informed decision before you sink money into it. And while billboard advertising campaigns make waves in nationwide markets, it’s important to remember that our numbers are different.

Self-storage is a needs-based industry, so we’re not likely to see the 5:1 ROI that some sources claim in other markets.

Instead, we’ll need to think more in line with our industry. Let’s start with the cost.

A more competitive city features more expensive billboards. Do you want it laminated to prevent vandalism? That’s more expensive. Digital billboards generally cost more than physical ones, too. And having your billboard illuminated for better visibility’s another premium.

We’ll give you some general numbers, but remember that the price will vary depending on your city.

• Rural areas can run somewhere around $600 to $800 a month.
• Medium population towns run around $1,200 a month.
• A digital billboard in a medium population town can be somewhere around $1,750 a month.
• A high-population city can cost around $4,900, though we saw one example in Austin, Texas, that cost $9,200 a month!

That doesn’t stop us from calculating what we can. Let’s look at this in terms of renters.

Use this simple formula to determine ROI for your self-storage billboard campaign: cost of the billboard per month divided by your average rent per month (cost/average rent) equals the number of renters.

Here’s how it works. Let’s say you’re in a rural area and you’re spending $600 per month on a billboard. You charge around $200 a month per rent. So with 600 divided by 200, we get three. That’s three renters needed to break even. Three renters gives you a 1:1 ROI. With that baseline established, you know that every three renters increases your ROI by one more. For six renters, that’s a 2:1 ROI. Nine renters is 3:1.

This changes, of course, based on what you’re spending and what you charge. If you’re only getting $200 a month from renters in a huge city, and you’re spending $4,900 a month on a billboard ad, you’d need 25 renters just to get a 1:1 ROI.

But let’s say you offer incredible service and those renters you pulled from the billboard campaign stay with you a while. Now they’re covering the cost of keeping it up–and any new renters now boost the ROI higher.

On the other hand, you might put the billboard up and get no new renters. We’d love to offer a world in which buying the ad space guarantees a rental, but we all know ads aren’t a guaranteed return, unless you’re running a referral campaign, of course. You are running a referral campaign, right?

The best way to track your self-storage billboard advertising campaign’s ROI is to build it into your sales process. Do you have a new lead on the phone? Ask how they heard about you. Record their answer. Is someone filling out a form on your website? See if your web developer can include a means to learn what sent them your way.

It’s not a 100 percent accurate method. Some people may misremember their first contact with you or skip filling out that part of a form. You can always try again the next time you interact with a customer or even do a little asking around once they’ve been with you a while.

But even if you only learn about some of your conversions, it’s information you won’t have unless you gather it.

There’s also a more indirect measure. Take a look at your website traffic and rate of rentals before you start your billboard campaign. Monitor traffic and conversions over time and see if you’re getting an increase.

Sure, you won’t be able to say for certain that the billboard caused the increase, but you can determine whether or not it’s a contributing factor.

And the more billboards you have in your target area, the more exposure you’ll get. Just increasing the number doesn’t automatically mean you’ll get more leads, of course. There are only so many people in your area looking for storage at a time.

The same rules for placement apply for each billboard. If possible, tracking which billboard brought you which leads helps you to know how much work each one’s doing for you.

With that in mind, let’s talk about the reasons billboard marketing might work for you and the factors that might lead you toward a different method.

• High Traffic, High Visibility – Leads can see your billboard as part of their daily commute.
• Enhance Brand Awareness – Potential renters know your business name and have you in mind when they need you.
• Highly Localized – When placed near your facility, you’re putting it in front of an area you’re likely to draw renters from.
• Make Potential Leads Aware Of Deals Or Features – You aren’t just letting your community know that you exist. They’ll remember you by the deals or special amenities you include on your ad.

• Harder To Measure ROI – Measuring return on investment isn’t automated for physical marketing.
• Limited Exposure Time – Leads aren’t likely to stop and look at your billboard. You only have a few seconds to get your message across.
• Not Interactive – A lead who needs your service right now has no ability to click a rent button. You’re running the risk that they forget by the time they’re parked.
• Pay Per Month Instead Of Pay Per Click – It’s not that PPC always yields a renter, but it does lead to someone landing on your website. Billboards require you to pay whether they’re sending traffic your way or not.

You’ll have to balance many factors before deciding whether or not to try out billboard advertising for your self-storage facility. As with any marketing campaign, tracking its effectiveness matters. Pay special attention to how you solve for the harder-to-measure ROI.

This method targets people who either live near your facility or can make it part of their commute. Most storage facility clients live within 10 miles of the facility.

That’s our general radius to work with. You know your market, but use this range as a starting point. After all, you want your marketing spend to bring in renters.

Visit potential billboard locations to get a feel for the area and the amount of traffic. Doing a little physical scouting can also tell you which companies are advertising nearby.

If you’re considering a digital billboard, make sure it is well-maintained (i.e., not missing pixels).

You don’t just want any billboard to advertise your self-storage facility. You want a clean billboard in the right place.

Will travelers notice your billboard advertisement? According to Gitnux, “45 percent of drivers report that billboard advertising influences their shopping decisions.” And 65 percent of viewers say they look at billboards longer than other outdoor advertising mediums.

Billboards on major highways and commuter routes make up 85 percent of the outdoor ads a consumer sees (Gitnux). That makes advertising along those routes the higher-value choice.

And considering that campaigns that make use of billboards have “a 25 percent higher digital search activity compared to campaigns without outdoor ads,” it makes sense to get the most exposure you can.

With 58 percent of consumers remembering a brand after seeing a billboard ad, it’s a useful tool in getting your name in front of potential leads. Of course, billboards aren’t the only way to drive traffic with your self-storage physical marketing! This raises an important point: Your billboard shouldn’t work solo.

In other words, if you’re using a billboard to advertise your self-storage facility, don’t make it your only channel.

Pair it with a well built self-storage marketing website and digital advertising.

Say there are two billboards side by side. The billboard on the left advertises a self-storage facility with monochromatic colors and doesn’t stand out. The billboard on the right has sharp copy and contrasting colors.

Gitnux tells us that 60 percent of viewers find outdoor billboards more attractive when they feature bright, contrasting colors.

It’s easy to get distracted by the design, though. Remember that your goal is to give drivers a clear idea of where you are and why they should choose you when they need a storage unit.

And digital billboards give another advantage: the ability to modify your message remotely. Changing deals, new amenities, updated copy–it’s all covered with a high-tech digital billboard.

So does that mean digital’s in, traditional’s out? Not exactly. While a digital billboard offers plenty of advantages, they’re perks you pay for.

Keep this in mind: Digital billboards generally perform better, but they also cost more. At the end of the day, a self-storage marketing campaign needs to bring in renters proportional to its cost.

The good news is that you don’t have to figure all of it out at once. Marketing your self-storage facility is about building a strong foundation and adjusting based on the data you gather. Keep an eye on your numbers and learn more about your market every day.