Imagine for a moment that you get a call from a good friend?

They invite you to dinner to discuss something ?very important?. You have no clue what this ?very important? subject is, but they've peaked your curiosity and accept their invitation. You have other things to do but are dying to know what's so darn important that they're willing to buy you dinner. After all, this friend is the biggest penny-pincher you know, they never buy you anything, let alone dinner!

They pick you up from the office and take you to the nicest restaurant in town. You think to yourself: ?Wow, this must be really important if they're taking me here!??

After a brief wait in the lounge, you are seated at the dinner table with your friend and you place your drink order.

You just can't take it any longer, you break the tension with a question: ?So, what is this very important thing you need to discuss with me??

They reply with, ?Oh, nothing, it's not a big deal?

They continue, ?I just need you to call this phone number or stop in at this address and give them your credit card number?

?What on earth are you talking about, have you lost your mind?? you exclaim.

?Oh, it's nothing major, just call or stop in, everything will be okay??

I'll end this simulated conversation here for the sake of brevity. But think for a moment. What would you do? Would you stop in or call with your credit card info?

Of course not!

You need more information to help you decide if this is something that you are willing to invest time and money into.

This brings us to the 3rd step of cracking the self-storage marketing code, which is: Educate/Decide.

In the past articles you've received from us, we've discussed getting the prospects attention and engaging them into the advertisement by peaking their interest.

Now, you need to deliver the goods. Help them make a decision to take profit generating action in your favor. You might call this the ?body copy? or ?main text? of a print piece or the majority of any advertisement.

Call it what you will, but it is absolutely critical that you give the recipient of your advertisement a good reason to accept your offer or to do business with you.

This copy should differentiate you from one or more of your 3 forms of competition, provide emotional triggers to the recipient's hot buttons and work with the major human motives.

But, when it comes to self-storage marketing, you absolutely must communicate why they should choose you over the facility down the street. Your reasons better not be the canned fluff that everybody else uses?

You know what I mean, stuff like: Secure Access, On-Site Managers, 24 Hour Surveillance, We Match Any Competitors Prices, Blah, Blah, Blah?

Everybody says that stuff, be bold, be different and by all means, don't copy everybody else.

In our next message, we'll discuss the 4th and final step to cracking the marketing code. This is a step that many are afraid to take, but is so brutally critical to your self storage marketing success that ignoring it will cost you an untold amount of cash?