Using video on your self storage website benefits both you and your storage consumers. Not only do videos help your website rank better in search engine results (It improves user experience, a factor in search engine rank), but it also gives you the chance to gain credibility and build relationships with your customers by providing them with faces and personal messaging they can relate to.
“Video creates greater engagement among online visitors, who are also usually potential customers,” says John Carlisle, Urban Planner and Professional Writer and former Online Content Editor for Inside Self Storage and Community Manager for Self-Storage Talk. “From a sheer numbers standpoint, when people watch videos on your website, they’re naturally spending more time on your website, which will boost your web metrics.”
But getting site visitors to watch the videos on your website is only half the battle, Carlisle explains. It’s converting video views into actual customers. “[That] means those videos have to be memorable, informative, and fun.”
Below, we’ve compiled some tips from Carlisle that can help you make the leap from simply getting views to converting customers with self storage video campaigns.
How to Create Videos Without Hiring Someone
With all of the current video recording technology available (and even cameras built in to phones), it’s not necessary to hire or outsource a videographer for regular video posts.
“Most of the new smartphones and tablets have pretty good video recording capability, so if you have an iPhone 4 or later (or iPad), you’ve got a pretty good video recorder in your pocket or hands,” says Carlisle. “It’s not professional/production quality, but it’s a decent place to start.”
You don’t need to be an expert either because it’s more important for the video to carry a few valuable bits of information and entertain your viewers than it is to have top-quality visuals with weak content. This is the part of your website where you can have fun and show some personality with content that’s a little more lighthearted and engaging than usual.
“Aside from purchasing the necessary hardware and software, [creating videos] is essentially a free process,” says Carlisle. Here are the basic steps for creating, editing, and sharing a video, according to Carlisle:
- Record your video on your mobile device.
- Use a program like iMovie to edit it (That’s standard on Macs, but there are similar programs on PCs), and save the file.
- Create a YouTube account/channel to upload the video file to. Title the channel appropriately with the name of your facility or operation, and don’t forget to enter storage-related keywords.
- Once the videos are uploaded to YouTube, you can embed the code on your website through YouTube’s share feature. Embedding code on your existing facility website is as easy as copying and pasting (usually).
Pair Written Content with Video Content to Enhance Messaging
Now, you don’t need to create a video for every piece of written content that’s on your website. But how do you know when you should? The first question you should ask when determining whether or not to supplement written content with a video is: “Does the video enhance the message I’m trying to send?”
“In general, use video to provide content that’s truly useful to your customers,” suggests Carlisle. “That’s the core of content marketing. The cutesy marketing videos are fine, too, but a better return on your time, both in attracting customers and making your current customers smarter, is providing them [with] some substance and real information in the video.”
Videos don’t have to be all that long either. A short, sweet, and to-the-point clip can do the trick, as long as the content within the video is useful to the viewers.
“A how-to video is usually better than text when video is done correctly,” says Carlisle. “For example, when you’re doing a remodeling project at home or putting something together, which is more helpful: reading text instructions or watching a clear video that shows the step-by-step process? In my opinion, it’s the video.”
Since text alone may not be read the exact way you meant for it to be read, adding video is a sound way to avoid any misinterpretations and further amplify what you want the viewer to take away.
“So, in terms of self storage, operators can use video to show customers things such as how to access their unit after hours using the keypad and lock system, how to pack their boxes so they stay dry and free of bugs, how to correctly secure their unit doors, etc.,” says Carlisle. “You might even expand it to offer video on how to pack a box and secure furniture while moving. That’s valuable content to anyone who has to move.”
If you haven’t started using video on your self storage website, or you’ve been using video but haven’t seen the right conversions, now’s the time to put Carlisle’s advice to good use.
