Leveraging the Internet
With our national scale, we are leveraging the Internet to drive more people to our properties. According to our research, since 2006 the number of customers using the Yellow Pages as their primary resource for choosing a self-storage property has dropped by 40%, while the number of customers utilizing the Internet has increased by 80%.
The Internet lets us cast a wider net, since the average online customer drives 20% further than those who rent from other sources of advertising. We diverted about $1 million in Yellow Page advertising to internet advertising in 2008, and we’ll redirect another $1 million next year to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of our Web presence.
Our Internet strategy is paying off. Last year our Web site traffic was up 31% to 1.5 million total hits for the year. In 2008, approximately 34% of our customers used www.extraspace.com at some point in their buying process, up from 18% in 2006. Best of all, we turned more leads into paying customers, by increasing online reservations and/or holds 31% to nearly 25,000 in 2008.
