Based in Brisbane, Andy Pudmenzky is a marketing consultant with over two decades of experience in web technologies, marketing, graphic design, theatre audio / visual and event management. | More...
Self storage industry valuer, Malcolm Collins, recently wrote about freehold property worth. In his piece, Malcolm spoke of the traditional ‘real-world’ assets that one needs to consider when evaluating property worth – such as land, buildings, fixtures, fittings, etc. However, as Malcolm pointed out, digital real estate is just as important these days.
87% of Australians now access the internet daily1, with 55% of users accessing it more than five times per day2. Furthermore, the percentage of households with internet access at home (86%3) is at an all-time high and will only continue to grow.
Consumers now flick between multiple websites, platforms, channels – and multiple devices! With these kind of statistics, it’s crucial that your business – regardless of industry – invests in digital real estate across most channels.
If we start out by looking at websites, research4 shows that a stale website is less engaging, will result in lower search engine rankings, a higher bounce rate and flat / lower search traffic.
Similarly, if we look at social media, the same research4 shows that regularly-active accounts will increase brand exposure, increase traffic, generate leads, develop loyal fans, grow business partnerships, and improve sales.
Consumers now flick between multiple websites, platforms, channels and devices. Is your business visible wherever your prospects are looking?
Advertising too, has changed dramatically over the last few years. The days of effective ‘pay and spray’ TV advertising for a SME are long gone – it’s expensive, untargeted and unmeasurable.
Today, businesses are turning to measurable advertising platforms such as Google AdWords, Facebook & Instagram (nb. Facebook purchased Instagram for $1B USD in 2012) advertising where you can define your audience and only pay to serve-up content or advertising to those who matter most. This is particularly relevant for the self storage industry, as virtually every single-site storage facility would have a very specific and limited catchment area.
Facebook, for instance, is a great example of a platform where you can refine your audience and thus, your advertising spend, to a very specific set of people. This is thanks to Facebook’s love of data – where they record most of a user’s web activity even if their Facebook session is closed. In other words – any website that has a “Like” or “Share” button on it is sending browsing behaviour back to Facebook (by the way – they’ve been doing this for at least seven years). Oh and by the way, these ‘tracking cookies’ never expire.
For advertisers and businesses like yours, this is great news – because it means you can serve an advertisement to someone on Instagram & Facebook for self storage as soon as they start visiting websites, or liking / viewing Facebook pages, relating to home renovations, removalists or if they’ve been searching for details on, say, how to transfer their electricity or gas supply.
On the flipside, this also means that – after reading this – you may now, as a user of Facebook, decide to make a few changes to your browsing habits.
Regardless of how you look at it, digital real estate is here to stay and it’s becoming more and more prevalent. If you’re not already across it for your business, then the sooner you get on board, the better.
Sound too hard? You can outsource all of this to an industry expert. Got any other great digital real estate tips or questions? Leave a comment below.
References
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