California self-storage facility owners will gather in Walnut Creek, Calif., on April 29 for the fourth annual Self Storage Owner’s Symposium, which will cover key operational issues including how to market to the Generation Y customer, lender underwriting changes, market valuation, California labor law, and terrorist activities related to self-storage facilities. Hosted by the California Self Storage Association, the event will take place at the Lesher Center for the Arts from noon to 6 p.m.
 
Kit Yarrow, Ph.D., will present a keynote session titled, “The Marketer's Guide to Hooking Up With Gen Y,” discussing the online marketing tools self-storage owners must deploy to attract the Generation Y consumer. Gen Y, those born between 1980 and 2000, will have tremendous spending power in the next decade. Accustomed to communicating wirelessly and getting 100 percent of needed information via the Internet and a cell phone, they think, relate and buy differently than other generations.
 
Symposium attendees will gain an understanding of the Gen Y consumer, learning what motivates them to buy and what they're looking for in their relationships with retailers and brands. They’ll also learn actionable strategies for using social media and emotionally engaging these customers.
 
Yarrow is an award-winning consumer-research psychologist and a professor of psychology and marketing at Golden Gate University in San Francisco. She chairs the university’s Psychology Department and is its 2009 Outstanding Scholar. Yarrow has taught consumer behavior at universities around the world, including the Helsinki School of Economics and the University of California-Berkeley. Her consulting clients have included General Electric, Del Monte, Novelis, Landor, Nokia, and AAA.
 
Additional symposium presentations are: 

Registration for this event is available online through the CSSA website, cssaweb.com, until April 28. For more information, e-mail Executive Director Erin King at [email protected].

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