It's no secret the explosion of the Internet has changed media forever. For a place like Self-Storage Talk, the largest online community in the industry and the official forum of Inside Self-Storage, that's a good thing. But for newspapers, generally speaking, it's been a bad thing. Print newspaper readership continues to decline, and that fact has led potential local advertisers, such as self-storage facilities, to question if they should invest marketing dollars in newspapers.

Member CharlesC takes this question to SST with the thread "Newspaper Advertisement Opinions." He describes what size ad he wants, how many people the ad will reach and other particulars. So far, responses seem to indicate a small local ad can be worth the investment. Geraldine1051, a manager in northern California, writes, "I think my ad in our weekly (small-town) newspaper does a lot of good promotion for my facility. The ad is a photo (taken by my son) of my dog in front of a row of units. I have folks come in all the time who already know us by name as our names are in the ad, too. And the best part of this is that the ad is free, in trade for a couple of storage units the newspaper stores archives in." Though admittedly not everyone will be able to barter for advertising like Geraldine does, mentioning that possibility provides a good idea.

Other respondents also seemed to think advertising in a small-town newspaper is still worth the investment. Local news coverage means local readers, and those local readers are the potential customers. But the thread is still lacking the opinion of managers or operators from urban areas. Is advertising in a big daily newspaper as important as in a small local publication? Should urban operators focus more on other forms of marketing, such as paid search and search-engine optimization?

If you'd like to read the discussion yourself or give your take, become a member of SST at www.selfstoragetalk.com/register.php. Registration is completely free and takes only a few minutes. SST recently surpassed the 4,500-member mark and is hoping to reach 5,000 members by the date of the Inside Self-Storage World Expo, March 14-16, 2012, at the Paris Hotel & Resort in Las Vegas.