Think you lack the marketing power to distribute news about your company's news, products, services, promotions, etc.? Guess again. Online services like PRWeb make it easy to distribute your announcements via the Internet. According to PRWeb.com, the enterprise is "The recognized leader in online news and press release distribution service for small and medium-sized businesses and corporate communications. PRWeb pioneered Free Press Release Distribution and continues to set the standard for online news distribution."

And there are certainly self-storage companies using it! For example, last week, I was tickled to see this release by Digitech International, a long-time ISS supporter, come through on my Google news subscription: "Digitech Video Demonstrates ROI for Self Storage Security." The piece refers to a video we shot and produced for the company at our Vegas Expo in February. The company's marketing guru, Michelle Brown, was smart in putting this bit together and distributing via PRWeb.

Click here to view the video.

The point is Digitech turned a great industry-specific marketing plan into an even better, worldwide press opportunity! You could do the same. (You've heard me on the soapbox before.) If your storage facility has a community event, award, charity donation or other such positive news to deliver to the community, consider giving it greater impact with easily accessible online tools. The power is at your disposal!

Of course, you can also send your press releases to Inside Self-Storage at [email protected]. Once added to our online news feed, these items get picked up by the large search engines such as Google and Yahoo! Anyone searching for self-storage related news will see them.

These days, there are so many simple but compelling ways to put your facility in a favorable public light; yet so few storage operators take advantage of them. Consider this when you discuss marketing with your onsite team. The best way to battle the negative press our industry often gets is to counterbalance it with positive information. We're all part of this campaign, folks. And it's much easier than you think.

What online marketing tactics are you using as part of your storage operation? Share them with the group by posting a comment to this blog! Or, if you're just really shy, you can send me an e-mail at [email protected].