I’ve been working with Shawn Hacker at Mini Storage on Wheels, a moving/storage company, for several years. Shawn’s product is containers–one size, one price. His clients use his containers for moving or for temporary storage. Shawn does what PODs does—only at about 30% less and with a lot less attitude.
Shawn’s website was badly in need of an upgrade
Shawn’s a pretty low-key guy who keeps it simple, so I built a new website in Gutensite, an easy-to-use platform that includes tech support. I wrote the copy and Shawn took photos of his containers. There’s nothing sexy about these—they’re exactly what you’d expect. You get an immaculate container that’s 8’ x 16’ for $180/month.
Videos are a great way to share information and optimize websites, so I wrote a little script and we created an explainer video and uploaded it to the site. We focused on the essentials: What we do, the deliverable and the price.
The new website is working for Shawn
Shawn’s web traffic has increased by more than 22%. His revenue has increased year/year by 15%. But it takes more than a website. We wanted to leverage the great reviews that Shawn is getting on Yelp. We created a stylized MailChimp email with a quick thank you note. We added a few of his great testimonials as pullquotes/graphic elements and began sending these to each of Shawn’s clients, providing links to his Yelp page and his Google Business Profile, asking them to leave him a review. We send these out a week or so after he finishes each client engagement. We’re getting a 30% response rate on our MailChimp emails and in turn, they’re generating more business for Shawn. Each of these reviews creates backlinks; collectively, these are a big boost for his overall optimization.
Next up: Google ads
Note that we haven’t included a social media campaign in our marketing plan. We really don’t have the capacity to manage this, so it doesn’t make sense at this point. We will start doing Google ads, or pay-per-click, this month. This kind of advertising will work for Mini Storage on Wheels. We can identify our demographic, our geo location and build backlinks. We want Shawn’s brand to get broader recognition across the northern Bay Area region.
For those who are moving or need temporary storage
Call Shawn and he’ll move one of his boxes to your home. Move your stuff into your storage container according to your own timeframe. When you’re ready to move, Shawn will pick up the container and move it to the new location. For those who need temporary storage, Shawn drops off a box and leaves it on a client’s property. When it’s no longer needed, Shawn picks up the box. There’s a single monthly rental charge and delivery/pickup fee according to location.
A new website, steady follow-up communications and pay-per-click–together, they clearly help generate new revenue.