By CJ Pomerantz
We hope that everyone who sees this was able to attend Jamie’s presentation on September 5, 2024 at the Self Storage Association Fall National Conference. For those who weren’t able to join us, we put together a brief summary. We are also turning the presentation into an e-book full of actionable intel and strategies that will help you build and enhance an authentic brand using AI.
The Importance of Authenticity in Self-Storage Marketing
Building an authentic brand is at the heart of any good marketing strategy. Ask any big brand for their most valuable assets, and their brand will be near the top, if not number one on the list. A good brand immediately communicates to your tenants the information they need to know to make a confident buying decision. In self storage, that means letting people know that you’re a good neighbor, you care about keeping their belongings safe, and that you can be trusted to interact with them honestly and fairly.
AI: Your Supercharged Assistant, Not a Replacement
What we mean when we say AI today isn’t actually a sentient, skynet type computer program that will take over the world. When we talk about things like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Midjourney, we are talking about programs that analyze a prompt, and spit out the most likely response to that prompt, based upon content from millions of sources.
This is important because it still requires a human hand guiding the process. These tools can make a photorealistic image of a person in the middle of filling their storage unit, but they have nine fingers on one hand. The computer doesn’t recognize that, but you can. That’s why the human touch can’t be left out.
The Scalability Advantage of AI Marketing
Instead of looking to replace a person with AI, think of it as an opportunity to enhance a person. You can’t replace a skilled content creator with AI, but you can help that creator work more quickly and efficiently. AI is your scalability tool.
With AI your designer can quickly generate mock ups to give you a general idea of what the final visual will look like, allowing them to spend the time and attention to detail on the final choice, rather than several possible choices.
Building Trust with AI in Self-Storage
So how do we build trust while using this tool that many people are using to trick audiences? Use AI to help you sort the millions of points of data that come your way and help you separate the signal from the noise. Use AI to help you with early drafts, not final drafts. Always keep things human focused and customer centric.
If an AI chatbot like Swivl can help the customer more easily find the right location and unit then it’s helping. If the chatbot you’re using doesn’t support customers in finding their solution, or even worse, confuses them, it’s just hurting you.
Trustworthy AI: Building Confidence
It’s important to be transparent. Don’t try to pass off a chatbot as an actual customer service rep. When using AI to create visuals, don’t opt for photorealism, focus instead on a more illustrative style that doesn’t attempt to deceive the audience. When you are using AI to create written content double check every fact stated and source cited to confirm that they are real.
Like so many rules in business and life, it comes down to this, “Honesty is the best policy.”
Conclusion
As we said at the beginning, we hope that you were able to attend Jamie’s presentation at SSA Fall 2024, and get the full experience. If not, we’d love to send you a copy of our E-Book version of the presentation, that goes into more detail, includes a few tests and a checklist for how to use AI in your marketing. Click this link to sign up to receive the E-Book as soon as it’s available.
September 05, 2024
