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While the last few years have been very good for the self-storage industry, the most positive and productive result of the contracting economy and return of seasonality over the last 6-9 months is that it has forced operators to take a very hard look at their operating expenses, leasing velocity, and move out trends. The slowdown in leasing velocity and declining rental rates have forced many operators to change their marketing campaigns, embrace revenue management, and move outside their comfort zone as this market continues to evolve.  Today’s savvy self-storage owner/operators must familiarize themselves with a variety of online marketing and revenue management techniques such as geofencing, upstream clicks, social media, negative churn, tenant acquisition costs, algorithm-based pricing models, pay by text, and length of tenancy, just to name a few.  Gone are the days of simply “having a website” and rolling out street rate adjustments and existing customer rate increases annually or semiannually. Not only are self-storage owner/operators finding better and cheaper ways to communicate with their customers, but customers are choosing to receive information and make rental decisions in a more convenient way as well.