Today virtually any Calgary small business owner at least recognizes the need to have some kind of online presence. Naturally it doesn’t take them long to starting thinking about how they “should” have a website, or perhaps their website just needs a facelift – and they aren’t wrong.
The problem is they don’t always fully realize that the website is only the starting line, not the finish line. If people can’t find it, it doesn’t do you any good.
The key points below lay out a number of possible thoughts a Calgary small business owner might think about when trying to market themselves on a tight budget.
Key Pain Points for a Calgary Small Business:
- A custom built professional website will likely cost at least several thousand dollars, if not more.
- Platforms like Wix and Squarespace are good for the do-it-yourself types out there, but they also tend to be quite limited by comparison to other platforms like WordPress.
- You could try doing it yourself but you will likely have a steep learning curve and it’s going to take a lot of time – which is likely better spent running your business.
- You spent all this time and/or money on a website a while ago and you’re not seeing any leads.
- SEO & PPC can be expensive and you don’t know if it’s going to work.
- You feel you simply can’t afford it.
Be the Exclusive Provider in Your Industry for the City of Calgary. Join the CityOfCalgary.com Network for as little as $50/mo
Our Unique Approach to Helping Small Businesses in Calgary
We are able to offer a unique approach to helping small businesses in Calgary that virtually no other agency will be able to offer.
What sets us apart from other marketing agencies are the following:
- We own a large portfolio of high quality Geo Domain Names. A large portion of the portfolio consists of Calgary business domain names that contain the exact keywords people use to find what they are looking for.
- We are minimizing the risk to you by offering everything at our cost with virtually no markup until we can begin seeing results. Any other agency is going to try and sell you a website, SEO, and PPC for thousands of dollars in the first month, and ongoing from there on, right from day one.
- You can secure your spot and get the website up and running for as little as $50/mo. There is no time limit restriction for this entry level offer.
Essentially what this boils down to is we are so confident that what we can do will start to send you more leads, that we are willing to prove it to you first by doing it all at our cost for qualified businesses without asking you to invest thousands of dollars in a website first.
The Details: City of Calgary Small Business Network & Exclusivity
Our goal is to build out a network of websites – or perhaps a better term would be lead generating assets – for various business niches in Calgary.
CityOfCalgary.com will be the overall brand and website directory that connects everything together, however each business niche will exist as its own website where a local business is the exclusive provider of a specific product or service. Very much like a sponsorship.
For example, if we partner with a local mechanic (hint – we did) in Calgary, then Digified Media will not partner with any other Calgary mechanic, whether under the CityOfCalgary.com brand or otherwise.
NOTE: At the time of writing, CityOfCalgary.com is under development and is not likely to be live for at least several months as we try to fill some business niches. Our short term focus is building out various websites for business niches first and optimizing them for leads.
Be the Exclusive Provider in Your Industry for the City of Calgary. Join the CityOfCalgary.com Network for as little as $50/mo
Qualified Businesses
This offer is not for everyone. We are looking for businesses where we can provide the greatest positive impact. Here are the basic qualifications we are seeking when evaluating a local Calgary business for partnership in this strategy:
- You are based in Calgary and will provide your product or services to anyone within the Calgary limits.
- You have no website, or an old, outdated, or generally weak website.
- You have an existing customer base of some kind.
- You want to grow your business and revenue meaningfully.
- You are prepared to make a at least a 3-6 month commitment.
- You have an exceptional reputation – clients that would consider you “the best” or “one of the best” in the city at what you do.
How We Track Leads
We will be tracking various metrics for each website, however the most important thing at the end of the day is how many phone calls and form fills we generate over a certain period of time for you.
The solution is as follows:
- Forms: All form fills will generate a notification to your email address, as well as to us. On top of that, these form fills are automatically logged in the database so we can pull them up at any time.
- Phone Calls: We will get at least 1 call tracking number. Every phone call to this number is automatically forwarded to your phone number and you answer it like any other call. Our system logs it & also records it. We will even put a “preamble” message only you hear that says “This call is from Calgary[BUSINESS].com” before connecting you to the caller – this way you know immediately that the lead is from us and they visited the website or some other asset we have put online.
Example: Rite-Price & CalgaryMechanics.com
One of the more recent Calgary small business partnerships we established was with Rite-Price Auto Service Centre. We have been actual customers of theirs for 5 years now and they have an immaculate reputation.
Rite-Price was an excellent candidate for this Proof of Concept and we are excited to work with them as we optimize the website and business listings over the next 3 to 6 months for CalgaryMechanics.com & Rite-Price’s business.
Be the Exclusive Provider in Your Industry for the City of Calgary. Join the CityOfCalgary.com Network for as little as $50/mo
The Fine Print & Expectations
Here is some of the “fine print” and the expectations to keep in mind if you are a Calgary small business interested in getting online using this method:
- This is not a “whitelabelled” website for your business. Your business, brand & our Calgary[BUSINESS].com brand will be featured on it. If you are after your own professional, custom website that you 100% control and own entirely, then you will need to go the traditional route and invest significantly more money upfront as well as in the future.
- Our $50/mo offer does not have a specific time limit on how long you can continue you pay this exceptionally cheap rate. However we reserve the right to increase pricing accordingly depending on the resources that are being put into your specific business category for the City of Calgary Network as well as the results we bring over time. We will communicate, strategize, prioritize, and time this with you so there should be no surprises.
- Our minimum expectation is that at some point you will commit to the basic SEO package for 3-6 months. See pricing breakdowns below at OUR COST.
- Please understand that we will be operating at a loss until we are able to start generating leads for you and we negotiate a retainer – your willingness to cover costs for SEO and/or PPC will drastically speed up the time to meaningful results. Even setup fees don’t even cover our time – these all cover hard costs. The philosophy here is we don’t start making money until you start making money.
- The absolute minimum commitment once SEO and/or PPC is initiated is 3 months. We recommend 6 months though, and that is the maximum we will continue to do the work and provide the leads for what is essentially OUR COST. This will be determined on a case by case basis. Expect to begin a negotiation on a monthly retainer with Digified Media anywhere within the 3 to 6 month window.
- Once we establish that you are getting leads, it will be time to negotiate and make a decision. You can walk away, or you can agree to a monthly retainer with Digified Media to keep it going.
- We will not work with any of your competitors in Calgary so long as we have a partnership with you.
- Digified Media will retain ownership of the domain name and website. You will retain ownership of any intellectual property you provide such as logos that get used if you provide any.
- You are committed to providing the best products or services to your customers as it not only reflects on your brand, but ours too.
- We reserve the right to terminate our agreement at any time.
Pricing Breakdown
*ALL PRICING IS IN USD*
**Pricing is at OUR COST Plus 5% for Transaction Fees We Get Billed**
Entry Level Pricing: $50/mo + $100 Initial Setup Fee
- Secure all the business grade domains in our portfolio that apply to your business category
- A professional WordPress website customized to your business offerings
- A Google Workspace account including email on the domain name
- A local call tracking number*
- Business Listings in up to 70 premium business directories and phone applications
Add Search Engine Optimization (SEO): $314/mo + $156 Initial Setup Fee
- This is the minimum SEO Package. More competitive industries will require a larger SEO package.
Add Google Ads Basic (PPC): $209/mo + $209 Initial Setup Fee + Monthly Ad-spend ($500-$2000/mo)
- This is the minimum Google Ads package. More competitive industries will require a larger SEO package.
