Why should you care about comparing email marketing vs. Local SEO for scaffolding businesses? Well, if you’re running a scaffolding business, chances are you’re constantly looking for ways to bring in more clients.

But what’s the best approach? Should you go all-in on email marketing, or is Local SEO for scaffolding the smarter move? It’s not an easy decision, especially when you’re trying to balance budget with results.

We’ll compare both strategies, email marketing and Local SEO for scaffolding to help you decide which one works best for your business.

Table of Contents

Are You Set Up For Email Marketing?

Before diving into email marketing vs. local SEO, you need to ask yourself: Do I already have an email list of existing customers saved, or am I starting from scratch? You’ll see how this will have a big factor later throughout this article.

If you already have a long list of clients, email marketing tools like Klaviyo can help you send monthly updates, promotions, and offers to keep them engaged. And to be honest, I’ll tell you from now that it’s worth doing it. But what if you don’t have an existing email list?

The best part is that you can even use this inexpensive email marketing strategy to improve your local SEO for scaffolding businesses. Do this by sending reminders for customers to leave reviews on google maps.

The cool thing about Klaviyo is that you won’t need to go through all the complicated and expensive steps since you already have an email list. You’ll just need to start a newsletter to promote your business. This is simply with and inexpensive with Klaviyo.

Starting email marketing without a customer base involves buying leads, setting up multiple burner email domains. And making sure you’re not getting flagged for spam. This is where things get tricky and costly.

Email marketing is going to be almost as expensive as Website SEO. And honestly much more than running Google Maps Ads If you are gonna do cold outreach instead of newsletter email marketing.

Screenshot Setting up klaviyo for email marketing and creating a news letter to grow your scaffolding business

How to Start Email Marketing Without An Existing List of Customer Emails

When you’re starting from scratch, you can’t use your main domain email for your cold email outreach because one bad report could shut down your email deliverability entirely. Instead, you’ll need to buy 10 similar domains, like “yourdomainpro.com” or “tryyourdomain.com.”

Each domain will cost around $15 per year, totaling $150 just for the 10 domains you’ll need to get started. The domains alone cost as much as a small test for running Facebook Ads for a home service business.

Then you need 20 different emails, two per domain. This is because each email can only send a limited number of cold outreach emails per day to avoid getting flagged.

Email platforms like Microsoft 365 will cost you around $35 per email annually. This will add up to $700 per year for 20 emails if you want to send 400+ emails a day. And that’s just the start of the setup!

Once you’ve got your domains and emails ready, you’ll need a tool like Smartlead to manage your email campaigns and “warm up” your emails so they don’t immediately get flagged as spam. Tools like this cost between $50 and $200 a month.

The cool part with Smartlead is that after you buy your domains and Microsoft 365 emails, you can warm them up for free with Smartlead.

Bonus Tip: If you’re starting from scratch with email marketing, you’ll need to budget at least $1,000 annually for setup and ongoing costs.

Warming up emails for email marketing with smartlead when trying to do marketing for a scaffolding business

Time Investment of Starting Email Marketing For Scaffolding Businesses

We haven’t even covered the proccess of finding leads and sending emails with good copy to get decent open rates. So far we’ve already reached around a budget of $1,000 and we’re still in the setup phase.

We still aren’t factoring in the time investment needed to continuously reply to emails from this marketing campaign. All that time could be spent on growing your business or you could spend way less time doing local SEO for your scaffolding business.

Also note that these are the raw costs and if you were to hire someone to setup all of this and run it for you then we’re looking at north of $1,500 just to get started for a few months.

Doing Local SEO by optimizing your Google Business Profile is free if you do it yourself. Unless you want to hire an agency, then your looking at spending between $300 – $1000 Monthly to do all the work for you.

So far, it’s looking like Local SEO is definitely less time and money costly with a much easier to measure ROI for home services businesses.

The time investment needed for email marketing compared to local seo for scaffolding and home service businesses

The Headaches of Email Marketing For Scaffolding Businesses (Buying Leads)

Email marketing might seem like a good idea in theory, but it’s far from perfect. One big headache is buying email lead lists. Database services like D7 LeadFinder can cost you between $50 and $150 a month, depending on how many email leads you need.

Using D7 Leadfinder for building an email list for email marketing vs local seo for scaffolding businesses

But here’s the problem: these lists are not targeted specifically to people searching for scaffolding services. Instead, you’re sending emails to people who might not even be interested in what you offer.

That’s why email marketing is better for online businesses instead of home services businesses. For example; businesses like ecommerce stores would benefit much more than a scaffolding business.

To make matters worse, if you’re emailing invalid or outdated addresses, your email “health” (the ability of your emails to land in an inbox) gets worse. Every time an email bounces or gets reported as spam, the effectiveness of your outreach diminishes.

That’s why most businesses who do cold email marketing need to pay monthly for email verifying services like Mailverifier to protect their email health so they won’t have to keep buying new domains and emails.

Using mailverifier for to verify your emails to protect email health for email markting vs. local seo for scaffolders

So not only do you need to buy and verify email leads (which costs even more money). But you’ll also have to replace any burned email addresses that get flagged as spam. You can imagine how this can quickly add up, making email marketing a costly and time-consuming venture.

Even after you get everything set up and running properly. There is no guarantee that you’ll get a decent reply rate for your emails. If you are gonna do this method yourself, then expect your email copy to be sub par and you’ll need to make constant adjustments to improve it.

Local SEO For Scaffolding: A More Targeted And Effective Approach

Now let’s switch gears to Local SEO for scaffolding. Unlike email marketing, Local SEO targets people who are actively searching for scaffolding services in your area.

These are high quality leads because they’re looking for exactly what you offer. They’re also more likely to need your services soon and convert to paying customers.

With Local SEO for scaffolding, the key is to optimize your Google Business Profile (GBP). This makes sure that when someone searches for scaffolding services near them, your business shows up in the local results, especially on Google Maps.

Local SEO is also all about making sure that your business details (name, address, and phone number, or NAP Data) is consistent across all your business directories and citations.

Unlike email marketing, where you’re reaching out to potentially uninterested parties. Local SEO works by making your business visible to people who are already searching for scaffolding services. This means that Local SEO leads are far more likely to convert into paying clients.

Bonus Tip: Keep your GBP updated with fresh and local content. This can include photos of your recent projects or posts about special offers to keep your profile active.

How to set up google maps ads for a local construction business

Pricing Comparison: Email Marketing vs. Local SEO For Scaffolding

The cost differences between email marketing and Local SEO for scaffolding are significant. Let’s break it down:

Email Marketing Costs:

Local SEO Costs:

On average, Local SEO for scaffolding costs between $0 and $1,000 per month, depending on if you do it yourself which is free or if you hire an agency. Check out our prices for our monthly Local SEO services here.

GMB SEO marketing costs and pricing for local seo strategy

When you consider that Local SEO is far more targeted and generates higher quality leads. It’s easy to see why many scaffolding businesses prefer it over email marketing.

Instead of cold emailing hundreds of people who may not need your services, Local SEO for scaffolding ensures your business is seen by people who are actually searching for your scaffolding services.

Local SEO for Scaffolding Business example screenshot of GBP Ranking organically from local seo

Quality of Leads Comparison: Email Marketing vs. Local SEO Lead Gen

Another key difference between email marketing and Local SEO for scaffolding is the quality of the leads. Email marketing can feel a lot like throwing darts at a board with your eyes closed.

You may hit the target occasionally, but most of the time, you’ll be sending emails to people who aren’t interested in scaffolding services.

With Local SEO, you’re not wasting time on cold outreach or worrying about email spam reports. Instead, you’re optimizing your business for local search terms.

And the best part is after only a few months of doing some basic Local SEO, you should see the benefits for many years.

Bonus Tip: Optimize your Google Business Profile with keywords like “scaffolding rental in [your city]” or “construction scaffolding services” to increase your chances of being found.

Using the near me keyword and key phrase to rank higher in local search results when trying to rank higher on Google Maps

Email Marketing: A Desperate And Spammy Method To Lead Generation?

When you rely on email marketing for scaffolding businesses, there’s a risk that your campaigns may come across as desperate. Imagine you’ve been cold emailing your existing client base with special offers month after month.

How many of them are going to start seeing your business as annoying rather than helpful? While email marketing can keep your name in front of potential customers, it often feels less targeted and more like you’re trying to drum up business any way you can.

Compare that to Local SEO for scaffolding, where customers are the ones seeking you out. They’re coming to you because you’re the top result for scaffolding services in their area not because you sent some emails about a special promotion.

Bonus Tip: Avoid sending too many email promotions to your existing client base. Overuse of email marketing can damage your brand’s credibility. 1 email a month max if your targeting your existing clients.

Why email marketing is a spammy method to grow a scaffolding businesses with poor targeting

FAQs For Email Marketing vs. Local SEO

Q1: Do I really need to warm up my sending emails first?

A: Yes, if you just start sending emails with fresh accounts that aren’t warmed up then you’ll have poor email deliverability and the health of each email will deteriorate very fast.

Q2: How many emails should I send out per month?

A: Depends on how large your existing email list is or if you are going to start buying email leads each month. If you are retargeting your existing client base then keep it to max 1 email a month so they don’t block you.

Q3: How long to start seeing results from Email Marketing?

A: Usually within a few weeks after you start sending the emails you should start seeing replies.

Q4: Do I need to buy email lists for email marketing?

A: If you don’t have an existing client base then yes you do but you also need to verify each email or else it can hurt your email deliverability. Which means you’ll need to replace sending emails more often.

Q5: What is a good response rate for Email Marketing?

A: Anywhere from 5% – 10% is great. but if you’re getting lower (between 1% – 5%) then something is wrong with your copy or it’s a sending issue.

Need Help With Local SEO For Your Business?

If you are still in need of any assistance or help with growing your scaffolding business organically by generating leads using Local SEO. Then I highly recommend you book a free consultation with the writer of this article, Ramzy, CEO & Founder of Vortex Ranker by clicking here.