Helping the Small Stand Tall: How Constant Contact Empowers Small Businesses to Reach Their Goals

Recent expansion into Waterloo underscores commitment to growing in Canada and supporting Canadian SMEs

Small businesses are everywhere. They power our daily lives and give our home towns unique personality and flair. There is no question that our communities, and our nation’s economy, depend on their success.

Success doesn’t just happen, though. It takes a lot of hard work, ingenuity and resilience to be a small business owner, and sometimes they need extra help. That is where a company like Constant Contact can make a big impact.

Constant Contact is best known for being a pioneer in email marketing. Today, about half a million small businesses and nonprofits around the world trust Constant Contact to help them reach customers online, drive more sales and turn one-time visitors into repeat buyers. If you’ve ever received an email or a text message from your favorite local business, or attended an event they have hosted, there is a good chance that Constant Contact powered those activities.

The company has grown into a highly-successful business, but it was once an SME itself. It was founded on humble beginnings rooted in a simple, but powerful mission — to help the small stand tall when competing against their bigger, more established competitors.

Every business starts with a purpose

Back in the early days of the dot-com boom, SMEs were struggling to scale and keep up with larger companies. Constant Contact’s founders recognized that those businesses needed access to the same technologies to help level the playing field and give them an opportunity to keep up and excel — so, they created a platform that made it easy for small businesses to market themselves online.

Fast forward to 2024, and lots of things have changed. Instead of floppy disks and dial-up internet, artificial intelligence is the latest technology to transform the world.?

But, what hasn’t changed? Running a small business still takes a lot of work, and many are still so busy that they don’t have enough time for marketing — which is a sentiment that many SMEs in Canada can relate to.?

Fortunately, Constant Contact’s mission remains the same as it was in 1995. What began as a simple tool for batch-and-blast emails has now grown into a powerful and flexible SaaS marketing platform that SMEs and nonprofits trust to help them send emails and texts, host events, grow their social media presence, manage their contacts and boost sales.

Making an impact

Small businesses are the heartbeat of Canada’s economy. About, 98 percent of total businesses in Canada are SMEs2, and they employ more than 10 million people. More importantly, they drive over 50 percent of Canada’s GDP3. With tens of thousands of SME customers in Canada, Constant Contact understands how important it is for those businesses to grow.

Constant Contact equips SMEs with essential growth tools like email and SMS marketing, social media management, event marketing, SEO and online ads. The platform leverages cutting-edge technology like AI and marketing automation to help SMEs start marketing quickly, get past challenges like writer’s block and personalize the messages they send to customers. The platform is incredibly easy to use, and a robust reporting dashboard helps SMEs understand where they can tweak their efforts to see better results.?

Constant Contact’s approach to customer support is also unmatched in the space. Its award-winning support team helps SMEs with everything from troubleshooting to marketing strategy, and free live phone and chat support is available to every customer free of charge.?

Innovating in Canada

Expanding beyond its roots in Boston, Mass, Constant Contact has bolstered its global footprint with a significant expansion into Canada. It recently opened a new innovation center of excellence at the Communitech Hub in Waterloo, ON, where engineering teams work to accelerate the company’s AI and machine learning capabilities. Several of Constant Contact’s latest product enhancements, including generative AI tools designed for SMEs, have stemmed from this work in Waterloo.?

To further entrench itself in the Waterloo-Kitchener community, Constant Contact partnered with University of Waterloo to provide university students with hands-on product development experience working alongside its engineers.

With a rapidly increasing base of Canadian customers, Constant Contact CEO, Frank Vella, says the company is committed to growing in Waterloo, and in Canada, in the coming years.

It’s clear that Constant Contact is more than just a tool or a platform — it’s a promise that marketing can be easy, efficient and effective. As it turns out, small businesses don’t need a multimillion dollar advertising budget or a 10-person team to break through the noise and compete against companies with more resources. They just need a partner who is hyperfocused on giving them the tools and guidance they need to excel, and Constant Contact fits that billing.