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Here are Some Ways You Could Use Business Grants to make a Comeback

Here are Some Ways You Could Use Business Grants to make a Comeback 7
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Transcript

Sarah: Hello everyone. Thanks for tuning in. Today I’m with a very special guest. This is Holly.

Holly: Hello, hi everyone.

Sarah: If you don’t know who Holly is, she’s our wonderful finance manager who oversees our company’s finances. So, so far in our Zoom in our First Page series we’ve been covering a lot about organic and paid marketing, but there is one crucial aspect of marketing and business that we simply cannot ignore, and that is finances. I think it’s pretty obvious that most of us are having it pretty rough but Holly, I think you will know best about what types of issues our clients are facing today. So, maybe could you talk about one or two payment or finance related issues you have noticed amongst our clients?

Holly: Oh sure, so while we have some clients asking to pause their campaigns due to tight budget, and we also have some clients in different industries. So, definitely aviation and tourism are majorly affected due to this COVID pandemic. So currently we are assessing their clients’ systematic risks at different industry level and give different scenario planning. So in this area, our account director Abduh has expertise. Do feel free to connect with him, he’s a very helpful guy. But majority of our clients are still running their campaign. So, as we also do not recommend client to stop the campaign at the moment, as we all know that challenge is sometimes it’s the opportunity. So we agree to give flexibility, to extend the payment term after the credit assessment, so if clients have cashflow issue. So last but not least, clients are asking us to recommend solutions to help them with their tight budget and their tight course, rather than boost campaign awareness on search engine et cetera. So, we also this that there are higher demand in this time in content marketing especially. So, I think this is due to work from home, so people have more time and tend to read. So, anyway, we are doing our best to assist them in a team. So, finance cannot work alone, that’s why I would like to thank everyone, especially for the account managers’ help. This is what I get very impressed by when I joined the First Page Digital, our company culture is awesome.

Sarah: Yeah, I agree, like the account managers have been working so hard recently, all of us have. And you’re right, I think all of us we can empathise with these businesses, because we at First Page, we are a business ourselves, and while there are some business grants available, I think what’s equally important about getting these grants, is about how we can use them. So maybe could you share one way you think a business can use this grant to maintain their online presence, but at the same time ensure that they keep business running as usual with minimal costs?

Holly: Okay, the first I can think about is the Enterprise Development Grant, EDG, which is a single grant that integrate support of business in their growth and their transformation. So, this grant provides more complete help to companies who wish to upgrade, innovate, venture overseas, or are ready to embark on any combination of these strategies. Support projects cover a wide scope and there are three pillars, core capacity, innovation and the productivities and the market access. So, today, we are talking about online promotion. So for digital marketing, those project under core capacity, help businesses prepare for growth and transformation by strengthening their business foundation. So these should go beyond basic functions such as sales. So therefore if you consider to transform traditional marketing to digital marketing this grant could help you as a start. So it’s very obviously that while doing traditional marketing it would be highly inefficient to manual tend to your leads and sales especially internet usage has increased because of our working from home right now. It might be here to stay and businesses need to get online if you have yet to do so, or want to boost brand awareness and even get leads. What you need is a marketing automation software or a system that could help you move your leads along the customer journey to sales and sales to become repeated sales. So with the software you can expect that like email marketing, segmentation, personalization, lead tracking, map up your overall digital marketing strategies to get the result you want, track and optimise your marketing effort to increase return on investment. So these up to 80 to 90% funds grant support for qualifying costs, EDG grant could help you transition more smoothly. I believe in the new world of work, most of business will eventually transform digitally in a new digital era. So why not do it now? Of course, you can look for a professional team to help with all the digital marketing plan you need. That’s for us, First Page Digital, to help.

Sarah: Sure, yeah, totally agree with you Holly, I think it’s very important for us to be aware about these grants, and we need to know how to use them. So we actually penned a blog on our website about all these grants and what they can be used for, so I’ll leave a link to the blog in the comments below. And thank you so much for sharing that Holly. I think it’s very informative and I totally agree with you that right now’s a good time to go online, but at the same time if you need some help, you to be aware of what kind of grants are available as well. So we really hope you enjoyed today’s episode, do leave a like and some comments in the comment section down below if you have any questions about marketing or about finances and we will get our expert Holly to assist you. And thanks again Holly for being so amazing. Stay tuned for next week and we’ll be sharing more about marketing. ‘Til then stay safe, bye.

Holly: Bye.

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