Invest NI/Enterprise Ireland
Invest NI & Enterprise Ireland are currently running fantastic schemes to help your business develop and implement digital marketing practices, to assist in generating online sales. These grants could be of great significance, by getting your business digital ready and generating and increase sales activity online.
Invest NI/Enterprise Ireland
Invest NI & Enterprise Ireland are currently running fantastic schemes to help your business develop and implement digital marketing practices, to assist in generating online sales. These grants could be of great significance, by getting your business digital ready and generating and increasing sales activity online.
Invest NI Covid-19 Digital Selling Capability Grant:
This grant is aimed at helping retail and wholesale business’ to grow online sales through a Covid-19 support package to assist eligible business’ to progress with recovery plans, strengthen supply chains and develop new products. The Digital Selling Capability Grant can help small or medium sized retailers or wholesalers in Northern Ireland to develop their customers base, build ecommerce capability, enhance their digital marketing offering and increase online sales.
What size of a grant can I get?
If successful, business’ can access a maximum grant from Invest NI of £20,000 to support 50% of eligible costs for projects with a minimum eligible expenditure of £10,000.
What are the eligible activities for the grant?
Eligible activities include consultancy services or expertise from a digital marketing or ecommerce supplier to:
- Carry out best practice research to identify relevant benchmarks
- Review current digital marketing capabilities and online sales channels
- Develop a digital marketing strategy to maximise online sales presence
- Develop an ecommerce strategy to drive sustainable growth in online sales
- Implement an enhanced online ecommerce system or improvements to your existing ecommerce solution for the business
- In-house training and knowledge transfer to develop the digital marketing and ecommerce capability of the employees for the business
- Improve integration and automation with existing ecommerce systems
If you are a small or medium sized retailer or wholesaler who is looking to grow your business online, then this grant is something that you should read in to.
Applications close on Wednesday 7th October 2020 and you must meet all eligibility criteria by Invest NI.
Enterprise Ireland Covid-19 Online Retail Scheme:
The Covid-19 Online Retail Scheme has been created to enable Irish owned retailers to enhance their digital capability, develop a more competitive offering online, to increase their customer base and to build a more resilient business in the marketplace both online and offline.
What size of a grant can I get?
If successful, business’ can receive funding to support a maximum of 80% of the eligible project costs, with a maximum grant of €40,000.
What are the eligible activities for the grant?
- In-depth analysis of the company’s current and potential online presence and capabilities, target audience and brand. This research should help the applicant make informed decisions about e.g. optimisation of online marketing channels, web functionality, payment systems specification, catalogue presentation, supply chain management, consolidated inventory systems, order fulfilment and consumer experience.
- Development of a written digital strategy and a roadmap for implementation including resource and business process considerations.
- Identifying how the company’s value proposition should be demonstrated online, what aspects should be emphasised and how best to present this to online customers
- Ensuring that the company’s online presence is being fully utilised / optimised to fulfil its overall potential, supporting the overall business strategy.
- Consideration of omnichannel offering (including marketplaces and social media).
- Optimising the company’s online presence to ensure domestic and international visibility (e.g. web enhancement and localisation, associated business process enhancements, search engine optimisation etc.)
- Enhancing related “back end” systems (e.g. product presentation, supply chain management, systems integration to improve consumer experience etc.)
Applications close on Monday 28th September 2020 and you must meet all eligibility criteria by Enterprise Ireland.
Do you want to generate more sales through digital activity and ecommerce online?
If yes, then get in touch with us and we can help guide you through the process of applying for the grant and also assisting you with any digital marketing or ecommerce needs that you desire for your business. We can create a tailor made proposal to coincide with your business values, offerings and objectives.
