Last month, Brisbane’s Lord Mayor launched the Women in Business Grant 2021 to provide funding to support female business owners in the wake of COVID-19. Successful applicants will be eligible to receive up to $5,000 to put towards professional services, training, education or critical business equipment, with a total fund of $250k available.
At Springboard, we’re passionate about helping small businesses grow and succeed with strategic, high-quality digital marketing. In this article, we’ll help you determine whether you’re eligible for the Women in Business Grant, recap what can be funded, and provide examples of what kind of digital marketing services and support you can get for $5k based on your business needs.
Who Can Apply For The Grant?
To be eligible for the grant, you must be a woman who owns at least 50% of your business, which must be registered in Queensland with headquarters or business outlets based in the Brisbane Local Government Area.
Other eligibility criteria includes that you must have/be:
- An Australian resident/citizen
- Applicant must be 18 years of age
- Business needs to be operating/trading for 12 months prior to 21 October 2021
- Not be insolvent or have owners/directors that are an undischarged bankrupt
- Annual turnover between $50,000 and $500,000.
Click here for a full list of the grant entry guidelines.
What Can Be Funded?
The grant is intended to support women to build their personal capability as a business owner and enable their business to grow and develop.
This includes funding the procurement of professional service, including marketing, branding, financial and ecommerce services. The grant also covers training and education, such as TAFE certifications or financial literacy, as well as operationally critical business equipment.
What Kind of Digital Marketing Can I Get For $5k?
At Springboard, we offer flexible and affordable digital marketing services with no long term lock-in contracts. This means we can customise a marketing strategy for your grant application, with the option for a one-off project or ongoing support.
Here’s what $5k can get you with Springboard Digital:
8 Months of Google Ads (excluding ad spend)
Get your website in front of people who are searching for you! Google Ads is a form of Pay Per Click Advertising which allows you to bid on the keywords or search terms you want your ads to appear for, so you can target people who have shown clear intent to enquire or purchase from businesses like yours.
We’ll help set up your Google Ads account, build your campaigns, and optimise them month to month to ensure you’re getting the best return for your investment.
6 Months of Social Media Marketing (excluding ad spend)
Social Media Marketing is the paid advertising side of Social Media which allows you to get your brand, products and services in front of your target market on the channels they’re scrolling every day.
We’ll help set up your Facebook Ad account so you can reach potential customers across Facebook and Instagram and encourage them to take action with your business. All we need from you is some images or videos that represent your business or products, and we’ll take care of the rest!
Website Audit + 5 Months of SEO
Have you got a website but are hardly getting any visitors, enquiries or purchases? You probably need SEO! SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, which essentially includes a whole range of tactics to help increase the quality and quantity of traffic to your website through Google search results.
We’ll conduct a full technical audit of your website and develop a custom SEO strategy so that:
- Google can crawl your website and understand what it’s seeing; and
- Users can easily find your website and get the information they’re looking for once they get there.
Digital Advertising Starter Pack
Are you already getting sales or enquiries through your website, but want to be getting more? Our Digital Advertising Starter Pack includes 3 months of Google Ads and Social Media Marketing management to drive meaningful results for your business.
The two channels work together to drive brand awareness for potential customers at the top or middle of the marketing funnel, while also targeting users at the bottom of the funnel who are actively searching for your brand or products on Google.
We’ll help set up your ad accounts, build your campaigns, and manage them for 3 months to set you up for digital success!
Search Engine Starter Pack
Drive more high quality traffic to your website with a holistic search strategy. Our Search Engine Starter Pack includes 3 months of SEO and Google Ads management to maximise your brand exposure in Google search results.
SEO and Google Ads work best when paired together, so executing both in tandem is a no brainer! SEO will ensure your website is functioning correctly with no technical issues, as well as ensuring the content on your website pages is relevant and high quality. This in turn will help improve your Google Ad quality scores to ensure your business takes up the most real estate on the search engine results page.
I’m New to Digital Marketing, How Will I Know If It’s Working?
We conduct a custom tracking setup for all Springboard clients so we can accurately track the performance of your campaigns and provide you with clean and simple monthly reports.
Plus, one of our Client Success Managers will catch up with you once a month via phone or video call to review how things are going and answer any questions you may have.
How Do I Apply?
If you meet the eligibility criteria and think digital marketing is the best next step for your business, you’ll be required to provide quotes from local suppliers up to the value of $5k (excluding GST).
Get in touch with Springboard via our website or email [email protected] with the subject line “Women in Business Grant 2021” and one of our Client Success Managers will be in touch to organise your custom quote.
Once we’ve provided you with your quote, you can apply for the grant at this link.
So, what are you waiting for? Applications close on 9 December but these grants often fill up fast, so make sure you get in quick!