Funding for Marketing – A Smart Investment

Hiring an Graduate – Marketing and e-Business Results

When was the last time you did things differently? Really change your approach to think differently? Do you ever find that you read and read and complete (or buy) more market research reports and stack up more knowledge but run out of time to execute on your marketing goals? I can relate until I found this Canadian government funding program that encourages us as an incorporated business owner to hire a marketing graduate for 12 weeks.

With three weeks into this program, the results have been amazing for my Canadian business and I will keep you posted on the coming weeks. I applied for the SBIP program – as you see that is my passion, to help business owners find and administer government grants to help their business. One could say that I practice what I preach. I applied for the SBIP program which contributes 75% to the salary and benefit costs toward the hire of a graduate and received approval in less than 24 hrs.  The process was simple. I applied to the delivering agency for this program which was the University of Waterloo and the program is offered through Industry Canada. Submitted my application online and worked through the local universities to find my graduate. University of Guelph worked for me and the team lead by Bruce Wilson in Career Services was fantastic.

Government Funding for Marketing Through SBIP

SBIP or Small Business Internship Program allows you to hire a marketing or business graduate for 12 weeks to execute your marketing plans either online or offline (but is there really any sense with offline marketing these days). The only eligibility is that you must be incorporated and have a website.

Easy Process or Approach

My approach was to implement the market research study which I purchased through www.rankstudy.com. Lead by Darryl Peddle, this is a company that I recommend heavily by the way for keyword analysis and competitive market research. He provided a great coaching session on all the smart stuff that makes you think strategically about your website and the journey that you would like your followers to experience. Then I took a vacation to read three great books – Get to the top on Google by David Viney, UNmarketing by Scott Stratten and an exceptional book by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith called Trust Agents. The Trust Agents book will change the way you think – and truly helps you get the social media tool thing organized in your head – which is about how we embrace engagement and relationship building. Although I am usually a person that prefers a step by step plan on doing things that doesn’t work with social media because it is a way of life.

But now the government offers you funding to embrace this new game and social pathway. The government funding program understands that to expand our businesses and build new communities to grow, we need to change our approach to e-business and market smarter.

Of course, you need a smart graduate as well – but then again, the universities can help you with great candidates. And of course, I can help you duplicate my efforts with the funding guidance.

Mentor Works provides support to educate business owners on potential government funding vehicles that are available in Ontario and consulting services to ease the application process. IF you would like additional support to complete the application process and learn of others, please do not hesitate to contact us at Mentor Works.