Does your business have online export Potential?
A €15,000 Feasibility Study Grant Can Include Website Development And Digital Marketing Test Campaigns
How Does The Feasibility Study Grant Work?
Local Enterprise Office (LEO) Feasibility Study Grants are designed to help existing and start-up businesses to research and test market demand and sustainability for a product or service. You can receive up to €15,000 in matched funding towards the third party costs that your research and testing entails, including technical development, prototype development and other innovations.
Eligibility Criteria
Your business can already be employing up to ten employees and must be either in manufacturing or internationally traded services.
If you are not already exporting then you will need to show LEO your export potential. Ideally they want to see the potential for over 50% of your trade to come from overseas customers.
LEO will want to see that there is a market for the products or services of your business and show that it has a capacity for growth and new job creation.
This Feasibility Study Grant is also available for start-up businesses who have not yet traded.
Website & Marketing
AycyA may be able to help you testing the market for your product or service.
This could involve setting up a new website or enhancing an existing site to serve your potential new customers, for example, adding additional landing pages, languages and more complex delivery options
You may need to develop a digital marketing strategy to test your export potential in different markets. This could involve multiple test marketing campaigns, for example, with Google, Facebook or LinkedIn each in several export markets like the UK, EU and USA.
Qualifying Expenses
You can hire third party firms to provide services, and expertise under the following headings:
Technical Development & Innovation which can include prototype development, innovative design, research costs and third-level college consultancy.
Market Research to help you develop your business proposition which can include website or app development and digital marketing testing.
Consultancy Costs which can include design fees, patent cost and legal fees.
You will need to provide financial projections as part of your grant application. AycyA can help with researching the cost of ongoing digital marketing and online sales in your planned export markets.
How Does Matched Funding Work?
As an illustration of how matched funding works, let’s say you need to spend €35,000 in total costs to develop your prototype product and test marketing campaigns.
In this cases you will need to have the full amount to pay for the work upfront and then you will receive 50% back, up to a maximum of €15,000, once you have paid for it. In this case you will ultimately contribute €20,000 and receive the maximum grant of €15,000 from LEO.
We Can Help!
We will help you secure your grant. We can advise you on various areas of digital, and help you with your application.
Call us on 01-280 9248 or schedule a call using our online diary.
We have 100% application success
When Is The Grant Payment Made?
Once your Feasibility Study Grant approval comes through from your local LEO office you can start the project.
When you have paid at least some of your third party suppliers you can immediately apply for your grant payment. You will have to provide the supplier invoice and proof of payment (usually a bank statement). There is usually an option to draw down your grant in two tranches. This can be very helpful for cashflow.
Depending on the payment cycle of your local LEO office it can take anywhere from 4 to 8 weeks to receive your payment.
