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Posted: Fri 25th Aug 2023
Earlier this year, Enterprise Nation and Adobe Express teamed up to launch their Brand Builder programme, an initiative to help small and medium-sized businesses take their design skills to the next level.
As part of the programme, we ran a competition for 20 small businesses to win cash grants of £250 that they could use to promote their ventures and grow and enhance their brands.
Here, we talk to some of the grant winners and ask how they plan to spend the money to market their businesses.
We're so pleased that Enterprise Nation and Adobe have supported Leiho with this grant! It means we finally have a marketing budget we can spend towards targeting more people and reaching our audience.
As a small business, allocating a marketing budget can be hard when you have lots of expenses and outgoings. So we're excited to get creative and see what we can do!
Instagram: @leiho_uk
There are so many ways to grow my brand as a freelance illustrator, but I think a really important focus for me currently is upping my content game to help me connect with both new and familiar faces in my network, including customers, clients and like-minded creators.
That might be creating new imagery for my online shop, investing in equipment for video content on TikTok and YouTube (something I'd LOVE to venture into!) or making a super-clean and cohesive brand across my website and newsletter.
Plus there are plenty of opportunities for me to throw some learning and skill development into the mix, which I think will be both challenging and super-interesting.
Instagram: @hollyfarndell
We're very grateful that Cacao Pow Deo Bar has been selected for the Adobe Express Brand Builder grant competition. This grant will go towards marketing and PR opportunities to help us further build brand awareness.
Instagram: @cacaopowdeobar
Wow, thanks so much, Enterprise Nation and Adobe! We're so excited to have been one of the lucky winners. We'll put the money towards the next photo shoot that Tide and Seek has planned for September. We can budget for that extra model we wanted to use!
Instagram: @tide.and.seek
As a start-up e-commerce brand, this grant is going to help us run a campaign across our socials, Instagram, Facebook and on Google, in order to increase visitors to the HayDay website. A huge thank you to Enterprise Nation and Adobe!
Instagram: @haydayhq
This is a first for us, and we're so grateful to Enterprise Nation and Adobe Express. As we're already in the process of rebranding, this grant will be so helpful in projecting DARKKINS as a premium barrier-boosting skincare brand.
Being a winner of the Brand Builder competition means that I can afford a month of PR for DARKKINS to increase our brand visibility. Thanks to Enterprise Nation and Adobe Express, I'll be able to put this grant towards rebranding DARKKINS to reflect the clean, ingredient-focused company that it is.
Instagram: @darkkinskin
Since starting our bookselling business Novel last summer, we've been keen to rebrand and update our logo. As a small business, we try to pump money back into the local economy wherever we can and support other businesses and creators in the area.
I'd absolutely love to pay a local graphic designer to refresh Novel's brand now we're slightly more established and know what sort of thing we're after.
Instagram: @novelsheffield
I'm thrilled to have won a £250 cash grant from Enterprise Nation. It'll be a great help with marketing Clara and Macy and levelling up our branding.
I plan to use the grant towards new branded packaging materials for our orders and digital marketing during Q4, our busiest season!
Instagram: @claraandmacy
I plan to put this grant towards growing my business Laconic into a fine jewellery brand. I'm currently working on developing a new e-commerce website and this grant will help me create imagery and graphics. I'll use these on the website and for PR, to raise brand awareness through marketing campaigns and events.
Instagram: @laconic.jwls
