This guest post has been provided by rebuildingsociety's PR agency, Quest PR.
The power of winning of winning awards to open new doors and drive sales is proven time and again.
Everyone loves to work with winners - and awards showcase your expertise, maximise success with your critical audiences via traditional PR and social media platforms - and attract great people to work with you.
Stop the frustrations of seeing, reading and hearing about your competitors scooping accolades - particularly when you know your company performs better - and start reaping their business boosting benefits.
As with all your PR and marketing activities, ensure the ones you enter are wholly aligned with your business goals and underpin your company’s vision.
Having compiled a myriad of trade and business awards which have driven sales and opened doors for our clients - we wanted to share our top tips with you.
- Take the time to research awards that most reflect your expertise
- If available, study the content and format of previous winning entries
- Ensure your submissions are formatted properly and avoid jargon
- If you don’t have the skills in-house, outsource them to experienced business writers
- Take yourself outside of your business and put yourself in the judges’ shoes
- Summarise your achievements and why you deserve to win at the outset (judges may not read the whole submission)
- Don’t be woolly with figures – spell out year on year growth, profit and staff increases
- Be very specific with your evaluation and measurements
- If testimonials are required, give clients advance warning to do you justice
- If your work has achieved media coverage, be sure to include it
- If shortlisted, maximise the milestone and promote the story via your social networks
- If attending the ceremony, go armed with plenty of business cards and network hard!