How To Stack the Deck in Your Favor to Win More Often
Experts agree that the ROI of winning awards is tangible. There is value in the award itself as a motivator, publicity engine and for goodwill. There is also value in the process of nominating your company product or executive. Lots of people write on this topic so I would simply recommend reading some of those articles and ours on the topic: The ROI of Winning an Award and The ROI of NOT Winning an Award.
Since the Big Award for Business deadline is fast approaching we wanted to instead provide some advice for those applying. This is broad advice meant to help you win any award, from a Peabody to a Razzie, you need to know what to consider to improve your odds of winning and to secure your position in the top of your field.
Pick a Winner!
How you find out about award programs and contests and how to decide to nominate are both important considerations. There is actually a few good locations to find lists of awards, usually by type of award and by date. This makes it incredibly easy to also filter in or filter out competitions. Pick your contests well. Look at all your competitors and see what awards they win. Make sure you have a good chance of winning based on your strengths.
Here are a few places to check:
- www.awardlist.co.uk
- www.boost-awards.com/awardslists
- smallbiztrends.com
- awardlist.co.uk
- awards-agency.co.uk
- awardshub.com
- smallbiztechnology.com
- itdatabase.com
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Business_and_industry_awards
- www.altruworld.com/businessawards.php
Don't be shy, ask for help!.
It is human nature to be shy about asking questions, but the act of asking means your listening (most of the time), engaged and interested. So asking for help can improve your odds. Asking for help can actually take two forms.
- If you are confused or have questions, ask the company running the program. Clarification will only help you narrow your focus and make your nomination clearer to the judges and more on target. If you competitors don't ask the basic questions, think how their nominations will suffer! There is no shame in asking questions.
- If you need help because you are not great writers or have not been successful writing nominations, looks outside. The ROI of winning will still hold true if you work with a PR agency or a company like Boost Marketing to help you put the right words on paper. Boost Marketing for instance is 100% focused on awards. They are specialists, experts! They know better than anyone what it takes to win!
Devil in the Details
Make sure you use real data to inform your judges of actual facts. There is nothing worse than getting a fluffy marketing nomination that lacks an impact statement or any real data backing up the claims. Prove your claims of increased revenue with dollars. Did you increase productivity? OK, by how much? How did you measure. Tell us! It helps not only the judges but also your peers who are looking to you as experts.
Tell a Story
Be interesting! While facts have their place, we are not statisticians who only love data. Our judges are experts in their field, real people with real jobs. They are also volunteers so time spent helping you and us is money out of their pockets. Judges want to understand the impact on humans and the feel good stories of your efforts. What did customers say? What did employees do differently? What are their names? These small details make your story human and more worthy of an award.
Be In It To Win It
One way to improve your odds is to apply often. Like the lottery, you have to be in it to win it. Rarely can you win an award you don't apply for. This goes for applying for lots of different awards, as well as applying for multiple awards within the same program. If your nominations are good, leverage that and win more than one award. There is NO harm in being awarded Product and Company of the Year, ask 2012 winner TubeMogul.
Follow the Leader(s)
There are lots of experts in the world of business awards, advice and leadership. These are a few of our favorites. Get inspired and connect.
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