5 steps to perfecting your awards entry
Wednesday 11th May 2022
Winning an award in business can do wonders for your public relations. If you win, you get a valuable opportunity to draw attention to your company by publishing your achievements. Winning an award could give you the persuading factor you need to convince people to buy your products and help generate more business.
So how do you go about winning awards?
Choose the right award to win
Decide who you want to impress and then decide which award is likely to appeal to this audience.
If you are trying to attract people to come and work at your company, then you may consider a ‘Best Employer’ or ‘Best Place to Work’ award, or if you are hoping to appeal to a specific niche such as sustainability, then an award based around being sustainable might be a good idea.
Create an award-winning strategy
Choosing the right project is important so make sure you mind-map all the things your company has achieved this year and then pick the project that is the most innovative and has had the greatest impact on your market.
Once you have your project, make sure you choose an award that has credibility and is recognisable. A good way to do this is by looking at what your competitors have won in the past.
Your award-winning story
Once you’ve decided on the project, the award and the category, you now need to make sure that the story you write has the best chance of winning the award.
For each award in every category there will be specific criteria that you need to follow. Make sure you follow these to the letter to give you the best possible chance of winning, stick to the word limit and focus on your message - judges will read a lot of entries so you must make sure you connect with them.
Ask yourself, “What is special about this story? Is it the only one? The biggest? The best?? If you can make it emotional or funny then that’s even better as that means it’s more likely to be remembered. Following the criteria will also ensure your story is well structured and easy to follow.
Back up your claims
Include evidence to back up your claims.
Check the format of award entries with the organisers first - that way you can make sure that when you submit supporting documents they are presented in the correct way. This could be in the form of quantitative and qualitative data with graphs to show the impact.
For example, if you state that you have created the best environmental impact - show the evidence. It could be from reduced CO2 emissions over a period of time in the form of a graph, or from images showing tree growth from a replanting initiative, but just make sure that if you make a claim there is evidence to prove it.
Proof read
Once you have written your award-winning story, you need to make sure it reads perfectly.
It is best not to do this just after you have completed the first draft, give yourself a break before returning to read it through. With a bit of a rest and a clearer head, you are much more likely to spot errors or think of better ways of writing it and once you think you have done the best job you can, give it to someone else to check for spelling and grammar errors and for their opinion on how it reads - do they understand what you are trying to put across?
Win, lose or draw, the process of preparing an entry allows you and your team to reflect on your achievements in detail and see how far you have come, so make sure you take pride in this!
