Writing winning awards entries
Winning awards is a wonderful way to earn your business prestige and recognition within your industry. Awards are not only great for PR, but also for team morale, positioning yourselves as experts within a given field and encouraging new business consideration.
But, how do you win awards? The truth is, no matter how great your business actually is, it all comes down to your entry.
Awards entries take a lot of time and energy; something that business owners and employees are often pretty short of. They can be frustrating and long, and ultimately, that’s where we come in. We can help you craft that winning entry. At Carnsight we’ve written countless and we’ve picked up plenty of tips and tricks along the way. Today we’re going to share some of them with you. Here are 4 tips for writing a great awards entry:
Before you even begin writing your entry you need to identify which award it is you actually want to win. Scratch the surface and you’ll find there are countless different awards out there in every single sector and industry and so it’s important to find which ones are right for your business.
This takes a lot of research and usually involves a lot of whittling down, too. Awards entries take a lot of focus and so it’s not possible to enter every one in your industry. It’s important to know which awards are worth the most to your business. Which one would mean the most to you and your business to win?
At this stage, a PR can help you by thoroughly researching the awards within your industry and creating a list of suggested focuses. At Carnsight, we not only work to provide a list of relevant and exceptional award opportunities, but we ensure we understand the entry and judging processes in order to give businesses the best chance of success.
As we’ve stressed above, entering for an award is a lengthy process which requires a lot of thought. If you’re a business owner or someone who works for the business, the likelihood is you won’t have a lot of extra time to give outside of the work you already do. Taking on such a task on top of your existing responsibilities is a lot and this is another reason why getting help from a PR is a good idea.
A PR will be able to give the entry exactly the time and attention that it needs and deserves. They can focus on the project and ensure that it is completed to the best that it can be without needing too much of your time as a business. Not only this, but a PR will likely be able to complete the entry that little bit quicker, given their experience in crafting entries.
This is perhaps the biggest area in which we can help as a PR consultancy. It’s often difficult as someone who is incredibly close to the business to see the bigger picture. A PR can help you to craft a story within your entry, telling the judges exactly who you are and how you got where you are today. As PRs we are skilled at telling businesses stories and it’s something we do on a daily basis. PRs know exactly how to get under the skin of your business and how to craft an entry that’s relevant, inspiring, attention grabbing and honest.
A PR will also be able to help you give your entry that special something. With vast experience, good PRs are especially great at knowing how to make your business stand out from the rest. It’s important to know what your hook will be, what makes your business the deserving winner over the hundreds of other successful businesses that have entered?
There’s no point in writing a beautifully crafted award entry that raves about your business if you can’t back up what you say. Judges want proof of your claims and you will need case studies and value based evidence in order to validate your entry.
It’s all very well to say that your marketing campaign was an unmatched success, but can you prove that? One of the best ways to prove your business is to demonstrate its impact. What has changed for the better because of what your business was able to achieve and how has it changed? You might struggle to feature the full results but even % are better than general terms.
You can find examples of our work in the form of case studies here. Case studies are a vital part of demonstrating what you can do as a business.
To find out more about PR can help your business check out our blog post on the benefits of PR.
You can also see further examples of our coverage over on Instagram where we share new coverage every Thursday.
At Carnsight Communications we create strategies and campaigns to showcase our clients’ brilliant work through PR, content and social media. We help them get noticed by the right audience, at the right time. We specialise in creative agency PR.
