Once you’ve submitted your application, make sure you find out exactly when the finalists and winners will be announced.
Assuming you are successful in either case, these will be the times for you to be active in your marketing and communications.
The awards organiser will promote such announcements to some extent, but you’ll need to add to these efforts to make the process worthwhile for your business.
In anticipation of being named as a finalist, try to prepare as much marketing collateral as possible beforehand, so you can issue it in a timely manner when required. For example, you can draft a news story (for your website), social media updates, a media release (for industry publications – print and online), and perhaps even a paid advertisement.
The sooner you can issue these following the announcement, the better. If you delay for even a day or two, social media influencers and trade media outlets are likely to ignore it as ‘old news’.
If you win an award, you can afford to be even more audacious in promoting this accomplishment. This is the time to tell everyone you know, via your website, email, social media accounts, mainstream media and face-to-face presentations.
Winning an award will give you an opportunity to display the awards in your place of business and the award logo in your digital and print assets. You will have also earned the right to describe your business as an ‘award-winning’ company.
If possible, it can be worth prominently displaying the physical award in clear view of customers and employees – perhaps with the help of a stand or frame.
There are also many places to include the award logo – such as your website, social media pages, newsletters, email signatures, brochures, business cards and letterheads.
Your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and perhaps even Instagram accounts should all feature your award achievements prominently. On Twitter and Instagram updates, it pays to use the official award hashtag, and on LinkedIn there’s a distinct field for you to list any awards you have won.
When your business is announced as an award finalist or winner, post social updates as soon as you can, featuring links to the news item on your website and to the organiser’s award website.
In addition, encourage all the people in your business to post the news on their individual social media accounts.
Your email newsletter is an important place for you to promote an award win or even just your participation. If you win, it may even be worth sending out an email dedicated to the subject.
Again, send these out as soon as you can after the announcement, and link back to the news item on your website.
Writing and distributing a media release is traditionally the most important first step that businesses would focus on to promote an award win. In recent years, however, it can be argued that your content marketing, social media and email strategies have become more effective.
Still, you shouldn’t ignore mainstream media relations. You can potentially gain promotional traction by distributing your news directly to relevant industry publications and to media distribution services such as Newsmaker, SourceBottle and Get The Word Out.
It may or may not be worth paying for an advertisement solely to promote your award achievement. At the least, you can add a sentence about it (or even an image of the award logo) to any advertising you have already booked.
This includes job advertisements you post on any careers websites. The best job candidates want to work for the best companies, and an award win is one way of demonstrating that your business is one of the best.
Whether you’re creating an advertisement, a website news article, a social media update, an email or a media release, adding a good photo is essential. It will increase your chances of audience engagement exponentially.
The best photo you can use is probably a shot of the main award recipient holding the award on stage at the presentation event, perhaps shaking hands with the award presenter. Another good image would be of the winning team members smiling at the presentation event.