No, you can’t win awards by paying for them

Not the ones worth entering anyway. Read on to find out what the deal is.

Award Entry Writing

Awards writing

How to guide

Sorry to burst your bubble, but you can't buy your way to a win.

Entry fees and ceremony tickets don't win awards. Judges don't care how much you've spent or which table you've booked. They care about your story: what you set out to do, how you did it and what difference it made.

The good news is that even if you don't win, making the shortlist does most of the work for you. As Louise Turner at Awards Writers puts it, “90% of the benefits of winning an award can be enjoyed by making the shortlist.”

So if you've been wondering whether awards are worth the time and effort, here are three reasons they deserve a place in your marketing plan.

1. Share your success: Win more business

Made the shortlist? Shout about it. Add the finalist logo to your website, email signature, proposals and pitch decks. Share it on social media, and send a press release to your local and trade press. It's independent proof that you're good at what you do, and it costs nothing to share.

Win, and you can call yourself award-winning. When a prospect is comparing you with two or three competitors, that can be the thing that tips the balance.

Just make sure you choose awards your customers recognise and respect. For example, a Prolific North Creative Awards win gave one agency real proof of its claim to be one of the North's top creative agencies. An award nobody's heard of won't do the same job.

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2. Celebrate your success: Create a ‘winning’ team culture

Writing an entry is a chance to step back and look at what your team has achieved. In the day-to-day rush, it's easy to forget how far you've come. Putting it down on paper reminds everyone, and that's a great morale boost.

If you're shortlisted, the ceremony is a brilliant night out, too. It's a chance to celebrate together, network with others in your industry and even spot future talent. And if the date doesn't suit, don't worry: you don't have to be there to win. One client skipped the Third Sector Awards and still took home the trophy.

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3. Continue your success: Keep growing as a business

The hardest part of most award entries isn't the writing. It's finding the evidence. Entries are far easier, and far stronger, when you've measured your results from the start.

Set clear objectives and KPIs at the start of a project, and collect data as you go. Your entries will be stronger, and you'll have a benchmark to measure your growth against and the insight to refine your strategy.

One large manufacturer I worked with entered several awards every year. Over time, the insights from writing those entries helped shape its long-term innovation strategy. That's the real value of awards: not the trophy, but what you learn about your business along the way.

Want more than just this overview?

I'll help you pick the awards worth entering, gather the evidence that makes judges sit up, and write entries that get you shortlisted. Four out of five of my entries are shortlisted.

Whether it's your first award or your fiftieth, if you'd like your next shortlisting to bring in new business, let's talk.

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