“Vicky managed the award entries as a reliable extension of our client’s team, delivering exceptional results on behalf of us and our client. They were delighted with the outcome.”
I regularly work with Louise Turner, MD of Wordsmiths & Awards Writers agencies as a copy and content writing associate.
I write everything from social messaging for universities to whitepapers for tech companies for Wordsmiths, while Awards Writers focuses solely on, you guessed it, awards entry writing.
Awards Writers has an 82% shortlist rate (with many going on to win). As Louise points out, “being on the shortlist offers 90% of the marketing benefits”.
It’s a common misconception that awards are pointless because you ‘buy them’.
Yes, you pay to enter some awards, but some of the most prestigious ones are free. And while you can book a table to celebrate with your team, there’s no obligation. I’ve had plenty of clients win an award despite not attending the event.
Last year, I wrote five awards entries for Awards Writers: two for the automotive industry AM Awards, two for the Prolific North Champions Awards and two for the Prolific North Creative Awards. Of those five:
In all these cases, the Awards Writers clients benefitted from being able to document and share the journey in their communications.
To get on these shortlists, I wrote gripping stories for the client explaining how they’d met or exceeded their objectives.
A win usually takes that little bit extra – something special that marks an entry as exceptional.
None of these elements, including the ‘extra,’ can be made up. My role was simply to communicate the client’s story effectively.
But here’s where I could add more value. I advised the client to set KPIs and data collection targets against new campaign objectives so they had a stronger case for winning in the following year’s awards programmes.
Another challenge in this particular set of awards was that some were just 150 words long (typical award entries require 1000-1,500 word responses).
And so my job became about condensing the client’s story into a few short paragraphs while still capturing the judges’ interest.
In this way, award entries are no different from other types of communications—the research, planning, and development time far outweigh the actual writing time because understanding the story in depth is essential to writing a winning entry.
For Awards Writers, I achieved an 80% shortlist rate and a 25% win rate (for the same client). Plus, all the benefits of communicating their awards story to new and potential customers.
For a relatively small investment, this client increased their social engagement and recognised and celebrated a rising star within their team.
One of the nicest things about writing awards is that it’s a feel-good exercise reflecting significant progress. Who doesn’t want a piece of that?
