It’s been a great year for our clients in the 2024 business award season and they’ve been racking up well-deserved accolades from their respective industries.
To name a few
Our client MiTek and their pioneering Posi-Joist system took home the Best Building Fabric Product award at this year’s Housebuilder Product Awards. Property and facilities management (FM) experts Bellrock Group won the prestigious Partners in Wellbeing Award at the PFM Awards for their Hidden Workers Initiative, in collaboration with Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM) and their strategic property partners.
The same initiative was also honoured with the highly commended prize in the Wellbeing category at the IWFM Impact Awards.
The success of our clients got us thinking: Does winning industry accolades really matter?
In a nutshell, yes, they do. Not only does winning business awards provide a powerful endorsement for your brand, it’s a chance for you to showcase industry excellence and enhance credibility with your clients, investors, and stakeholders. It differentiates you from your competitors.
Recognition also offers valuable PR opportunities. You’ll be able to elevate brand visibility across targeted media channels, attracting talent and strengthening customer loyalty and trust.
In a competitive market, being recognised for your achievements can be a decisive factor in winning new business and cementing your reputation as a leader in your field.
So, if winning industry awards is a good thing, how do you write an entry that’s going to get you noticed? Here’s how…
Four top tips for writing business award entries that win
Writing effective entries is tricky, every word has to pull its weight. Here are our top four tips for pulling together a clear, concise, jargon-free award submission.
1. Pick a key message and stick to it
You’ll likely have a word count limit on your award entry, so focus your efforts on telling one clear story. Pick one unique hook, one reason why you and nobody else should win this award. A story that only you can tell.
For example, Bellrock Group’s Hidden Workers programme: improves working conditions and opportunities for vital but vulnerable employees, like maintenance and security staff. There’s the hook. That’s one clear story that any reader can understand in a single sentence.
Stick to that message, reinforce it throughout your entry, build everything in support of that one killer angle.
2. Write from the outside looking in
Reading your award entry might be the first interaction anyone has with your brand. They don’t know your internal jargon. There may be information you take for granted that’s totally new to them.
Get an external third party to proofread early drafts of your entry. Ask them to highlight any terminology that’s not immediately clear, even if they think they can guess what it means. Rephrase or explain these terms more clearly in the next draft.
3. Edit to maintain a clear voice
Award entries live or die by their ability to tell a clear story in a consistent voice. Committee editing will destroy that voice every single time.
On day one, decide who owns the editing process. Ideally, this should be should be a small number of people – between one and three. The more that list grows, the harder it gets to maintain consistency.
4. Back up with statistics
You can say anything you like in an award entry, within reason. By all means pack your entry with other people saying nice things about you – such as testimonials and social proof – but remember, one claim or boast is as good as another so back it up with data. Numbers will give your entry weight that words alone lack.
Always give a stat or a numerical figure if it exists and supports your argument. Ask your partners and clients for any data they collect which might be relevant to your entry.
Every winning and shortlisted project we’ve supported has presented rigorous data to prove its value.
Marketing support for award season and all seasons
We love supporting our clients to get recognition for the great things they do! However, getting to the shortlisting stage takes time, care, and strategy. To find out more about how we can support you and your business, get in touch.