Is being shortlisted for an award a good message?

This week, we received an email that started…

‘Dear Nicky, It is with great pleasure that I write to you and confirm your company, Padua Communications​ has been shortlisted for the Toast of Surrey Business Awards, Creative Industries Award…’

We’re absolutely thrilled about this – for a whole host of reasons. One of our key messages is that we try to be creative and challenge our clients to think creatively about their businesses. It also celebrates the hard work that the team puts in. And it gives us breathing space when writing the award entry to think more strategically about what we have achieved and things that worked (and things that we would do differently next time). More often than not, an awards ceremony is run in conjunction with a trade body or publication so you will be being seen by your peers, customers and competition, so it’s a great marketing and PR tool!

We actively encourage our clients to enter relevant awards as even being shortlisted, let alone winning, is a great way of raising your company’s profile. We also like making awards a focal point as they can give clients fixed deadlines of celebrating internally all of their marketing, customer service and product development. And let’s face it – we are all time-poor and this sometimes means, while we are getting on with the work, we are not thinking more strategically about using the work as an example to showcase what working with your company is like. Awards entries can be a great way to challenge you to think differently!

Here are our top pointers if you’re thinking about entering for an award.

1. Choose your award entry wisely – there are literally hundreds of awards out there to be had. Which few would be beneficial to your business profile and growth?
2. Make sure you leave yourself plenty of time before the deadline and check what you need to submit and by when.
3. Are you the right person to complete your award submission? Sometimes it’s better to have a couple of people working on an award entry or someone else to write it for you. With a fairly tight format, you want to include all of the things that makes you the best at what you do – sometimes having someone else ask you the questions will make you come up with braver, more creative answers.
4. Expect to have to share some financial information!
5. Read the entry form and tailor your answers to the questions you are being asked – like you had to do in old school O-level comprehension papers. You need to demonstrate your skills in a set format so that it makes the judging easier. The last thing you want to do is annoy a judge because you are trying something new that they can’t compare to the other entries in your category.

We have a database listing all the awards you could possibly ever want to know about. If you need a hand completing your entry, why not give us a ring? This is one of our testimonials about our award entry writing:

“We asked Padua Communications to craft our award entries and are delighted with the service that we received.  Padua Communications tailored its approach perfectly, grasping the key points of our campaigns quickly. The company was fast, meticulous, creative and offered extremely good value for money. We can’t recommend Padua Communications highly enough.”

Paul Woods, Managing Director, Astute Ltd

Otherwise, keep your fingers crossed for us over the coming weeks.