Putting your brand’s name forward for an award - whether it’s for a specific project or a more wide-ranging category - requires much more than filling out a short form and providing a brief statement as to why you should be nominated.

Obviously, you want to provide a winning entry, but so does every other entrant. So, your submission needs to do more than meet the award criteria - it needs to tell the judges: “We haven’t just ticked the boxes - we’ve knocked this out the park.”

Award wins can work wonders for clients long beyond the excitement of the ceremony. They boost reputations, solidify brand authority, impress shareholders and customers, and they can be a real asset when it comes to pitching and winning new business.

As well as the core work we do for our clients, we’re increasingly collaborating on awards entries. These entries can be for campaigns that we’ve developed and worked on, or they might be for projects that we haven’t played a part in - either way, the entries themselves require careful crafting, and more clients are turning to us for our help.

Why should you get an agency to create your award entries?

All awards have specific criteria for consideration, but in general, they’re looking for evidence of the thinking behind the product, service, or campaign. If an agency worked on the subject of the entry, then they’re perfectly placed to delve into the whats, the whys, and the hows of it all.

Remember, you’re being judged on the quality of your entry, as well as what's being submitted for consideration. That’s why it needs to:

• Be comprehensive, but within the given word count
• Hit the key submission criteria
• Grab the judges’ attention: you need to stand out from your competition
• Tell a coherent, compelling story in language that’s easy to understand
• Emphasise the most impressive and important parts of the project

At RKH, we can draw upon our experience of writing winning entries to properly plan, structure, and create an entry that is impossible to ignore.

What if the agency wasn’t involved in the project?

If you’ve asked an agency to create an awards entry for you, but they don’t have any first-hand experience of the project, then the brief you give them is going to carry a lot of responsibility.

You’ll need to provide as much information as possible about the subject of your submission; that includes the key points you want to highlight, the challenges that you faced, the solution that you put in place, the results - including any relevant statistics (the more impressive the better) - and an explanation of why you think your entry should be considered. Plus, make sure to provide them with the details of your work and how they meet the awards criteria, so they have a strong base from which to craft your entry.

The better your brief and the more substantial the information you provide, the better chance your entry has at impressing the judges.

How to write great award entries

Select your category

This is the first port of call. Awards usually have plenty of categories covering many aspects of the industry, so it’s important you understand what all the categories cover and what they’re asking for so that you can decide which category best suits your project or work. Ask yourself: “in which category will I really stand out?”

You should find awards that fit the areas in which you excel, rather than setting your sights on a category that might not suit your work, and trying to shoehorn an entry into its criteria.

Thinking long-term, if you really want to win a specific award, then you could set a target of winning it in a few years. This’ll give you time to improve your work according to the award criteria, putting you in a better position to enter the competition in the future.

Read the rules

For an award entry to have a chance of succeeding, it needs to meet the criteria of the award category itself; make sure you familiarise yourself with what the judges are asking for before you decide whether or not the award is actually right for your project. If you think your work meets the criteria in a natural way, then you’re in a good place to push on.

You might also have the opportunity to speak to the awards organisers themselves, who can provide even greater insight into the format of the entry, the judging criteria, and some specifics of what the judges are looking for. They might even confirm which category your entry is most suitable for.

A head-turning headline

Although some award entries are submitted through simple forms, some of them may require a little more creativity.

If that’s the case, and you need to come up with a headline for your entry, then don’t take any shortcuts. The judges could be sifting through hundreds or thousands of entries, so a bog standard “[Company Name] - [Award Name] Entry” just isn’t going to cut it. Give your entry the best possible start with an unignorable headline.

Make an impact

You need to state your case and make an impression as early as possible. If you’ve got a big claim to make - one that you can back up, of course - make that claim in the first paragraph to hook the judges. You need to provide evidence later on in the entry, but you must convince them to stick around in order to get there.

Think of writing your entry like writing a brilliant testimonial or case study. Tell the judges how the project unfolded, the challenges you encountered and overcame, the activation of the work and the outcome it created. If possible, add some thoughts about what the future might hold for the project or the industry, too.

Remember, though: word counts can be strict, so don’t stray over the limit whilst weaving your narrative.

The numbers don’t lie

If your submission is quantifiable by data - for example, a marketing campaign that generated a massive amount of leads or conversions, or work for a customer or client that generated significant improvements - then get those stats in. Try not to overdo it with the numbers, but the most impressive statistics need to be given space to shine.

Any supporting documentation that shows the impact your project has made can be very effective. Think graphs or reports that show ‘before and after’ figures, or demonstrable evidence of how your work has driven growth or other success.

Pictures help to tell the story

If you’ve got some high quality imagery to supplement your submission, and you’re allowed to submit it to support your entry, then do so! It’ll build a more comprehensive case for success, a more visually interesting entry, and it can serve as another way of evidencing the claims you’re making.

Testimonials

As well as statistics, testimonials are a fantastic way to demonstrate the impact of your project, or give extra detail on the work that went into it. Gather some quotes from clients and incorporate them into the entry; a little bit of social proof can go a long way.

Some of our success stories

We’ve worked on countless award entries over the years; some of them for projects that we’ve worked on, and some of them for projects that we weren’t involved in. From scooping the top prize to earning commendations and honourable mentions, we’re proud to have delivered a fair bit of success. We've helped Taylor Wimpey win awards at major ceremonies like the Housebuilder Awards, WhatHouse Awards, and the Building Innovation Awards, and we've supported Samsic UK to success in the British Security Awards and HR Brilliance Awards.

Click here and here to read about some of our award-winning clients, and how we've helped them secure success.

A compelling entry is the first step to being considered for an award, and so there's absolutely no room for shortcuts or templates. Think of the entry process as a competition within itself; you need to stand out from your peers at the earliest possible stage.