5 Tips To Remember When Entering Industry Awards

I spent this morning judging the 2020 Engage Awards. Don't ask me for the results because I don't know. Judging is spread across several different individual judges, so entries always get rated by more than one person. You can register for the virtual event on December 3rd here.

In the past I have worked with the Engage Customer team on videos and webinars that help companies to improve their entries. There are some key rules about entering your projects for awards that always remain true. This year we didn't do a reminder video and I was reminded of many of the problems as I started judging the 2020 awards.

So here is a quick list of things to remember if you are entering for any type of industry awards in the near future - from the opinion of someone who has been a judge for several different trade bodies using a number of different judging formats (in person and online platforms).

1. Basic spelling and grammar: it may sound like a teacher scolding their class, but you really need to check for the most basic of errors. Your project may be really interesting, but if the entry is littered with basic errors then that can easily be enough to relegate it if there are two evenly-matched entries.
2. Get to the point: judges may be under pressure to review several dozen entries so they will always appreciate it if you get to the point quickly. Why is your project special and why does it deserve consideration? Less really is more.
3. Answer the question: if you are asked to explain why your project is particularly innovative then it's not helpful for you to spend several hundred words describing how you bought it off the shelf. Look at the question - answer it. Many awards have specific guidelines on what is expected from each section of an entry. Follow them. Not answering the question is probably the single most common way to get a judge to just throw out your entry.
4. Respect the judge: linked to point 2, but it's a combination of getting to the point, not adding too many "essential" supplementary documents, and using clear and direct language that conveys the importance of the project. If you can't get the point across immediately then the judge is unlikely to go back reading it again looking for clues. Don't ask James Joyce to write your award entries, get Stephen King.
5. Innovation and jargon: it's not innovative to go out and buy some pre-existing software. A CRM rollout might be your idea of the 'new normal', or it could just be another cloud-based tool. Your groundbreaking app may just be an app. If you are going to make grandiose claims for what you have achieved then offer some context and explain why you have achieved so much and how - otherwise it will just look like you upgraded your system. Show results or quantifiable change.

That's just a quick list of the top 5 things to remember. It can be quite an art to write a successful award entry and I'm not claiming great expertise, I have just judged a lot of awards. If you actually answer the question that is asked and respect the time of the judge then you will already be most of the way there. Some great projects are always discarded or marked down because they were just not presented in an understandable way or in the way that was requested.

Don't let that happen to your award entry!

CC Photo by Kian Zhang