Richard Fitzmaurice explains how to make entries stand out to win a B2B Marketing Award
Marketers have a love-hate relationship with awards.
On one hand, we hate them. Rather, we hate the frivolous ones. The ‘fund management firm of the year’ nonsense. The top lawyers/accountants/bankers/egotistical maniacs ‘power’ list. Basically, the ones that have no judging process of any merit and exist only to sell worthless pieces of perspex and tables of 10 at a ceremony. Customers don’t value them at all, despite what the egomaniacs will tell you. Marketer’s value them even less.
On the other hand, we value the small number of awards that genuinely take a bit of effort to enter and even more to win. The awards that are genuinely sought after and mean something. The ones that have a transparent process, a neutral judging panel and a commitment to only reward the entries that deserve recognition.
In that vein, it was a privilege to be asked to judge the 2019 B2B Marketing Awards last week in London. An awards programme that is rigorous and, as I am about to detail, hard to win, which means that winning one actually means something!
The B2B Marketing Awards judging process
Round one sees 150 marketers take part on the online judging process, witling down the 500+ entries to give the face-to-face judges a fighting chance. Typically, the online judges identify six to eight entries for each category and those from the shortlist.
Round two sees 40 judges over seven days work together to assess each shortlisted entry and identify the Gold, Silver and Bronze winners in each category. Each judging day has around six new judges with an independent chairman, marketing consultant Peter Young, overseeing the process, approving the judges (eradicating any conflict of interest) and validating the verdicts.
Important points to note about the second round judges:
- They are senior marketers that come from a variety of backgrounds and industries.
- They are asked to sign a ‘code of conduct’ to commit to the highest standards of integrity and confidentiality.
- The judges are senior marketers with large day jobs. They volunteer to give up a whole day of their time, with some traveling the length of the country. Nobody is paid to judge, and nobody profits from it.
- Time is extremely limited. For example, during my day judging we went through more than 40 entries across six categories.
7 hot tips for how to win a marketing award
Now, with that context in mind, entrants can do a lot to maximise their chances of winning. Here is a list I have put together. Some of it should be simple. Some of it should be a no-brainer. But you would be surprised to learn just how many entrants fail to do all of the below and so, give their rivals an edge.
1. Base your entire entry on the judging criteria
You would be amazed by the amount of entries that completely forget about the judging criteria.
Imagine you were back at university (oh so many years ago!). If you are aiming for a first (with honours), wouldn’t you base the entire structure and emphasis of your submission on the judging criteria?
2. Tailor your entry to the category
Another massive faux pas. If you are lucky enough to work on a successful marketing project that crosses two or more categories, then tailor each entry to the category in which it is being submitted.
Write the entire submission from scratch bearing in mind the criteria. I know it’s tempting to copy and paste but please don’t. It really works against you. Make the covers different. Change the images and the statistics highlighted. Completely focus on the category at hand. Anything else is not only wasting money but it smacks of laziness.
3. Set the scene and tell us a story
As mentioned above, the judges really have very limited time. Tell us upfront, in as clear a language as possible, what challenges you were facing. You only had a limited budget to work from? Marketing and sales had a historically poor working relationship? Forced to communicate a really unpopular business decision to your customers? Give us some background to help us understand why you did what you did. Adults are like kids; we love a narrative and a story arc. A beginning, a middle and an end to your story is easy for us to grasp at speed.
4. Write like a human being
The judges are all from different industries and it’s difficult to switch from marketing for an accountancy firm, to a plumber’s merchant, to a data supplier and then to a large IT provider. Help us out a little.
Don’t worry about buzzwords or using up all of your word limit. If you understand things well enough, you would be amazed how simply you can articulate it. The judges will not only appreciate it but will also likely understand your work much, much better.
5. More is not better
Too many entries feel it is best to cram in as many pictures, text, stats, infographics and advertisement examples as possible. Not true.
We are only interested in the meat. The bits that help tell your teams’ story. Everything else distracts us from the things that matter. Not cool. It does not help you.
6. Show some flair, present something new, take a risk
To win an award, your entry has to stand out.
It’s not enough to just conduct good marketing and expect an award. The vast majority of entries are examples of good marketing, so to win, your entry must have something special, a certain je ne sais quoi. Creative that pushed boundaries, things that shouldn’t have worked but did, a risk most others wouldn’t take all grab the judge’s attention.
If you feel your entry has something like this, highlight it and put it front and centre.
7. Explain the ROI
Return on investment is key for all marketers. Let us know the impact of your work and be honest about your achievements. Don’t expect us to swallow fluff and don’t fudge your achievements either.
All the judges are marketers and we know that if you rely purely on ‘reach’, ‘impressions’ and ‘followers’ the tangible business impact is probably negligible.
Don’t rely on percentage improvement if you haven’t told us the starting point. If it’s had a positive effect on company financials then shout about it and give us real examples. Judges place no relevance on the size of your business if your marketing has had a positive effect. Tell us what it did for your business.
Just don’t oversell it. As much as we’d love to believe you spent 100,000 and generated £2bn if you can’t prove it with examples, it’s hard not to see it as a ‘tagging exercise’.
