Gold rush – the secrets of writing a winning awards submission

Podcasts are going from strength to strength. There are currently more than 900,000 of them to choose from and more than 7 million people in the UK listen to them every week.

Picking up an award can have far-reaching benefits no matter how big or small an organisation might be. Winning, or even being a finalist, can increase credibility, offer improved networking opportunities, generate positive media coverage, boost staff morale and help attract new talent. But before you get to put on your glad rags and attend the ceremony there is the daunting awards submission stage to get through.

e use the word ‘daunting’ because the entry process can seem time-consuming with no guarantee of a return.

So how can you ensure your awards submissions stand out and capture the judges’ interest?

Here are eight tips to help you ensure your award entry is a success:

Captivate the judges

If the award is worth winning, the judges will probably have hundreds of entries to read through.

So your submission needs to stand-out. This means you need a strong opening to draw them in and encourage them to keep reading.

The key is to get to the really strong part of your entry early on and not leave it until the end of your submission.

Some journalistic principles also apply here to ensure interest and focus is maintained. Ensure sentences are no longer than 30 words and start each sentence as a new paragraph so that judges don’t face daunting passages of text.

Also, think about what makes something ‘newsworthy’ to a journalist and apply the same principle. For example, what makes your entry unusual? Is it because what you have achieved is a first, or the biggest, or the smallest? This will help you find that all-important ‘wow’ factor.

Storytelling

People love stories. They want to read and hear stories.

And your awards submission will be much more memorable if it includes a story.

Like all good stories, your tale will need a hero (you or your organisation) and a villain (the problem you have solved) and if it has an innocent victim (your customers) then it will be even stronger.

And it should have a beginning, middle, and end.

Get straight into your story in the submission - don’t feel compelled to introduce it by saying something like ‘here’s a story which shows that…’ or through a sub-heading called ‘our story’.

Put people in your story

People love stories that involve people, and including them directly in your award submission will help it stand-out.

Quotes from colleagues, customers, and stakeholders about the impact of what you have achieved will help bring the crucial human element into the entry.

Substantiate claims

It could be tempting to fill your submission with bold claims about your success.

But, unless you can back these up with facts, figures, and examples then they are just claims and ultimately are pretty meaningless.

Judges will be looking for evidence to ensure that claims are more than just rhetoric.

Show don’t tell

Do you always ‘put customers first’? Is your business ‘client-centred’, ‘visionary’ or ‘innovative’?

These tired adjectives are not only overused but they are also all rather hollow.

A much more effective approach in awards submissions is to show how you do these things, rather than telling us that you do them.

Show how you are putting your customers first and how you are being innovative. Examples, case studies, stories, quotes and testimonials will all help here.

Avoid the jargon

You may understand the technical language and acronyms used in your organisation and industry but there is a good chance it will not mean anything to the judges.

And that could cause them to lose interest.

Stick to everyday language that everyone can understand. Think about how you would explain what you have achieved to a friend or a colleague.

Paint a picture

A picture is a worth a thousand words, as the saying goes, and that idiom is particularly true when it comes to awards submissions where there are often word limit constraints.

Images, tables and, infographics can bring entries to life and help make the complex easily understandable.

Proof

You’ve told your organisation’s story. You’ve got facts and figures to support your points and some strong quotes from customers and colleagues.

What a shame it would be then if all that work was undermined by typos, spelling mistakes, and punctuation errors.

The simple fact is that these mistakes make award submissions memorable for the wrong reasons and can ruin otherwise strong entries. Details matter.

We love helping our clients with their award submissions. Our journalist-led approach ensures all our content is interesting, engaging and informative so you gain brand awareness and engagement whether it is social media content, award submissions or a whitepaper.

At Thirty Seven, we offer content and design services to ensure your campaigns reach the right audiences at the right times. Our journalist led approach ensures your content is interesting, engaging and informative so you gain brand awareness and engagement whether it is social media content or a whitepaper.

ell, at Thirty Seven we believe in making content creation as simple and efficient as possible.

Sometimes this involves adopting the latest technology to incorporate interactive games, contests and podcasts into corporate marketing strategies.

And on other occasions it can mean revisiting the tools we have used for years – like Microsoft Word – and finding ways to do things that little bit better.

So in this blog we thought we’d share some of the Word tips and tricks that our content creators love.

Tip 1 – Filling the gap

How many times have you been preparing content in Word when not all the information is immediately available? You still want to do the ground work on the document and check the layout so you need some filler text. There’s only so many times you can repeat the words ‘blah blah blah’ across your document before it looks a bit silly, so for some more realistic looking holding text you can ask Word.

For paragraphs of random text, simply type =rand() or if a bit of Latin is more your thing you can get the same by simply typing =lorem(). The standard is three paragraphs but place a number between the brackets and you’ll get the equivalent number of paragraphs of filler.

Go try it now and see what you get…

Tip 2 – Losing it

It’s very easy to lose your place when editing various sections of a document, especially when you are being continually side tracked by telephone calls, urgent emails and impromptu meetings.

When you finally get back to the work you set out to do, using <Shift> + F5 will allow you to cycle directly to the spots that you have edited most recently. Using the same shortcut on a newly opened document will put you straight back to the location where you were most recently working, allowing you to dive straight back in before the phone rings again.

Tip 3 – Repetitive strain

If you find yourself repeatedly dipping into certain words or phrases in your content, such as the sign-off at the end of blog posts, the clipboard panel could be your answer.

Open the panel using the small dropdown arrow next to the clipboard and the items you copy will stack up one by one, up to a maximum of 24. This gives you an always available list that you can pick from with a single click at any point in your document.

Even after you close down Word completely the full list is still there the next time you open a document.

Tip 4 – A ‘case’ in point

When consolidating background documents written by different authors you can save hours furiously editing or retyping erroneous upper and lower case letters by using the ‘Change Case’ button.

This button allows you to change entire sections of text from upper to lower case and vice versa as well as providing options to capitalise the first letter of each word and so on. What’s more, selecting your text and using <Shift> + F3 will allow you to do pretty much the same thing by toggling through the different case options until you’re happy.

Tip 5 – Not a paintbrush

Format Painter is another supremely handy tool when gathering and combining content from different sources. Far from anything to do with painting as the icon suggests, this button actually allows you to reformat huge swathes of text into your chosen style.

Select some text that’s in your preferred style. Hit the ‘Format Painter’ button and then drag your mouse over the separate section of text that you want to re-format to your chosen style. Quick, easy and a definite time saver.

We love the fact we are still finding out new things about a programme that has become an integral part of daily life for so many of us for so long. What Word features could you not live without?

At Thirty Seven, we offer content and design services to ensure your campaigns reach the right audiences at the right times. Our journalist led approach ensures your content is interesting, engaging and informative so you gain brand awareness and engagement whether it is social media content or a whitepaper.

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Gold rush – the secrets of writing a winning awards submission

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