With thousands of awards to apply to, do awards still matter?
Every company seems to have “award-winning” on its website, in press release boilerplates, on lucite plaques in the reception area, even on job postings on recruitment sites. (I’ve even spotted them on Upwork.)
However, awards still do matter—and not just to the PR department.
Let’s have a look at the six audiences who, whether they consciously admit it or not, do care about your company’s awards and who want you to keep applying for them (and winning, of course).
1. Marketing: Content, Content, Content
Of course the marketing department loves awards: they are a source of content for webpages, blog posts, newsletters, social media messages, and the like.
They’re a gift that keeps on giving.
Awards organizations themselves are usually at the ready to devise all sorts of clever and creative ways to promote the award, just in case marketing can’t think of any additional uses.
2. Sales: Leveraging a Value Prop
Whether directed to by marketing or not, clever salespeople, when thinking about what sort of messaging they can add to a reachout email, can use the award win.
The award win can even be the subject line of the email.
As such, salespeople love it when their companies win awards.
3. Customers: They’re Looking Even When You Think They Aren’t
Winning awards still matters to your customers. Your customers and prospects do take note of the awards that your company wins. As such, you should adopt an awards strategy.
Your customers may not have heard about the particular award program, but they may have heard of the media outlet or underlying organization that produced it.
As an added bonus, if you’ve won the award for several years in a year, or several times over a certain period, customers will certainly take notice.
4. Employees: Make Them Feel Awesome
This is an audience whom you may not think cares about an award win, but they do, even subtly.
When circulating internally that your company won an award, be sure to explain the submission and judging process, and how competitive it all was.
Further, you should call out certain departments, teams, managers, and individual employees and thank them for making the award win possible. Employees should know that their efforts resulted in something tangible and meaningful to the company.
Tell us about how proud you are for an award you won.
Was there blood? Sweat? Tears? Share your experience with us and we might just have a freebie waiting for you.
5. Job Seekers: Build Your Employer Brand
As mentioned earlier, award wins are even mentioned in recruiting ads. Make no mistake: awards can be a big part of the employer brand.
Indeed, winning awards still matters to applicants who may not have heard of your company before. The award could make your company stand out and attract these candidates.
6. Senior Management: More Money
Award wins are mentioned in all sorts of collateral—including management presentations to the Board and investors.
And they just LOVE hearing about honors or distinctions.
Creating buzz among senior management over an award win can never be a bad thing.
How have your awards been promoted throughout your organization? Do you have an interesting use case?
Drop us an email at: hello@technologyawardslist.com.
