058 - Awards are your Golden Ticket with Debbie Gilbert

Send me a Text MessageWhy are Awards so important for businesses?It gives you the opportunity to deep dive into your business and analyse what you're doing. Once you win no one can take that award away from you it is yours forever and it gives you instant credibility. Raises you to the level of expert in your industry.The feel good factor its nice to be recognised for all your hard work Publicity opportunity is enormous. It's great for team morale if you have a team.Are All Awards created equal?In my opinion no I'm a real fan of awards that are properly entered and go in front of a judging panel. In theory a business competition rather than a vote for awards which is more of a popularity contest rather than a credibility award.However, consumers generally gravitate towards businesses that have won awards so no they aren't all equal but when it comes from the consumer perspective they kind of are. Consumers are unlikely to do the research to see where the award came from and how it was awarded.Think also about what you want to be known for if you are a local business then entering local awards makes sense, if you're a woman in business, gender specific awards might be something you want to go for. Do your due diligence and research because remember you are giving your details to these companies so be aware. With vote for awards they are usually getting all the data of the voters too so think about that too. Make an informed decision, some awards are purely traffic building exercises for the companies hosting them. Some even contact you to tell you you have won an award you just have to pay £500 for the logo be aware there are scams out there. Go with awards you can verify (list of opportunities below). There are awards you can enter for free but paying for entries is common in the industry. The Best Business Women Awards has a nominal fee to cover our admin costs we have a lot we have to go through also having the fee stopped people just entering because it was free and not filling in the application properly. Adding a fee got rid of 200-300 entire but these were people who weren't putting the effort in. So a fee also helps ensure on the whole that people will put in a full entry. It just depends on the awards I believe the Times awards are £250 per category but they are aimed at large corporations to who this fee isn't a big deal.Don't forget to factor in the extra costs, is there an awards presentation event will that need transport etc. Also, look at what you get and if the answer is if you are not a winner you get anything, no award no certificate no logo not recognition then is it worth it for you to enter it? How much publicity do the awards company give their entrants, how active are they on social media, do they help with press releases? Way up the cost vs what you get out of it.What are the PR opportunities how do we leverage the awards?You automatically go up in the pecking order with journalists because you have credibility. But you have to put yourself out there, press won't come to you. You can look to get press coverage from a number of sources here are some of the press winners of the Best Business Women Awards have secured:Sky NewsBBC NewsThe Victoria Derbyshire ShowTrade MagazinesNational MagazinesLocal Radio I advise people to work with a PR Agency.Local press can be picked up by the national press so don't overlook local press. Added bonuses it will also help with your SEO and often the awards will give you a backlink to your site. For more info listen to the podcast or head to the website FREE 3 Part Audio - Access Here www.donnaeade.comSupport the showPodcast Equipment Recommendations MY KITFEA Create Simple all-in-one web, CRM, email systemFor graphics CanvaJoin the Pod Squad in the FB GroupMy MIC ACTION PODCAST - here is a link to SpotifyRead from My Book Shelf & My Guests Book Shelf Want to Guest? Apply here >>FORMEdited and produced by Donna EadeThank you for your support:)Until next week, Bye for Now XoX