Leveraging awards is not rocket science and doesn’t need to cost a fortune. It’s an investment of your time.
Like marketing and PR, many people try it and give up after a month saying it doesn't work. But having a one off win or being a one hit wonder doesn't do anything for the long term profile of your brand or business.
It's all about repetition, consistency and persistence...
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Leveraging your awards grows your brand awareness and builds your profile over time.
Sharing that you are an award winner helps elevate your business in the minds of your customers and helps sell services or products they can trust. It’s the deal credibility builder and awareness creator for everything you do.
Leveraged well, an award is a powerful personal branding and publicity tool.
Failing to share your award story, or doing it poorly with a ‘look at me’ focus, won’t do you any favours however. Authenticity is the key.
People want to connect with people. They want to know who you are and who's behind the brand. Customers want to know why they should trust you before they give you their money - it's third-party credibility and when you leverage your awards well, they add another level of assurance.
Your award win profiles everything you do and can help you leverage your book, speaking profile, services, products and position as a leader in your space so it's vital that you do it well.
It's especially good to leverage your wins when you might not feel confident about talking about yourself...because your award can do the talking for you.
“Talking about yourself is hard, an award does the talking for you”.
Winning an award is only one part, leveraging is more about the background, your journey and how you tell your story.
Here are 7 award story angles you can use to share your award win authentically, with purpose and in a way that engages, connects and inspires:
- Zero to hero
How you got into business, the challenges and barriers, your start-up story story and how you went from there to here, looking back at how your business has grown and now you're here as an award winner. - The Human Element
Why you started in business, how you've made a difference, what the award means to you personally. - Influence Story
Why you entered the award, your goals and plans, how the award will help you and your business to achieve them, what you hope the award does to influence others. - Acknowledgement
Shining the light on the team, your family, clients, customers, suppliers, supporters and partnerships. Inviting them onto the podium with you and sharing what the award has meant to everyone and what you have learned about your supporters through the award journey. - Change Maker
How this award has changed things. How it will impact you, your business and those around you, your industry or a change of behaviour, changing a community or how this award inspires others to change. - A moment in history
If you won an award a while ago, you can still leverage it now. What has your award has done for you over the years? Re-telling your story and reflecting on your journey as an award winner. - Process
What you and the business went through and how it's changed you or the business. Sharing insight that inspires others and how entering and winning the award has changed what you do and how you do it or changed your perspective and the way you operate.
“Be relatable, share what's going on emotionally, not just the award win”
Top Tip:
Make it easy for the media to share your award win - make it newsworthy, interesting and targeted to their audience.
Provide a well written release and give them images that are named properly (with your name, business name, brand etc).
Tell them the who, what, when, where and how of the story - make it easy for them to simply cut and paste as this will be more likely to be used and published.
“When you share awards take people on the journey with you”
This all sounds great, but when do you get the time???
The thing is, no one is going to do it for you, unless you pay a PR agency to do it, and even then, they don’t have a vested interest in you and your brand or business, but you do!
You have an integral insight into your journey, what’s important to you and why you chose to enter awards.
You took the time to put an entry in and now you have won, it is up to you to leverage that effort and make the most of your status as an award winner.
Here are some action steps you can take quickly, that will start leveraging your award:
Award Leverage Action Steps
- Get on social media, regularly share snippets of your award stories, change your profile pic to your awards image
- Email your database a newsletter and share the win with your clients and raving fans, thanking them for their support.
- Get on podcasts or clubhouse to share your award story
- Write blogs about your awards journey and send traffic to them from your social media.
Share an article about your award win on other people's blogs.
- Share your story to third party sites like Medium, Thrive Global, Koshies Business Builders, Flying Solo and Business Woman’s Media
- Use Canva to create images and means of your award win, use quotes about what the award has meant to you, or share the judges feedback in the image.
- Add the awards logo to your email footer and your LinkedIn profile in the awards section
- Write a media release and send it to your local, regional or industry media and make sure you include community radio
- Share back links to your website for the awards platforms that you won on and any of your media wins from your awards stories - make yourself Googlecious
- Follow, like and comment on the social media channels of the awards program that you are a winner for, share the love!
- Connect with fellow award winners, congratulate them and cross promote/share their posts - a rising tide lifts all ships and you want to surround yourself with other winners.
- Share your awards acceptance speech video, or do an acceptance speech on Facebook Live or an Instagram Story.
There are more story angle ideas, a templet for creating your hero story, leverage checklist and other action steps in the Audacious Award Winning Workbook, which you can download as a PDF or order a printed copy of. CLICK HERE
The most important thing is not to let your awards gather dust on the shelf. Make sure you get out there and shine a light on what you are doing, what you have achieved, those who helped you and why you did it.
There is no place in business for modesty, and you need to be your own best cheer squad.
There is no better person to be handling your publicity and self-promotion than you!