Winning Project Awards: These 5 Tips Will Help Your Firm Get Recognized and Will Save You Time!

By Wendy Goodman, CPSM

Everyone loves winning! The spoken goal of project awards, contests, and competitions is to win. But as with the movie Highlander, there can be only one winner.

Well, not really. Project award submissions aren't just about winning. Your firm can set goals that make submitting for awards a success even if you don't win. So, my first tip is to set goals and expectations for your Awards Program that go beyond first place. Here are some examples that focus on design awards:

• Many publications sponsor awards and give a project profile page to all submissions, win or lose, increasing your Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
• If you are in a large firm, a submission can raise the visibility of your team's projects within your firm.
• If you are at a small firm, your project entries are shown alongside your larger competitors in the same categories, and there are often different categories for different size projects.
• If you are in a niche industry, award submissions remind clients that you are a specialist in that niche.
• If you are entering a new industry and only have one or two projects, show them off.
• Raise your visibility with the press. Magazines and publications search for images and stories among the projects entered. And it makes excellent social media.

That's a lot of winning!

Tip two, Make sure it's award-worthy. So, how can you tell if your project is award-worthy? Start by focusing externally. Keep a list of awards you see your peers and competitors entering. When you check the programs out, don't just look at the winners, but at the runner-ups and the shortlisted entries. Start to get a feel for what the judges are looking for in each category.

After that, look internally. Make a project checklist. Award-winning photos: check. Client-centered text with identifiable point of view: check. Relationship with the judges: what? Remember that not all awards, contests, and competitions are judged blindly. Check the rules. Some are overseen by editorial staff, and some are determined by public vote. I'll cover this more on Judging in point five.

Tip three, don't take off that Marketing Strategy hat. Make a list of potential awards, then rank them. Where is your audience? Is this the right fit for your project? Is the effort that goes into this submission worth the value that could come from it? What are your odds compared to last year's winners? This mini go-no-go process, like with proposals, is important since some submissions take just as much effort as a proposal. Others are just a handful of the right images with some brilliantly written text.

But how do you keep up? Tip four, stay on top of submissions by creating a tracking list and library. A spreadsheet tracker is ideal for highlighting when there might be schedule conflicts with other deadlines. The tracker can help you plan for when due dates clump together. And since there is usually at least a six-week window from when the award is announced until it is due, you can take advantage of money-saving early-bird deadlines or pay a little extra to submit late to spread out the dates. 

Setting up a dedicated submission folder will help you populate your library and find material quicker and easier. And curation is essential. Images that work on your website may not be the ones you need for winning awards. The project descriptions need to be rewritten to match the stated judging criteria and without your firm name. Keeping a library of alternative texts from crafted 50-word project summaries to one-page descriptions so you can cut down on your response time and make your life easier.

Okay, the last tip: judging the judges. Take a look at who is judging. Are they peers? Are they likely to recognize the parts of the project you feel are important? Do they like your design style? This deeper dive into the judging panel can save you a lot of heartaches and provide insights on fine-tuning your submission.

Okay, now go submit those beautiful, innovative, industry-changing, client-satisfying projects for Gold! And if you need a little help or advice, please reach out to me. My clients have won over 200 design awards, and so can you!

Wendy Goodman is a marketing consultant that specializes in award submissions, strategy, and brand awareness. She is the owner of WSG Marketing and has twenty years of A/E/C industry experience. She has been active in the leadership of the SMPS SFBAC Senior Business Leader's Forums for eight years. You can reach her at WSGmarketing.com and on LinkedIn.