Whether it’s a local or national award, business awards offer your organisation a wide range of benefits. From media exposure to increased employee morale, awards are the key to many companies’ success and longevity.
Incorporating awards into your business’s marketing and PR strategy is one the smartest decisions you can make in 2018. Read on to learn how awards can benefit your company.
Maximise Your Brand’s Visibility
Put simply winning an award or even making the shortlist is one of the best ways to maximise your business’s visibility. Reputable awards generate lots of press coverage in national, local and social media making them invaluable platforms for small business.
Hiring a PR or advertising agency can be costly, so when budget is at a premium, the PR exposure that comes from awards is invaluable.
Prominent events will generally engage in ongoing social promotion before an awards’ show.
To capitalise on this, start by engaging with the event’s Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn posts. It only takes a moment to hit retweet or write a short comment, which can garner lots of engagement.
Don’t be shy in acknowledging your nomination or win by creating blog content or social ads and tagging them with the appropriate branding or hashtag. These actions allow your business to take advantage of the increased visibility and promote your services to a wider audience.
Credibility
Securing an industry award is one of the best ways of gaining or enhancing your business’s credibility. Accolades like this are a reflection and endorsement of the work your company does and are a sign of quality. This sort of recognition and exposure can lead to your brand being noticed by previously untapped potential clients.
There are many ways you can take advantage of this enhanced reputation. If you’re looking for a quick win, embed the awards logo or widget on your homepage and encourage client-facing employees to include any award logos in their email signature.
Attract New Customers
Prospective customers want to be associated with a winning company. Awards ensure that your business is part of an elite group of award-winning businesses – an extremely valuable commodity.
Reputation is everything, especially within the B2B sphere where purchasing decisions can be made based solely on a brand’s reputation. Awards offer your business an external validation of your service or product, a helpful resource especially when it comes to sales pitches.
Employee Morale
Employee morale and motivation directly affect business productivity and when morale is low, it can have serious consequences for revenue and staff turnover. There are a number of ways management and HR can increase employee motivation.
One, is to ensure all employees are working within a supportive and flexible atmosphere with all of the equipment needed to do their job effectively. Another, is to recognise your employees’ excellent work by entering prestigious awards on their behalf.
Even if you don’t get shortlisted or win an award on the night, your recognition of the great work carried out by your staff can go a long way to increasing morale.
Plus, who doesn’t love to get dressed up, enjoy a fancy meal and be recognised for their high-quality work? Award-winning companies are ones which employees will be proud to work for and stay long-term.
Talent Attraction
You may have experienced how difficult it can be to attract prospective employees, especially those working in highly-skilled IT professions. Technical roles like this require exceptional candidates, but with competition so high amongst rival companies, it can be hard to secure the perfect hire.
Awards automatically help companies attract the best new talent. Naturally, the best will only want to work for the best. With a war chest full of industry accolades, your HR team will be fully armed with everything they need to attract the best talent.
Ireland’s Fastest & Best Broadband…Again!
Happily, Virgin Media Business is no stranger to prestigious award wins. Virgin Media broadband was recently revealed as Ireland’s fastest broadband for the third year in a row by renowned connectivity testing platform, Ookla.
Speaking of three for three, Virgin Media Business recently accepted the best business broadband award at the 2018 InBusiness Recognition Awards for the third consecutive year in a row.