Planning a Year of Award Entries

A small team sees an awards programme, feels a flutter of ambition and starts to write on the evening before the deadline. The entry is rushed. The evidence is a scramble through old emails. The result is a mediocre submission and a week of tired nerves. Meanwhile, three other programmes passed without a thought.

A calmer way exists. Treat awards as a small, planned part of the year: a handful of well-chosen entries, built from evidence collected as you go, within a budget you have decided. This guide shows how to build that plan.

Start with the purpose

Why are you entering? Be honest. Possible reasons:

• Credibility with a particular audience.
• Visibility in a field.
• Validation by independent judges.
• Morale for the team.
• Learning, from the discipline of writing and any feedback.
• Sales, if your buyers pay attention to a certain award.
• Recruitment, for a team that wants to be seen as good.

Write the main purpose in a sentence. It tells you which awards matter and what success looks like. If you cannot name a purpose, you probably should not enter.

Know your audience

Awards matter to the people who know them. An award that your customers recognise is worth more than a famous one they have never heard of. Ask a few customers: which awards, certifications or lists do you look at when you choose a supplier? Their answers shape your plan.

Build a long list

Start by finding candidate programmes.

• Ask customers and peers which they respect.
• Look at competitors' and neighbours' announcements.
• Check trade bodies and publications in your field.
• Check event programmes.
• Search the vocabulary of your sector plus "awards".

Put everything in a table. Columns:

• Name of the award and organiser.
• Categories that might fit.
• Eligibility.
• Entry window and deadline.
• Announcement date.
• Fee and other costs.
• Judging method.
• Who the judges are.
• Past winners.
• Notes.

Do not judge yet. Collect.

Score and shortlist

Now judge each candidate against a short set of questions.

Fit. Does your work genuinely belong in a category? Are you eligible?

Relevance. Will your target audience notice and care?

Credibility. Is the programme transparent about criteria, judging and sponsors? Does it publish past winners? Are the judges independent and qualified? The next guide discusses the warning signs of pay-to-win programmes.

Evidence. Can you produce a strong entry from what you can prove?

Cost. Fee, time, other costs.

Timing. Does the deadline fit your calendar?

Opportunity. What else could you do with the same effort?

Score each from one to five and add. Keep the top few. Cut anything that fails on credibility, whatever its score on other counts.

Opportunity cost, the value of the best alternative you give up by choosing something, is the hidden cost of every entry. An entry that takes thirty hours is thirty hours not spent on customers or product.

Choose a few

For a small team, two to four entries a year is plenty. A good balance:

• One or two credible, relevant programmes where you have a real chance.
• One stretch, a prestigious award where your odds are lower.
• Optionally one local or community award that is easy and friendly.

Resist the temptation to enter everything. Quantity dilutes quality, and a team exhausted by entries is a team not doing its work.

Put dates in the diary

For each chosen award, work backwards from the deadline.

• Eight to twelve weeks before: read the rules, decide the category, gather evidence, brief the team.
• Six weeks before: collect quotes and permissions, request data from colleagues, plan attachments.
• Four weeks before: write the first draft.
• Two weeks before: review, get feedback from a colleague who has not worked on it, check facts.
• One week before: finalise, proofread, check the format, prepare payment.
• Three days before: submit. Do not wait for the deadline.
• After: note the announcement date and possible shortlist commitments, such as presentations or interviews.

Put these in a shared calendar with an owner for each.

Gather evidence all year

The best entries draw on a record kept as you go. Start a simple evidence file.

• Results: key numbers by month or quarter, with sources.
• Customer feedback: messages, reviews and quotes, with permission noted.
• Milestones: releases, partnerships, firsts.
• Press and mentions: links and dates.
• Team: who joined, what they did.
• Challenges and what you learned.
• Photos and screenshots, dated.

Add to it monthly. When an entry window opens, much of the material is ready. You will write better, faster and more accurately. And you will be able to show your claims are true, which matters because organisers may ask and advertising rules in many places expect objective claims to be supported by documents.

Permissions

Collect permissions as you go, not at the last minute.

• Customer quotes: written consent to use in awards and in public.
• Names and photos of people: consent, with an understanding of where they may appear.
• Third-party data: permission to quote.
• Logos and brands: permission to display.

Keep a log of who agreed to what, and when.

Budget

Make a simple budget for each entry.

• Fee.
• Time, valued honestly.
• Design or photography for supporting material.
• Printing or video, if needed.
• Travel and accommodation for events.
• Tickets for ceremonies, which can be costly.
• Contingency.

Add them up and set a ceiling for the year. If an award requires paying for a table at a ceremony to be considered, ask whether that is a normal part of the programme or a sign of a pay-to-play scheme.

Decide what you will do with a win

Plan before you enter.

• How will you announce it, honestly and accurately?
• Where will you display it: your site, your signature, your pitch decks?
• How will you thank people: team, customers, judges?
• What will you say if you are shortlisted but do not win?
• Who will go to the event?

A plan prevents a rushed, exaggerated announcement. Later guides cover making accurate claims, building a trophy cabinet page and what to do after a shortlist or a win.

Review the results

After the cycle, review what you got.

• Outcome: shortlisted, won, not placed.
• Cost: money and hours.
• Benefits: enquiries, mentions, new relationships, team morale.
• Learning: feedback, insights from writing.
• Reuse: material you can use elsewhere.
• Decision: enter again? Change category? Drop?

Return on investment, in the simplest sense, compares gain with cost. Some benefits are hard to count, but write them down anyway. After two or three cycles, you will know which programmes serve your purpose and which do not.

What if you have little time?

Enter one. Choose the best fit, start early, write carefully and submit. One strong entry is better than five weak ones.

What if you have nothing to enter?

That is information. Perhaps the product is too new or the results too small. Build a record, gather evidence and revisit in six months. There is no shame in waiting. Some of the strongest entries come from teams that spent a year quietly doing good work.

A short worked example

A six-person software company decides its purpose is credibility with clinic managers. They ask ten customers which awards they notice. Two names recur: an industry award run by a trade body, with published criteria and independent judges, and a regional business award. They long-list six programmes, cross off two that charge a "participation package" and offer places for a fee, and shortlist three. They budget modest fees and forty hours of writing time in total. They keep an evidence file from January, with monthly results and permitted quotes.

In March they submit to the industry award, in June to the regional one. The industry entry is shortlisted, and they present by video. They do not win, but the judges send brief feedback that points to a gap in their evidence on security. They fix it and note it for next year. The regional entry wins its category. In their review they record the cost, the leads that mentioned the award, the feedback and the decision to enter the industry award again.

Common mistakes

• No purpose.
• Entering everything.
• Starting at the deadline.
• No evidence file.
• Ignoring credibility.
• No permissions.
• No plan for a win.
• Never reviewing.

On this site

The submit page lets you add recognition to your entry, the launches page shows how achievements and dates are presented and the leaderboards page explains how community ranking works here. The categories page helps you place your product, and the blog has more guides in this series.

A one-page annual plan

Write the plan on a single page. Across the top, the purpose in a sentence. In the middle, a table of the two to four chosen awards with deadlines, owners and budgets. At the bottom, a line for the evidence file and a date for the end-of-year review. Pin it where the team can see it. Plans that fit on one page get used; plans that need a binder get filed.

The short version

Decide why you are entering and which audience cares. Build a long list, score programmes for fit, relevance, credibility, evidence, cost and timing, and choose a few. Work backwards from deadlines, gather evidence and permissions all year, set a budget, plan what you will do with a win and review the results. Two or three well-chosen, well-prepared entries beat a scattering of rushed ones.