Our final stakeholder in the award-making process is the Marketing person/team. I started my career as a Marketing Assistant and worked my way through the various roles including Marketing Manager and Marketing Director! No matter what my position was, the process of applying for ‘Awards’ was no different than all of the other marketing projects and tasks. It required time management, a budget, and a plan.
I have to admit that one year we had to take a pass on applying for awards, not because we didn’t think they were important, but we had a large development that was launching to the public in the same month….there just weren’t enough hours or people to do both properly! Perhaps that’s when I realized that there was a finite number of hours/days to deadline day, and I just couldn’t squeeze another minute out the time available!
I appreciate the fact that several of my ongoing clients start their ‘award’ planning months in advance. It gives us time to discuss the best strategy for the coming season.
Stakeholder #5 – Marketing Department
As the owner of the company, you may also be the ‘marketing person’ or you may have a team of people – no matter what, it’s so important to involve them in the process.
The Marketing manager is generally the one who engages with the other stakeholders of the Award Entry process. To do that successfully, they need to totally buy into what this means for the company’s bottom line. Award programs are all about gaining recognition from your peers, consumers, and the media. Utilized correctly, you can gain momentum in your branding so much faster than by other endeavours. I usually start my initial conversation with a client asking about their business goals. For example, if you’re trying to attract more clients who want whole home renovation projects, then perhaps the ‘Bathroom under $30,000’ category is not a good choice. But if your renovation company specializes in smaller jobs, this would be perfect.
With each award entry, there’s a windfall of material for your marketing efforts – photos and written descriptions! Plan out a list of shots that you want from the photographer, including ones that you can use for design ideas, construction details, and more. I’ll never use a close-up of your ’kitchen faucet’ for a custom home category, but you could use it in a digital brochure or on social media.
Written material is also golden – I pride myself in writing interesting, factual points for your entry that makes it easy for the judges to love it! A bit nerdy, perhaps, but these highlights are so important to accompany the visual elements.
These 300 word project descriptions can become the starting point for your next website blog or gallery description. Pull a couple of ‘sound bites’ out for a social media post, or tweet out just one phrase, with a photo, to get someone’s attention!
Final thoughts…
As you can see, what may have initially seemed like a relatively simple task, requires a team of people to accomplish successfully. If you’re serious about entering some of your projects in the Homebuilding Industry awards, don’t wish for success, work for it!