When you write your award entry, it's really important that you back up any claims you've made with good strong evidence. With word counts often quite limiting, we recommend that your main entry should feature top-line information and that more detailed evidence should be inserted into a supporting document. Most awards organisers allow entrants to upload supporting evidence with their entry, but it's always worth checking this in advance. We often insert all supporting information into a single document, to ensure it's all in one place and there's less chance of a piece of evidence going astray.
A mix of quantitative and qualitative data is always desirable for your supporting evidence, to show the positive impacts that any activities or improvements have made on the business and your customers. For example, you can quantify the impacts with tables of data or, even better, you can include graphs, as a visual representation of the data. You can also include any survey results you may have, whether conducted by your own company, or an external organisation. If no such data is available, you can always conduct your own bespoke survey, with questions tailored to provide evidence for your claims.
Third party testimonials and feedback will also add the human touch to your entry. We advise you request testimonials as early as possible, to give people time to pull something together for you. To further illustrate your story, why not include some relevant, good quality imagery? This could include images of a product, event, location, marketing materials, individual or team. With most entries these days being submitted via online form as plain text only, the supporting document gives you the opportunity to add colour to your entry and bring your story to life.
Don't forget to label your supporting document clearly, with the category name and title of the entry, plus insert your company logo, so that the awards team receiving it can match the document to your main entry. Of course, all these additional tasks take even more time, so it may be worth considering enlisting the help of an awards agency like ours, to help you pull everything together. This way, you can feel confident that no elements have been forgotten and your story has been presented in the best way possible.
If you'd like to pick our brains about any aspect of the awards process, please don't hesitate to get in touch.