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How to Cut Time Spent on Your Awards Program in Half

Furthering your objectives, reflecting your values, and building goals through your awards program all sound like good things, but what happens when you add in limited time and limited resources? Often, it’s messy, overwhelming, and complex.

But there is good news: it doesn’t have to be! There are multiple steps you can take to cut down the time spent on your awards program in half while still enjoying the full benefits of what your program has to offer for your participants and your organization.

Creating a Budget, and Sticking to It

Taking the time to create a budget before your program begins rather than digging yourself out of debt is a much better use of your time.

When creating your budget, keep the following in mind:

• Be conservative with expected revenue. You don’t want to shoot yourself on the foot by expecting more revenue than what is realistic.
• Be agressive with your expected expenses. It’s better to be under budget than over budget.
• Know your budgeted and realized revenue and expenses for the past 2-3 years. This will guide you in determining what is realistic for your budget’s line items.

As always, there will be unexpected expenses. But by planning and adhering to your budget, you and your team will be well prepared. This makes it easier to allot your time, energy, and resources throughout your program to the right areas, optimizing efficiency.

Placing the Burden on Social Media Instead of Your Marketing Team

With limited time and resources, the marketing team at many organizations can quickly become overloaded.

So, where can you put this burden instead? Try your social media platforms. With over 1 billion users, social media is vital for the success of your awards program, and it can lighten your team’s workload. Below are a few ways:

• Social Sharing – Suggested social sharing is amazing because it delivers free advertising without any additional effort on your part. Instead, applicants can push a button to share your program with the world (or at least their social media friends).
• Sponsorship Emails – Your information is included in another organization’s email blasts, spreading the word with minimum effort from your team.
• Templates – Templates can save a load of time because you don’t have to start from scratch. By having just 2 to 3 on hand, you’ll notice an increase in productivity and efficiency.

Help Participants Help Themselves, All While Saving Staff Time

When done well, your awards program’s website can minimize questions and other administrative tasks that would otherwise fall on your team throughout the program. In fact, your website can deliver additional benefits such as:

• Publicity – Spreading the word through social media is simple when you can funnel potential participants to one, centralized location that contains the information and resources that they need.
• Minimizes Barriers to Entry – Organized, easy-to-navigate information is the key factor that can reduce the burden of your program on your team. By placing this information in an intuitive and user-friendly manner, you can enjoy entries with minimal stream of questions from participants.

Theresa Delgado

Theresa is our resident awards guru. She managed the Greeting Card Association's LOUIE Awards before joining us here at OpenWater. She brings first hand knowledge and experience in successfully managing and expanding awards programs.

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