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Why Your Judges Are a Critical Component of Your Awards Marketing

What’s one reason many of your members choose to enter your awards program? Often, it’s for the notoriety and recognition of winning. Another draw is for the recognition gained from the prestigious judges you’re able to secure for your program year after year.

While many marketing managers understand the critical nature of awards judging selection and each judge’s credentials, few think to go beyond just announcing the selection of their judges to attract potential entrants to their awards program.

However, judges can also play an important role in your marketing efforts and generate interest that can help your program enjoy its most successful year yet. By using them to better connect with members and encourage potential entrants, you can utilize their influence to the fullest extent and reap all the benefits they have to offer.

Evaluate the Purpose of Your Marketing

As you already know, the purpose of any awards marketing is to generate awareness, all while establishing trust, demonstrating legitimacy, and encouraging potential entrants to begin the submission process.

Regardless of whether you choose to do so through traditional channels (i.e. a press release, email marketing, etc.) or social media channels, you can’t ignore the powerful potential your judging selection can have for your marketing strategy.

Consider this: awards judges are often well-known industry experts, adding an extra layer of prestige and legitimacy to your program. This means that you don’t want to just let them be another announcement on your website or a feature that you showcase.

Instead, you should make them a centralized component of your entire awards marketing strategy. In doing so, you’re letting your awards judges speak for the program itself: its importance, its industry expertise, and it’s dedication to highlighting excellence in your industry.

Make Marketing Magic by Featuring Your Judges

While choosing judges can sometimes seem like a difficult and time-consuming administrative task, it can actually be the most beneficial action you take for your business.

That’s because judges have quite a few benefits that extend to your awards program, including:

• Comprehensive Industry Expertise – Entrants are attracted to many awards programs based upon the judges because they offer industry expertise that makes an award worth winning. As your awards program gains prestige, you’ll be able to secure increasingly exclusive experts too, giving you something worth marketing on social media, your website, via email, and beyond.
• Reputation – If your program is new and in need of a reputation boost, being able to recruit high-level judges can lend itself well to your program. And, by putting the judges at the forefront of your marketing, you can let each judge’s credentials and qualifications help carry your awards program.
• Relevancy – If your awards program is for a very specific niche, finding judges who are experts in these niches can help establish legitimacy. As we all know, legitimacy can make the difference between members entering a submission or not. As a result, it’s best to make the relevancy of your judges well-known, particularly through your marketing strategy.

While there are countless ways to showcase your judges after selection, none have the same impact as when you put them in the front and center of your marketing strategy.

By doing so, you can go beyond just announcing your judges. Instead, you can help draw entrants to your program through the prestige, publicity, and legitimacy each judge offers to your program.

Of course, you can’t underestimate the importance of showcasing your judges either. And, if you’re looking for a resource that helps guarantee you’re doing it right, download our checklist to get the step-by-step guidance you need.

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How do you incorporate your judges into your awards marketing? Share your own successful strategies in the comments!

Miriam Hancock

Miriam Hancock
Miriam is the Marketing Coordinator for OpenWater. When she isn't writing and designing content she paints and cooks for her own personal blog.

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