Should My Association Have an Awards Program?
Let’s address a question everyone’s hesitant to ask: Are association awards programs really worth the effort?
The answer depends on how you manage and leverage your program. An awards program delivers value to your members, industry, and association only if you take an intentionally strategic approach from the start.
Awards programs are often considered a nice thing to do, but not essential. In this article, we explore how an award program benefits your members, industry, and association and helps you fulfill your mission. We also suggest strategies we’ll explore even deeper in upcoming posts.
Why Your Association Should Have an Awards Program
When you understand the potential benefits of an awards program, you’re better able to design and manage a program that delivers the utmost value to your association, participants, members, and industry.
Five mission-enhancing reasons for an award program:
1. Spread awareness and boost the reputation of your association
The marketing campaigns you design to attract awards applicants and recognize award recipients also help spread awareness about your association’s mission and focus. Your association’s reputation and authority are further enhanced by media coverage of award winners. Being associated with industry-influencer judges and winners boosts your prestige.
2. Showcase industry innovation
An awards program that showcases movers and shakers in your membership and highlights their innovative products and services proves your association is a trailblazer for the industry. It validates your association as the place where industry professionals turn first for models, ideas, and best practices.
Award categories bring awareness to industry issues, challenges, and developments. Winning entries show how industry leaders are addressing an issue or taking advantage of new opportunities.
3. Repurpose content for education
Awards submissions serve as a jumpstart for educational content to use throughout the year. Repurposing award content in a variety of formats gives members and industry professionals opportunities to learn from award recipients.
Share award recipient case studies and success stories in:
- Videos
- Podcast episodes
- Newsletter and magazine stories
- Webinars
- Conference sessions
- Virtual roundtables
- Social media posts
When your association takes advantage of an awards management software, staff have time to repurpose awards content to further your mission. They spend less time worrying about submission organization, manual data entry, emailing, and other administrative details of running an awards program.
4. Enhance membership recruitment and engagement
Use your awards program as a member recruitment tool by limiting award entries to members only.
Interview award recipients to learn more about their path to the podium. This extra attention helps to keep them engaged. Find out if their participation in association activities, such as events, education programs, or volunteering, helped get them to where they are today. Share these snippets in marketing testimonials.
Awards give trade associations the opportunity to connect with marketing teams since they usually submit entries on behalf of their companies. Consider starting a niche member community for marketers since many of them aren’t involved in the association but would benefit from engagement.
5. Increase non-dues revenue
Awards programs generate revenue from entry fees, sponsorships, awards gala ticket sales, and gala advertising.
Research reveals that sponsors are seeking more substantial involvement in association activities beyond the traditional logo placement and podium mentions. Talk to corporate revenue partners during the design phase of your awards program to gather valuable feedback on categories, potential judges and entrants, and ways they can get involved.
Brainstorm new sponsorship engagements, such as:
- Sponsored categories
- Awards gala VIP table hosts
- Gala presenter roles
- Gala photo booth
- Educational content development
What Benefits Do Members See from an Awards Program?
When individual and company accomplishments or contributions are celebrated, members see what’s possible for them too. They have a model for next practices and success stories to emulate.
By showcasing exceptional work, awards programs promote higher standards in the industry. Winner profiles inspire members to excel in their work, improve their performance, and set aspirational goals so they can be up on that stage too one day.
Awards categories that recognize areas of expertise, service, or leadership help to instill a growth mindset and culture of lifelong learning in members. They can’t get to the award-winning level without constantly improving their expertise.
Judging awards entries is a meaningful volunteering experience for members. Even a sophisticated, multi-step review and judging process doesn’t have to be laborious for judges or staff. By using awards management software, you streamline the process, making it a more attractive volunteer opportunity.
Award Winners Love the Recognition
Your association’s recognition of individual and company award winners is third-party validation of their accomplishments or contributions to the profession or industry. Association publicity and media coverage boost their personal or company brand and open doors to new career and business opportunities.
For individual recipients, the spotlight can attract the attention of prospective employers or clients. For company recipients, awards publicity can capture the interest of prospective employees, customers, and investors.
Awards enhance the recipients’ industry status as well as their resumes and “About Us” pages on their websites. Provide winners with a visual display of their achievement: a digital badge to post on their LinkedIn profile and website, and a trophy, sticker, and/or plaque for public display.
Awards also serve as validation to company leadership that the recipient’s time (and the company’s money) was invested wisely in the award-winning project or the employee’s professional development and association involvement.
After the awards gala, recipients, sponsors, and attendees go home with a celebratory and strengthened sense of belonging and community.
How Do Industry Professionals and Employers Benefit from Your Association’s Awards Program?
An awards program helps to improve the public perception of your members and industry. By bringing attention to the contributions, innovations, and positive impact of your members and industry, your association increases policymaker awareness and appreciation for the work your members do.
Your association also helps employers with workforce development and business growth by attracting the interest of talented professionals and deep-pocketed investors.
An awards gala is one of those rare times when competitors celebrate each other’s achievements. Award winners set the bar high by showing what’s possible to achieve. Professionals learn from each other’s successes and become inspired to improve practices and raise standards.
Awards establish new benchmarks for innovation and excellence. They encourage members to raise their game and match the achievements of award winners.
For-profit organizations are discovering the magic combo of community and education and becoming serious competitors for your members’ and non-members’ attention, time, and budget. Don’t let them become the organization that recognizes and celebrates the achievements of individuals and companies in your industry—that’s your association’s responsibility.
How Do I Get Started with an Awards Program?
If the idea of running an awards program feels overwhelming, OpenWater can help you manage a streamlined awards entry and judging process. We’ve helped 750+ clients collect over 12 million submissions with minimal manual staff time thanks to our secure, personalized portal, easy multi-round review process, seamless CRM/AMS integrations, robust reporting, and more. Reach out to schedule a demo today to see how OpenWater can help you.
G2 Summer 2024 Report: OpenWater Named Leader in Awards Management
OpenWater Receive’s G2’s Best Support Award for 5th Consecutive Year
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