Author: Julia Kendrick
As a brand or clinic owner in the aesthetics, beauty and wellness industry you are probably often looking for new ways to help your brand standout and increase your visibility amongst your target audiences. Associating your brand, clinic, product, or service with a reputable industry award is great way to achieve this whilst demonstrating excellence in your field. However, knowing where to start and how to write an award-winning entry can be a challenge!
In this article, I explain the importance of awards within a PR strategy and share 10 practical steps to help you write an award-winning entry to put your brand or business in the spotlight.
The importance of awards in the aesthetics, beauty, and wellness industry
“Award-winning” is one of the most desirable and exciting USPs a brand, product, clinic or service can have in the aesthetics, beauty, and wellness industry. It says we are great, or even the best, at what we do! Messaging like this sparks curiosity amongst all stakeholders from consumers to stockists and even your competition will likely want to take a closer look. Below are some of the key benefits an award-winning brand can expect:
- Increased awareness amongst all target audiences
- Stronger brand credibility, trust, and loyalty with consumers and trade
- Broader industry recognition
- New opportunities for collaboration with other quality brands and/or partners such as influencers and brand ambassadors
- A bold edge vs the competition – there’s only one winner!
- Stronger engagement with “award-winning” each product on shop shelves and on ecommerce websites
- Increased sales of products or services
Are awards important to consumers?
Absolutely! Recognisable and reputable awards icons that are attached to products, services, clinics, websites etc can inform and influence a customer’s decision in the purchase process, whether they are trying something new or remaining loyal to a favourite brand. Awards validate your claims and help build trust with consumers.
In the aesthetics, beauty and wellness industry consumers are notably discerning with high standards so quality and trust mean a lot to them. When they see and/or opt for an award-winning product or service, they can have confidence that they are investing in the best in the market and making the best choice for themselves. In our industry popular media titles like Harper’s Bazaar and Allure host annual beauty awards and their list of award-winners provide a trusted source of inspiration for beauty fans – it’s no surprise that brands compete fiercely to be on these highly influential lists!
What is the best way to get an award submission to standout?
In short, the best way to get your awards submission to standout is to write a stellar entry! To do this you will need to invest plenty of time and effort into crafting your entry. Don’t leave it to last minute and throw together a bulky entry that doesn’t give your brand enough credit. Your goal is to craft an engaging story that showcases why your brand deserves the award!
10 steps to write an award-winning entry
At Kendrick PR we’ve written our fair share of award-winning entries for our clients and understand that this can feel like a daunting task. However, with a bit of forward planning and focus it doesn’t have to be! Below are our top 10 steps to follow to make the entry writing process as simple and efficient as possible:
- Pick the right category: Read the category descriptions and identify which are relevant to your brand – you won’t have any chance of winning if you choose the wrong one! Sometimes your brand may fit into more than one category, in this case always tailor your entry to each set of specific category criteria – you should never copy and paste between categories or awards.
- Follow the entry instructions: Once you’ve identified the right awards category to enter read the entry criteria slowly and carefully. Then read it again but this time take note of each individual instruction (i.e. entry deadline, word limit) and piece of information requested (i.e. statistics, evidence).
- Gather information: Alongside each point in your above lists make a note of the person in your business who can provide you with that information. Contact them immediately and be very clear with what you need and by when, and remember to follow up with them in due course. Gather all of the information and organise it into a natural flow, remember to tell a story with a beginning, middle and end, alongside some juicy details and stats.
- Answer the question: Are there any specific questions the judges want you to answer? Every award in the aesthetics, beauty and wellness industry has a different focus and any entries which ignore or fail to address the question will be dismissed by the judges. Always stay on topic and address the question in hand, make the judges job easier and allow them to grade your entry with a high mark. They can only mark you on the information you provide so give them what they are asking for.
- Stick within the word limit: Ensure that your awards entry in clear and succinct. If you exceed the word limit, you may be marked down or even disqualified. Don’t feel that you have to hit the word limit, too much waffle makes for a boring awards entry!
- Format your content: Reading pages of solid text is tedious and far from engaging. You can pique a judge’s interest and make it more digestible by formatting the content of your awards-entry. For example, you can use subheaders for easy skimming, use bullet points to organise key information, and/or use block quotes to showcase a testimonial or statistics. It’s often better to write your introduction and conclusion after the bulk of your entry is written and formatted so you can top and tail it neatly.
- Check your tone: Now that you’ve covered the needs of your awards-entry its time to think about the tone of your copy. Does it reflect the personality of your brand? Read your entry out loud and edit accordingly.
- Incorporate images: Images and videos will make your awards-entry more visually appealing and bring your story to life, just be selective and incorporate a few rather than include every image ever taken for your brand. Images need to be professional, high res and glossy. Videos are best shared via url as file sizes are huge!
- Get feedback: Before submission, share your entry with a colleague or friend for a second opinion and to proof read. In addition to spotting typos and ensuring that it reads well, ask them to read it from a judges perspective. Have you met the basic criteria and answered the question(s)?
- Attach your logo: A logo will be used in the event presentation should your entry be shortlisted so prepare for success and always include a file of your logo.
Now that you’ve crafted your award-winning entry don’t forget to submit it on time! Then make a note of the shortlist announcement date and wait patiently for the next update.
Add “award-winning” into your PR strategy
When identifying the relevant awards for your brand or clinic in the aesthetics, beauty and wellness industry think about the titles which your target audiences read or engage with online. Every award you win or try to win needs to resonate with your target audiences. At Kendrick PR, we know the industry and they know us! Our team of beauty PR experts can help you understand how to enter awards and create a bespoke PR awards strategy for your brand.
Founded in 2015 by award-winning communications expert Julia Kendrick, Kendrick PR are a passionate and experienced agency who thrive on creating tangible success for every client. Please browse our PR services portfolio or do get in touch to book a complimentary discovery call with us!