Want to win a Shorty, Webby or some other international marketing awards, but there’s no big budget campaign or flashy case study?
Well, you can do it. James Chen says you definitely can.
He leads marketing, partnerships and social media at the Asian Television Awards. Chen helped the company win seven Shorty Awards and get shortlisted in the same category as Ellen DeGeneres at the Webby Awards.
They won with a $1,000 budget campaign. Can you believe that?
In this piece, Chen explains how they won top-tier marketing awards.
Write An Award-winning Case Study
First of all, read and save the award guidelines. For instance, know if you are supposed to submit a link or a case study within the awards submission platform. “If a link is required, you can consider using Medium because it allows you to embed your social media posts, images and videos,” recommends Chen.
Is your campaign good enough to compete?
“Know your competition.” Chen says, “Analyze your battlefield by looking at the winning entries from the last few years, if available. By doing so, you can better understand the judges’ mentality as well as the benchmark that you have to beat.”
Judges place an emphasis on your results. Chen suggests, “State your campaign objectives upfront. Restate the goals in the results section and share how your campaign met or exceeded your objectives.”
Once you’ve finished drafting your case study, ask your team to give you feedback on the flow and overall narrative and review spelling and grammar.
Before sending the filled out submission form, give it a last look. According to Chen, “a case study video is a prerequisite, not a luxury. It can also be helpful in getting around any word count restrictions.”
Create An Award-winning Video Entry
Most judges review anywhere from 20 to 200 submissions so they essentially skim each written case study. But if you have a short case study video, they are much more inclined to stop and watch it.
Watch the videos submitted by previous winners. “Ask yourself: can I beat or at least match the winners’ videos?” says Chen.
If the answer is “yes,” then proceed to create your video entry.
How can you create a great video?
“Keep your video under two minutes,” advises Chen. “Judges have short attention spans.”
Your video and written submissions should be complementary, not the same. “Think of your written and video case study as a compelling presentation, complemented by an awesome slideshow. Each must impress, but in different ways,” says Chen.
“Try to incorporate your work including social media posts into your video,” says Chen. And remember: your video should include strong visuals from your campaign.
Should you create the video in-house?
“Unless you’ve got a professional video production team in-house, it’s best to outsource the production,” says Chen. The same goes for voiceover artists. “Unless you’re a TV broadcaster or radio station with a wealth of vocal talents, leave this to the experts. Expecting your existing staff or even interns to pull this off will no doubt allow you to save cost. In doing so though, you aren’t likely to be nominated if you put together something amateurish. If you insist on doing so with cost saving as a justification, it’s best you don’t submit for starters. Remember, each entry is a ‘sunk’ cost. Right?” says Chen.
Here’s an example of Chen’s video entry. Total cost of production: less than $3,000.
Bonus Tips For Winning International Marketing Awards
Here are few more tips to help give you an edge when submitting your awards entries:
- If public voting is involved, you should know the circumstances in which the vote is considered legitimate. Some awards organizers, for example, only allow one vote per registered email address or one vote a day from registered users.
- Don’t show off on numbers too much. Your campaign doesn’t have to be the most followed, judges wants to see the quality of execution and results given the available budget.
- Start planning your submission a year in advance. So if you are targeting for that particular award in 2018, you should have started yesterday!
Are we missing any tips? Tell us about it in the comments section!
