Why Should You Enter an Awards Program

As awards programs start to open up for applications, many business owners wonder if they should sign up. Is it worth submitting your business for those awards and honors? In some cases, you may wonder if it's practical or if those industry awards programs will generate the kind of interest you need for your business. However, those company awards programs may create more advantages for your organization than you think in many cases. 

1. Joining an awards program can help raise awareness of your brand

Brand awareness is critical for your brand as a whole. For consumers, trust is vital. 81% of consumers feel that they need to trust a brand to purchase from them. If customers have no idea that your brand exists, they cannot buy from you. It takes time to build that critical brand awareness and sense of connection. 

However, when your brand is featured in an awards program, people who follow those awards are more likely to know who you are and what you represent. 

At Think Global, our awards will not only raise general awareness of your brand, but they may also help more clearly establish exactly who you are and what you bring to the table. We offer options like:

• Our Life Sciences Award

• An Education and Learning Award

• A Start-Up Award

• A Professional Services Award

• A Travel Award

• A Technology Award

• A Marketing Award

With sixteen unique categories to choose from, we offer award choices that will tell your customers more about who and what your brand is: what you focus on, what innovations or contributions you have made, and why they should consider your brand among the sea of others in your industry. 

2. An awards program offers free marketing

Did you receive an award? Have you been recognized as part of the program? You'll find yourself receiving multiple marketing opportunities and expanding your overall marketing reach without substantially increasing your marketing costs. 

When you're part of an awards program, your brand will be mentioned as part of the marketing materials for the program, and if you win, your name will be announced alongside the rest of the winners, highlighting the contributions your brand has made.

You can also take advantage of your awards program involvement in several key ways as you expand your marketing. 

Mention it on social media

Don't forget to include hashtags. You may want to mention #awards or, more specifically, #ThinkGlobalAwards, which will help connect you with a new, wider audience than you might have associated with on your own. 

Send out information to newsletter subscribers

Do you regularly send out a newsletter to people interested in your company or who have subscribed to your email list? Your award might be the perfect opportunity to reconnect with them. After all, subscribers interested in your brand and who want to connect with you will appreciate your commitment to excellence and the fact that others have recognized it.

Take advantage of local PR opportunities

Do you work with a local PR agency? Handle local advertisements, including ads in newspapers or TV ads? If so, mentioning your awards is a great way to highlight your business and generate increased interest in your brand. 

3. Participating in an awards program helps increase your credibility

Awards matter when it comes time for customers to choose a brand. Today's customers are skeptical. They're bombarded by ads for businesses based on their search histories, their previous browsing habits, and more. While estimates vary, the average customer may see more than 10,000 ads every day.

That means credibility is more important than ever if your brand wants to connect with customers and encourage them to choose you. Today's customers do their research long before they make a purchase. Before they make a significant purchase, 81% of customers will go online for a search, and in many cases, they're not just looking into the content. They're also researching your brand: checking out what others have to say about you, determining whether you have a presence in the community, and testing your overall credibility.

What do others have to say about you? Do you have a long history of positive reviews? Do you seem to lack reviews, in general? An award helps establish you as a community member: an actual business that exists, with benefits that the awards company recognized in choosing you for that key award. 

As a result, customers are more likely to trust your brand. Not only can that trust encourage them to choose your brand in the first place, but it may also encourage them to spend more on even the initial purchase than they would have otherwise. 

4. Awards and recognition can help boost your odds of attracting top talent

Attracting top talent has become increasingly critical and challenging for many brands over the past year. As many as 1 in 4 workers had quit their jobs by October of 2021, and around 65% of workers found themselves actively looking for new employment. 

Those job-seekers are looking for many factors. They want businesses that will recognize their contributions and support them as they pursue their goals. They want companies where they can maintain better work/life balance and lower levels of stress. In addition, however, employees are looking for jobs that have meaning.

When your brand is recognized through an awards program, it offers several benefits in attracting top talent. First, it allows you more networking opportunities in general, which can help get the word out about your brand and encourage people to apply. You can also connect more directly with employees who recognize the award or have received awards in their previous workplaces, which may help bridge the gap and connect you more closely. 

Suppose, for example, that you have received an award for Retail and eCommerce. You'll let potential salespeople, management team members, and more know that you're recognized for your global thinking and operational effectiveness, all of which can encourage employees to take a second look at you.

Secondly, that recognition helps establish you as an employer who has something to offer. It shows that you have a commitment to your customers or your business, or that you have grown your brand in the past year, or that you have done something worthy of that recognition. It also establishes that your business is doing good things, which may increase the odds that your business is, in fact, here to stay. That new employee will not have to worry about losing those opportunities in the future. Your involvement with an awards program can go a long way toward encouraging potential employees, including some of the top talents in your field, to take a second look at everything you have to offer.

Whether you're a start-up that's trying to get your business off the ground or an established member of your industry, working with an awards program can help generate many vital benefits for your business, from helping you attract the top talent in your field to increasing the odds that customers will trust you and what you have to offer when they're looking for a product or service in your industry. Are you ready to start applying? Contact us today for more information about the benefits of working with Think Global or to begin your application.