Matt Hammerton

We were in Manchester last week for the finals of the Fresh PR Awards. We were delighted to win a Gold for Best Business to Business campaign. But why did we enter in the first place?

Winning awards help organisations in several ways.

Firstly, awards differentiate companies from the their competitors. Imagine you ask two or three companies to come and see you about supplying their services to you. There’s very little to separate them. However, one of the companies has been nominated or won awards for providing the service you are looking for. Does this make a difference? Of course it does. It says that that particular company is good at what they do.

Awards are independently judged. It’s normally a panel of industry experts that choose the winners. So, it’s not you saying you are the best in their sector, but your peers. Awards are third party endorsement and that makes them a very powerful recommendation.

Winning an award gives you a great opportunity to generate media interest in you and the work you’ve done. You can also use your success as part of your marketing activity and your success should make your client or customer happy too as it reassures them that they made the right decision in choosing to work with you.

Staff moral increases when a company receives recognition through awards — and the more awards a company receives, the better their standing and reputation in that sector becomes. This can help with recruitment. Companies or organisations that are known for being among the best in their field (because they regularly win awards) find that they get more and better quality applications for vacancies.

Recognition is a great motivator. Knowing that your campaign or work could be entered into an award inspires individuals and teams to perform to their best consistently. Only by delivering excellent results will their efforts be worthy of the time it takes to put a good award entry together. Awards entries without great results to showcase aren’t worth entering. So, if there is a chance your work will be entered into an award, you’ll work harder, and if the results of your work are worth entering into an award, then you should have a happy client or customer too!

Writing award entries can be tricky. Not everyone can write a good submission. And having great results is not enough – you need to present them in the right way. Put yourself in the position of the judge. What do they want to see? Results, yes, but are they also looking for evidence of strategic thinking? Creativity? Cost effectiveness? Innovation?

Make sure you read the entry requirements and criteria carefully. Make sure you cover each of the points the judges are looking at. Don’t go over the word count, and supply supporting information in the correct format. It’s vital that your supporting information — pictures, videos, brochures etc — are all labeled and referenced in the award entry so that judges can see why you’ve included then and why they’re important.

So, why are awards important? Think about the Oscars. Who is the better actor? The person with five Best Actor awards or the thespian with no industry recognition? Which actor is more likely to be offered the bigger role – the one with five awards or the one with none? Who will give the better performance, who will bring more people into the cinema and generate greater box office takings?

In this era of social media marketing, some people would have you believe that the press release is dead – well it’s not, says Matt Hammerton, managing director of Lava, an award-winning marketing communications agency in Lincoln.

As marketing communications specialists, we’re tasked with raising awareness of our clients’ products and services. Public relations activity features heavily in the majority of our campaigns.

Now, PR is not all about media coverage but generating exposure in newspapers and on TV, radio and online is a common part of most of public relations campaigns. And what do journalists ask for when we tell them we have an interesting story for them? That’s right – a press release.

We write press releases for a living. We write them quickly, effectively and accurately. We know what the media want and don’t want to see in a press release. We also have the contacts to send them to but you don’t have to employ a PR consultancy, you can write your own release.

If you do decide to write and send out your own press release, then here are eight things to keep in mind:

1. Is it news?

Your story has to be newsworthy. If it’s not going to be interesting to the readers, listeners and viewers of the media you plan to target then there’s no point in spending time developing your story. If it’s not newsworthy you need to think about how to make it interesting.

2. The first paragraph is key

Make sure you include all the key details in your first paragraph – who, what, where, when, why and how. Journalists are busy, they will read the first paragraph and decide whether it’s newsworthy in a few seconds.

Think of your release as a triangle, get all of the important details at the top in as few words as possible. The further down the release you go the more detail you go into, with the least important information at the bottom.

3. Headlines

Don’t worry too much about making your headline funny or clever – this what (sub)editors will do. Concentrate on capturing the story in an interesting way so that people want to read on.

4. Write for the media you’re targeting

The style of your press release should be similar to the media you are sending it to. Technical details are fine for an industry magazine but not good for a site like The Lincolnite.

5. Stick succinctly to the facts

Press releases should be written in short sentences and paragraphs. Stick to the facts too. Opinions, anything that you think or cannot substantiate, should be included in quotes. Press releases should also be 250 to 300 words, certainly no more.

6. Contact details

Make sure you provide your contact details – telephone and email address – so that journalists can get in touch and make sure you’re available. Don’t send a release out and then go on holiday for a fortnight – there might be interviews to do.

7. Photography

If possible send engaging and interesting (professionally taken) photographs with your release. The perfect picture will tell the story without words and will brighten up the page. Also make sure you have access to high-resolution versions of your photos, so you can send along when required.

8. Cheat!

If you want coverage on a particular website or in a certain newspaper or magazine, the read them and find a story that’s similar to yours. Then all you have to do is copy the style and structure of the story in your release.

Hopefully, this short introduction will help you on your way but if you’re still unsure about how to generate awareness and media coverage about your organisation, then you know where to come.