Are your rivals down the road lining themselves up for an award win?
There are loads of ways to publicise your estate agency.
There are the usual suspects including portal presence, direct mail flyers, newspaper and magazine adverts and if your budget allows you can plaster yourselves over whopping great billboards.
There is also social media, blogging and email marketing.
Heck for a four to five figure sum you can even buy the naming rights to a roundabout on your office’s patch.
But one of the most powerful ways to highlight just how good your agency is at what it does is often one of the most overlooked and dismissed by agencies.
It’s simple, if you think your business is good enough then start entering awards.
You could start with choosing to enter industry. The PR and marketing kudos awards can provide you on a plate are definitely worth having a closer look at.
Not just the industry awards but local ones too. Smaller agencies I speak with are often put off of entering awards which see them go up against the ‘big boys and girls’.
Fear not. Anyone remember the David versus Goliath story?
Being externally recognised for being good at what you do is great for your business profile and also creates a positive vibe among your team and creates massive opportunities for media publicity.
Plus by being able to call yourself an award winning agency you’ll be in a position to motivate, attract and keep a higher standard of staff – AND win more instructions.
Here are four easy tips to take on board if you are entering awards.
Plan – Once you’ve found an awards competition you want to go for find out when the deadline for entries is. Sounds obvious but too many people leave it to the last minute and rush their submissions reducing their chances.
Preparation – Many competitions highlight what previous winners did to stand out. Knowing exactly what the judges are looking for will help your entry have a much better chance. If that information isn’t available simply look at the websites and marketing that the winning agencies are doing or have done.
Presentation – Check and double check your entry for spelling mistakes and typos. Provide as much evidence as possible, give the judges more than they’ve asked for in terms of proof about how great your agency is. The judges expect you to say how great you are. That’s a given. But if you can present testimonials from delighted clients it really could be the difference between winning and being an also ran.
Proactive – Just go for it. You might think your chances of winning are slim but one thing is guaranteed – if you don’t enter your chances of picking up an award are zero.
That last point is so important. I see loads of great agencies with superb track records which never enter awards and therefore never get the external recognition they deserve.
If you think that entering awards sounds too much like hard work – it can be when you do it properly – then have a chat with me.
A final point is that not all awards are created equal. Some of the more obscure awards are simply money making machines for the organisers.
My rule of thumb is that if no one in your office has heard of the awards or the organisers it’s probably not worth even considering.
Here’s to your next instruction.
Jerry
PPS: If you want to know a little more about how I create award winning entries drop me a line.
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