Promote Your Awards to Enhance Your Brand and Prompt Referrals
Applying for (and winning) industry awards is an effective way to demonstrate your team’s design prowess and craftsmanship. Yet when remodeling companies are recognized with industry awards, they often go un-promoted. While business owners may be excited about their accomplishments, those same award winners are frequently reluctant to share the news for fear of being considered vain. Given that pride is globally reviled as the worst possible sin, this is no surprise. Yet, the flip side of the coin is that most people enjoy being associated with winners. This creates something of a conundrum. How do you balance sharing important, brand-enhancing news like winning a prestigious award without appearing overly proud? The key is to moderate the brag with a healthy helping of humility.
Be Humbly Boastful
The solution to this challenge is to balance the award promotion language with a generous helping of gratitude. It’s unlikely that you won that award on your own. Acknowledging the stakeholders who contributed to earning the award is an act of humility that will mitigate any appearance of vanity. In your awards announcement, be certain to recognize your staff, your vendors, your family, and your customers. Recognize anyone and everyone who either helped directly, or inspired you to be the incredible, award-winning company that you are.
Share the News of Your Award
Your current and past clients are the most important people to share award news with, as they are the most likely to refer you to their friends, or contact you for a new project upon learning the news. That said, don’t forget to share the news with your staff, vendors, networking group members, and any other potential sources of referral. By sharing your award win with these groups, you will be providing them all with a script and a method for referring your business to others.
How to Promote Your Award
Get the promotion party started by crafting a news release and sending it out via email to your list of local media contacts. Next, do the following:
- Post the award release to your blog
- Announce the award to your clients in a brief email, with a link to the blog post
- Share the news on all of your social media channels with a related photo or video, and a link back to the award blog post
- Update your website, company email signature, Google Business Profile, and marketing materials with the award badge/emblem
- Send a direct mail piece to your clients highlighting the award and related project details
- Don’t forget to contact the homeowner of the award-winning project and share the news with them, too!
Sometimes it helps to have an objective third party assist with this type of promotion. If you need help with any of the award marketing services mentioned above, contact R/A Marketing today for an estimate.