Before Copy Cred

Before approaching Copy Cred, our technology client hadn’t had experience with awards. They saw their competitors winning them and had heard noise in the market about their award success, so they knew the impact of awards on recognition and reputation. They also knew they had a great offering, raving clients, and year on year growth, and rightly questioned – “why should our competitors get all the acclaim?”

Joining forces

When we found an industry award with a leadership category that could profile our C-Suite client, we got together to start addressing the criteria and building our award narrative. Our mantra at Copy Cred is “high quality questions get high quality answers which produce high quality communications”. We delved into the hows and whys and whens of the responses and after our session, looked at how strong the responses were in a competitive landscape and what would give us the best chance of compelling the judges.

Changing direction

Through our questioning, we drew out a strong narrative around their workplace culture. We had evidence of attraction and retention strategies, initiatives that celebrated and rewarded team members, and training and mentorship. In our post workshop process, we decided to map the responses we had from the leadership category to the award’s culture category… and the puzzle pieces fit perfectly!

Our recommendation to the client was to pivot from leadership to culture for this particular award which would still support the company’s broader goals. The client agreed and we delved a little deeper given the new angle, and wrote the submission. Throughout the process, we worked their team to gather evidence and testimonials that would complement the submission. And when the time came to submit, we joined in on the Zoom call as we always offer to our clients, and guided them through the submission process. Then it was time to wait!

Celebrating success

Our client was stoked to learn they were a finalist (and of course, we were, too!). Key stakeholders were noticing and coming out of the woodwork to acknowledge and celebrate the recognition. The endorsement from a key industry body is being used in their marketing and adds another layer of credibility as new prospects consider the brand in their decision making.

What we love about this

We love that this serves as a reminder that award success isn’t just about taking home first place.

• The client gained a whole new understanding of the strengths of their business and the opportunities to pursue for future awards from the workshop alone. Before we even put pen to paper.
  
  
• The client was reminded of their talents and impact by reaching out and asking for testimonials as part of the submission process – something many people find hard to ask for outside of ‘having a reason to do so’.
  
  
• We know that we could have answered the questions of the first category and ‘ticked the box’. But with a helicopter view of the competitive award landscape, we knew the same responses would have greater strength in a different category. Had we not have changed direction, we don’t believe the result would have been the same. 
  
  
• We see that finalist recognition offers the same visibility and an equal level of respect from stakeholders as winning does – most people just make that connection of ‘you + awards’. They’re not analysing or judging the differences and gaps between a finalist and a winner.