A handy list of checkpoints to make before starting and/or submitting your entry for this year's SMAs
1. READ THE CRITERIA. Decide which categories you are going to enter and read the specific criteria before starting your entry. The criteria tells you everything you need to know about the award and what the judges will be looking for. It also tells you what information to include. Remember these awards cover the UK market ONLY
2. THINK SPACING in your entry - PLEASE don't just cut and past a block of text. If you are submitting a PDF - all you need to write in the boxes are ‘see attached PDF'. Don't paste the whole entry in as well. It saves the judges a lot of time! However, if you are submitting a text entry in the box provided, PLEASE include spacing and punctuation. Don't just submit a massive block of text.
3. MAKE IT PERSONAL. When writing your entry - keep it concise and remember the word limit - don't ramble and include loads of marketing/corporate speak or even worse - cut and paste from the corporate website. Imagine you are telling a story. Try and inject some personality and life into the award and make it interesting to read. Use humour. Think of how it will look visually as well - would you feel inspired to read huge blocks of text if you were a judge? Think about what would make your entry stand out from the crowd.
4. MAKE THE ENTRY RELEVANT. Make sure your entry actually fits the description of the award category - If you are entering the Technology Innovation Award for example, please make sure it describes why the product is innovative and how it is actually helping your channel partners. Don't just talk about speeds and feeds and describe the product itself. Make sure the product actually benefits the channel. And remember this is a UK based awards, so please make all content UK relevant.
5. FACTS AND FIGURES - Always include facts and figures - if you are making a claim about one of your teams being the best at something - back that claim up with something tangible. It helps put it into context and shows the judges that your entry is genuine.
6. RESELLERS: explain what value you have provided to your end user customers through your entries- why are they using your company, what do you offer them that nobody else can? What have you done differently that makes you stand out from the crowd? Show your personality and your people off - we want entries to be personal and engaging.
7. DISTRIBUTORS: explain what value you are providing to your resellers and vendors and why they continue to work with your different teams. Don't feel ashamed to shout about your success. Show your personality and talk about your people - make it personal.
8. VENDORS: Please keep your entry UK relevant - these awards do not cover other territories, so any programmes, events, websites etc must be relevant to your UK partners. Injecting some passion and personality into entries is always welcomed by the judges. Please don't just cut and paste from corporate websites - make the entry personal.
9. ALWAYS INCLUDE TESTIMONIALS - resellers these should be from your customers, distributors from your resellers or vendors, and vendors from your distributors or resellers (not end users). Again, make sure the testimonials are interesting to read and are not full of corporate/marketing speak and keep them short and to the point.
10. LESS IS MORE. Don't just submit the same entry in different categories - if you don't have the time to spend on tailoring multiple entries, focus on just one and make it a winner! The judges WILL penalise those who just submit the same entries in multiple categories.
11. REMEMBER WORD/TIME LIMITS: PDF or video entries - feel free to submit a PDF or video entry if it is easier. But remember the word count still stands with PDF entries. Also, videos must be NO LONGER than FIVE MINUTES. Any videos going beyond that time will NOT be viewed in full by the judges and all that work will have gone to waste.
12. ATTACHMENTS. Please limit or completely avoid attachments. One attachment only - multiple attachments will not be read by the judges.
Thanks for entering the CRN Sales and Marketing Awards 2024. The deadline is Thursday 28 March 2024. Best of luck with your entry!
