Melanie
The Monday Morning Marketing podcast is brought to you by Esther of IPA Group, bringing premier online promotion to your business.
Esther
And Melanie of STOMP Social Media Training, who empowers business owners to manage social media and marketing for themselves. And welcome back to another episode of The Monday Morning Marketing podcast. Today we're talking about The Winner takes it all. And before you start singing, it's not the song. We're actually talking about entering and winning awards for your business.
Melanie
It is nice to think that we would win every award that we go in for, but even if-.
Esther
Well, we are the best.
Melanie
Well, yes, but just letting people know that Entering Awards, whatever stage your business is in, so startup all the way up to scale up is a really good marketing idea. And if you win, even better.
Esther
Yeah. So when you enter an award, well, there are different types of awards we should talk about first. There are ones that you nominate your sofa, there are others that people nominate you for. Then there could be a voting process of a popular vote where people you can ask your friends, family, contacts to vote for you. Or there's a judging panel where you submit evidence of your greatness and everything that you've done in your industry based on what award you're going for. And then the judges decide based on all the evidence that is in front of them who should win based on those. There are pros and cons to all of them. Obviously, there's time involved in either nominating yourself or gathering your information together or the pleading involved in please vote for me, please, please, please. But it is a good way, as Melanie said, to promote your business and show that you have been either nominated or shortlisted or through to the finalist stages for these because of how great you are.
Melanie
Now I do get how nerve-wrecking this process can be, especially the first time you do it because you're not really sure how much value you can give people in the first, certainly in the first year or two. Just being a startup is all that you need to do to qualify, to be completely honest with you, which sounds a bit bizarre, but just getting yourself out there. I mean, you think there's so many hundreds of thousands of businesses all over the world starting every single week. And there's a very, very small amount of us that are prepared to put ourselves upfront and centre at these startup awards. And you're thinking, Well, how could I possibly be so bold? How could I speak about myself for being so amazing and great and like that? There's so many hundreds of thousands of businesses that just aren't brave enough. And by simply getting yourself out there, and even if you never go any further than the first round, what you're doing is you're reaching a new audience entirely for free just by nominating yourself.
Esther
Absolutely, because the nominating committee themselves or the board that you go through when you are applying. So say it to your local enterprise office or your local, what's it called? Chamber of Commerce. They will also in turn promote you by saying, our finalists are or our shortlist includes and name off all the ones and tag you in socials and have your photograph, have your logo, have this, that and the other. So it is a good way to get your name out there and for people to go, Oh, who is that that they said? I must look them up. They might be a good fit for X, Y, Z. Oh, it's great that so-and-so Jane Doe has started her own business, must support her, etcetera. So there's so many things, even just by nominating and saying, I have been shortlisted. I have been finalist. I have put myself forward for these awards. Will give you the confidence, even if you don't win, to promote yourself a bit more. Because one of the things that we do worst in marketing and worst even for our own businesses, is tell people what we do.
Melanie
No, that is very true. And do you know what? As time goes on, you'll get better and better and better at explaining what you do and why you do it. It's just a matter of practise, I suppose. And it's even harder when you're a sole trader or small business because it's very difficult to talk about yourself proudly and boldly. Well, I certainly found it very difficult, certainly at the beginning. So it's a good exercise, A, to help you build your marketing message, and B, it's a really, really good way to get some free promotion and to reach an entirely new and a different audience. So my suggestion to you is, start doing some searches online to see which sectors you can apply for. It could be the local chamber, it could be the LEO. If you're here in Ireland or places like it, be the local enterprise office here. What would they be called up in Northern Ireland, Esther?
Esther
Here they're called, what are they called? That is a good question. Enterprise Centres. Right. So it's just centre rather than an office. So you've got all your local ones and there's even one in my small village which is connected to a bigger one, obviously. But the Enterprise Centre can run events and they can do lots of things and you can hire rooms and stuff, but they do also if they don't run award ceremonies themselves, they will know which ones are in the local area. And there could be people, there could be organisations that are running them. So there may be a charity organisation that runs one for specific types of charities or people registered as charities. There may be one in your specific industry. I know there's weddings.
Melanie
Like restaurants, hospitality, each of those isn't there?
Esther
Yeah, and wedding awards. So if you supply something for weddings, whether it be the flowers, the dress, the venue, the food, whatever, anything to do with weddings, then you could be in those. And some of them are local to you, so regional and others are national and then others are international. So I would say be wary of the ones that ask for money upfront. For those that say, oh, you have been nominated alongside and check out the other list of nominees because there were award ceremonies or award companies here not so long ago that were including companies that had gone during COVID in there. You have been nominated next to these people and you're going, They're not either in that industry or they're completely gone and bust. And in order to win your award, please book a ticket for it people to sit at the table for a gala dinner and it'll only cost you this extortionate amount of money. So be wary of ones like that. Check out who the competition is. So we're bringing this up today because Melanie and I have actually got some news for you all. We are the proud winners of the Digital Women Podcast of the Year Award, which was hosted recently in London. And it covers a... Digital Women is international, so it's for members of the Digital Women community. And we put ourselves forward or somebody nominated us, I think they use both-.
Melanie
I think it was a combination of both. Yeah.
Esther
Yeah. Yeah. And then submitted the evidence and came out as winners. We were finalists last year, but we didn't even get to be runners up or anything. But this year we were voted by the judges to be the winners. So that is one example of perseverance as well because you could quite easily go, Well, I didn't win this year, so there's no point in entering next time. There's always point in entering, especially if somebody else has been kind enough to nominate you. If you don't put yourself forward, at least be respectful of somebody else has nominated you and go, well, if somebody else thinks I'm good enough to do it, then here's my evidence. Here's the information that the judges are looking for. So be careful of who's running it. Check out the competition, check out make sure it's all very viable, very legit, because unfortunately, there are scammers out there. But this one that we have is definitely not a scam. It was run by Lucy Hall who was our guest way back in the first year that we were running the podcast way before we were entering awards. And yeah, we're just super thrilled.
Melanie
Yeah, it was a heck of a surprise, actually, because we were meant to be attending this event and unfortunately, it got moved because of train strikes. So unfortunately, Esther and I were unable to make it on the day because when it was moved to the new date, we'd both been booked in for completely different things. I was in in-person training. And Esther was... What were you doing, Esther?
Esther
I was galavanting. I was taking a well-earned break.
Melanie
Yes, she was. But a well-earned break, yes. But no, it was actually on the day of my 10th anniversary as well, interestingly enough. So 10 years in business was the day that we found out that our podcast had become a winner. We are now an award-winning podcast. You are listening to an award-winning podcast. Thanks, guys.
Esther
And we will be using this award-winning status for as long as possible.
Melanie
We're going to milk this.
Esther
Marketing, we are. But it is going to be one of those things that will hopefully bring in more of an audience. Hopefully, we continue to bring you guys entertainment, education and joy on a Monday morning as you listen to us rambling on. But we do encourage you to do the same, enter for awards. And even if you don't win, be gracious in your loss and celebrate those who have, congratulate those who came in above you because people will remember that as well.
Melanie
Oh, absolutely. This world of marketing, as big as broad as it seems, is actually a very, very small field because again, it only takes... Only so many people are prepared to put themselves out there regularly and we all get to know one another. And one thing I learned very, very quickly as you don't actually have competitors, you don't have competition. You genuinely don't. You have people you could potentially collaborate with. Your audience picks you. Picks you. So Esther and I, we are actually competitors. If you look at it, we are, because we both work in a similar field. Now you have a larger agency and you work in more areas, but we both do social media. But people pick who works for them best on personality, on pricing, on location, on so many different factors. And once you stop thinking, I'm setting up this business to look after me and you start thinking, I'm setting up this business to look after my customer, doesn't matter whether your product or service, your whole mindset changes. And there is no such thing as competition.
Esther
And on that note, we will end it for today, guys. All the best with nominating yourselves or others for these awards. And we hope that to see your name in flashing lights soon too. We'll be back next week with more Monday Morning Marketing, until then, bye-bye.
Melanie
Bye, guys.
So, win a chicken dinner?
Esther
Chicken.
Melanie
Oh.
Esther
You know what you're having for dinner later?
