It makes everything worthwhile when a client succeeds
Yesterday one of my clients was successful in winning a Retail Week Technology Award. We had a fab night at the ceremony and drank far too much champagne for any clear thinking to be achieved today.
That’s the fun of working in pr.
Personal sense of pride aside because when things like this happen it makes the long hours I work worthwhile, it really struck home their massive public relations value. There’s the immediate impact – EMAP has done a fantastic job of promoting the event with a string of emails and winners making front page news. There’s the logo to be added to email signatures, photos to be tweeted and communications to staff and customers. Etc etc….all creating a serious feel good factor.
But what else was really significant in this case, and, I guess for a large number of suppliers who enter awards, is the potential for cementing customer relationships. For technology companies without a truly unique solution, it’s almost impossible to win an award independently, what people are interested in is the value businesses can derive. So without the customer as a case study there is no award, and by offering clients the resources to compete in this way demonstrates commitment to them. Dare I use that most awful cliché, it’s a win-win, and everyone from Oracle to Red Prairie to Torex understand this.
In this case, it was Argos, working in partnership with Zetes.
So here’s a list of the benefits awards deliver:
- Immediate publicity – to be milked for at least the next 12 months
- Impartial reputation enhancement, in the same way as good editorial coverage
- Long term reputation management
- Employee and cultural engagement
- And last but not least, customer relationship development.
In fact, in the end, perhaps the mutual goodwill created by this exercise represents the most powerful benefit of all.
There’s a skill to award entry writing, and over the years I have discovered what really works. Over the past year, I’ve submitted 8 different entries for clients, 7 of which were nominated as finalists, 2 achieving highly commended and 2 overall winners.
Without being boastful, and people who know me know that’s really not my style, I think that’s pretty good going ☺
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