Why Your Marketing Team Should Aim to be Award-Winning

By: Melissa Brogan

It’s award time in Hollywood. As stars put on their best attire to walk the red carpet, they are gathering together to solute what’s great about what they do. Winning a statue can boost their credibility and can push their careers in totally new directions. The same holds true for marketers. Winning an award can have the same impact on your career.

If you’ve ever attended AAM’s Marketing Achievement Awards (AAM-MAAs) gala that takes place at the summit each year, you have seen many of your peers called to the stage to honor their impressive work. Why do firms enter? It’s not about the glory as much as it is the ROI!

There are actually two types of ROI firms are striving for here. First, there is the ROI that feeds top line revenue at the firm. The other is what builds our bottom line—morale. No firm develops a strategy or tactic with the goal of winning an AAM-MAA. But don’t short-change yourself either; give your team and firm the chance to shine.

Marketers who aim to do award-quality work in their firms are focused on the ROI. They know they have to push the bar with each campaign they do to produce solid results for the firm. Overtime, this leads to a cultural change in the firm and within the marketing team as everyone works to improve what they do and get even better results.

Winning an award can bring you and your firm:

• Awareness for a job well done – It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, use your entry to show others in the firm what marketing really does (as we know they always wonder). Take the storyboard you have to prepare and share it with firm leadership team. Even post in your lunchroom or a common area. Use it as an opportunity to educate your firm on programs that you no doubt have made look effortless to produce. It’s also nice for them to know you have enough pride in what you do to put your work up as some of the best in the country.
• Excitement – After you submit for one award, practitioners will want to know who won, what they did and what are you submitting next time. Given their competitive nature, they actually get excited about marketing awards; after all, there aren’t similar awards for them to enter. When you win, the award goes on your front desk or somewhere it can be admired in passing with other recent recognition.  It becomes a badge of honor to the practitioner who championed the program.
• Pride in your work – Sometimes this can be a thankless job. You and the entire marketing team need to be showcased for the great work that happens—even if you don’t win. The rest of the firm might not realize the thoughtfulness you placed into the strategic goals and outcomes…unless you lay it out for them. You work hard and should be proud of what you do.

Striving to doing award-winning work and actually taking the time to submit for an award should be something you do every year. It’s how you make sure winning is a habit in your organization. Doing that quality of work ensures you have the price of admission in the budget.  It keeps your team in a winning attitude.  It’s how you stay motivated to perform at a top level consistently.

As you sit back and listen to your favorite stars make their acceptance speeches, think about how a little national recognition could help your career. And then comes the hard part. It does take a little time to gather the information from a project and design a digital story board; however, the benefits of submitting are worth the extra effort. Over time you can make the submission process part of your routine and culture, too.

First, you have to take the challenge. Prepare for the role. Do the work. Sit back and receive impressive hardware.

Learn more about the AAM-MAAs and what you have to do to submit your best accounting marketing work.