Many a manager may have wondered whether it is useful to compete in industry awards competitions. In South Africa these range from as diverse as the Loeries advertising awards to the Top Growth company awards and the Golden Arrow type awards as bestowed by Professional magazines.

The answer is yes, they are worth it. Participating in any competition, winning and publicising your accomplishments can lead to higher awareness, more respect and directly to sales.

It adds to your organisation’s reputation for being good enough to win awards and do so consistently. It makes your company a benchmark standard.

In the real estate industry, similar results are seen. If a builder/developer is able to win industry awards, granted by its peers, it trumpets the results and generates increases in awareness, positive reputation, traffic and sales.

In tourism, industry awards seem to generate a level of trust among potential guests and visitors. They also generally elevate respect for the destination, attraction and property among members of the travel trade, leading to referrals.

On a more specific level, here’s what industry awards do:

They let you write a news release about the award. Even if you get one cm of column of copy, it is one more impression and more free publicity;

It lets you use the designation in your marketing materials;

It makes you a benchmarking standard and gives you credibility, not only to customers but to the media. If they see the news release about your award and it’s a slow news day, they just might call you for a larger story;

It helps get you into trade publications – your own and those read by your target audience. If you want to write an article for them, they may be more inclined to include it if you have a string of awards behind your name;

It gives you a platform from which you can pitch story ideas about your company and write letters to the editor and opinion columns;

As a company, you need to reconsider as to why you are not on the podium? The issue is not just to redesign your Website. The issue is ensuring that your Website is chosen as one of the top twenty in the country.

Surely your company should be good enough to participate in its field’s competition.

Surely you are worthy of your good name. If you are not participating, maybe your competition will!!