And the Winner Is…
One of the day-to-day duties at Legal Image is searching for awards to nominate our successful lawyers and their firms for. They did all of the hard work that led up to them being qualified for the award, but it is our duty as their Public Relations Team to write an effective nomination that will highlight their accomplishments and get them noticed by the judges.
In order to get your clients’ products or services the recognition they deserve, here are a few key elements in writing award nominations that win:
- Focus on the category. Many PR pros make the mistake of writing award nominations that explain how fantastic their client is in a breadth of ways, but the praise does not align with the award category. Focus on how qualified your client is as it pertains to one category. This will help reduce the wordiness of a nomination, better hold judges’ attention, and give them everything they need to know to evaluate your client without having to dig through the nomination for it.
- Make a good first impression. Assume the judge will only read the first sentence of your nomination – what must they know and understand about your client? An opening statement that clearly conveys why your client’s product or service deserves to win the award will help you make a good first impression.
- Incorporate visuals. Depending on the size of the program, judges may be sifting through hundreds of nominations and will go crazy after looking at block of text after block of text. Use visuals – from infographics to marketing photos – to show them how awesome your client is. If the nomination does not allow you to upload visuals, incorporate links within the text itself.