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It’s essentially 2026 already. We’re a few days from the beginning of a holiday week, which makes it a great time to do some final planning for next year. Integrating a formalized awards program into your plan and budget is a good way to put a bow on 2025 and put some shiny new trophies under the tree in 2026.

Actively nominating your organization for awards can feel self-serving, until you walk into someone else’s office and see their trophy case.

Then it hits you: these people know what they’re doing. And it’s not just their opinion — respected organizations and industry peers think so too.

An intentional awards program within your marketing and communications function isn’t vanity. It’s strategy. Done right, it delivers measurable returns by:

After all, every “Top Energy Developer” logo on a sales one-pager started with a submission. Every “Best Places to Work” seal on a careers site began as a line on a spreadsheet.

Data backs up the impact of awards. Research shows that winning a credible quality award is associated with a positive stock return on the announcement day and “Best Places to Work

Data backs up the impact of awards. Research shows that winning a credible quality award is associated with a positive stock return on the announcement day and “Best Places to Work” awards can positively affect employee retention rates.

I’ve helped organizations win dozens of meaningful awards and public recognitions. Here’s what works.

Six Steps to Build a Winning Awards Program

1. Budget for submission fees.

No CEO wants to approve every $350 application, and no communications leader wants to ask. Include awards in your annual marketing budget. It’s easily scalable based on the number of submissions you plan to make.

2. Do your research.

This is often the most time-consuming step—and the most important. Combine smart online and AI research with conversations across your C-suite, operations, and business development teams.

Ask: Which awards actually matter to our stakeholders? Which wins made our competitors jealous? Or — as is often the case — which of our competitors’ wins made us jealous last year? Which professional groups we belong to offer credible recognition? A few focused Slack or Teams messages can uncover big opportunities.

3. Compile and prioritize.

Every successful awards program starts with a spreadsheet.

Include fields for:

That spreadsheet becomes a living document—your roadmap for execution and a conversation starter with leadership about priorities and ROI.

4. Develop and submit.

This is where your communications team’s storytelling skills shine. Draft a compelling narrative aligned with why the award exists.

For trade associations, emphasize best practices that others can learn from. For media-run awards, understand that recognition fuels their editorial content and sponsorships. Build time for executive feedback, but keep momentum moving.

5. Celebrate—and repurpose—the wins.

You won’t win them all, but every victory deserves amplification. Share wins internally so employees feel proud and empowered to post on social media. Externally, integrate award news into your media outreach, website, newsletters, and social channels.

This is the well-earned return on your investment and the perfect place to make the PESO model work for you. More on that below.

6. Evaluate and evolve.

Treat your awards program like any other marketing or communications initiative: measure results and iterate. Which submissions landed? Which didn’t? Which generated the most visibility or leads? Which submissions required more time and effort than they really warranted?

Even with a loss, you can turn lemons into lemonade. The time dedicated to developing one submission often makes the next submissions much, much easier, improving your ROI. Often, even an unsuccessful award entry can still get attention from a media outlet or trade association. And persistence is key — go back to the same awards program next year!

What Awards Judges Are Looking For

No two awards programs are exactly alike, so rubrics for judging submissions will always vary. But most — if not all — have some common elements.

First, they’re looking for a good story. What was the challenge? How was it overcome? And can you provide the metrics that substantiate both. Look for good “characters” in the story that becomes your award submission: maybe it’s an employee that became a changemaker in her field, a customer who dramatically illustrates your unique value proposition, or a community partner that benefitted from your work together.

Award programs run by trade associations are often a way for them to gather and promote best practices in the sector, so consider checking out the organization’s mission statement and other values and then show how your submission supports them. For instance, if you’re submitting an award for an energy trade association that has been promoting affordability themes recently, show how your company has helped make energy more affordable in the last year.

Media organizations often have different goals for their awards platforms. While they’re also gathering stories to pursue later — or as part of their awards coverage — trade press sometimes also use awards features as sponsorship opportunities. They often are looking for award submissions that demonstrate larger trends or have particularly compelling content in the form of video and photos that they can share across channels.

The “Best Employer” award model is a hybrid that is specifically geared toward employee recruitment and retention. In these instances, a media outlet often partners with a for-profit company which then does an internal survey of employees, aggregates the data with other companies responses and then provides toolkits to promote your company as a top employer.

Finally, some awards programs are purely for-profit ventures, creating revenue for a company without a lot of ties to an industry, value platform or audience. While these might be helpful in boosting credibility, they can often be de-prioritized in favor of others that have more clout with your target audiences.

Fueling the PESO Model: Checklists for Making the Most of Your Wins

Winning an award is not the end of the strategy; it is the catalyst for exponential growth. The trophy or certification logo is a powerful form of third-party validation—a trust signal from an external source that instantly amplifies the credibility of your claims. A common mistake brands make is announcing the win and moving on.

A smart brand embeds the awards victory into its entire communications ecosystem, effectively fueling every quadrant of the PESO Model® (Paid, Earned, Shared, and Owned media).

Even if you can’t do all of the tactics below, here’s a list to get you started.

Owned Media (O): The Foundation of Trust

Owned media is where your award logo lives permanently, serving as a consistent, low-cost credibility signal that works 24/7. This is the bedrock of your awards strategy ROI.

Earned Media (E): Repurposing the Narrative

The greatest asset generated by the awards process is the detailed, metrics-driven narrative you crafted for the submission. The challenge, solution, and results format is gold for media outreach.

Shared Media (S): Engagement and Amplification

Social media is the ideal place to amplify the win, as third-party validation generates significantly more engagement than self-promotion and gives your employees and stakeholders an easy way to brag about it publicly.

Paid Media (P): Increased Conversion

Awards can dramatically improve the performance of your advertising by transforming an ordinary ad claim into a validated truth.

By treating the award as a high-value asset that continuously fuels your PESO Model, you ensure that the time, effort, and fees associated with the submission process deliver maximum strategic ROI for the entire year, long after the confetti has settled.

There’s a misconception that public recognition “just happens.” In reality, it takes strategy, persistence, and polish. But when done right, awards are far more than shiny objects—they’re proof points of credibility that strengthen your brand, attract talent, and open doors.

Now go get that trophy. Soon, you’ll be making the visitors to your own lobby jealous.

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