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Marketing Hack #5 – Enter a competition for marketing professionals 

 May 18, 2015

By  Pascal Depuhl

Congratulations! You’ve won gold at the MarCom awards!” reads the letter I receive earlier this year. MarCom stands for Marketing and Communication a competition for marketing professionals. I submitted “On Wings of Hope” to the competition and I’m thrilled to win another award for my first documentary film.

On Wings of Hope wins Gold at a competition for marketing called MarCom 2014
On Wings of Hope wins Gold at MarCom 2014

There are more than a few competition for marketing people out there and there’s other types of competitions from advertising to some other zappy creative profession, so you got to be a little selective in entering them, since -like at a film festival- there are fees that range from a couple bucks to several hundred dollars per category. (You can check out how film festivals are a great marketing hack in last weeks post: Marketing Hack #4: Have your work screened at film festivals)

Where do I start?

That being said, the contests need to be relevant to your target market. Say I create an image or video in a field that I usually don’t work – let’s say automobile photography – submit it and win (which is unlikely, but stay with me). If most of my clients are corporate organizations, that never look at car photography, that win is worth next to nothing.

However, if you win in a competition for marketing (even a local or less well known one), it will reflect on the quality of work you produce and even have new people look at your work, just because it won an award.

Let’s get practical (How to select a proper competition for marketing professionals to enter)

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When you’re starting up, may I suggest that you pick a competition for marketing professionals, that is smaller and maybe less well known. That was you can learn the ropes of submitting your work and not break the bank. Remember, it’s better to win a smaller marketing or advertising competition, than to loose against top national brands and spend a fortune doing so.

How this a competition for marketing works

Entering a competition for marketing pros is as easy as finding one, submitting your work and paying the entry fee. Many times the application asks for some more details about the project, a bio for you, ect. However if you’ve identified work that you want to submit, create these documents ahead of time (or save them from the last submission). It’ll make it easier to enter and your brand message will be more consistent, if you have use the same ones for each contest.

This Marketing Hack is valuable, because …

On Wings of Hope movie poster. This documentary won a gold award at a competition for marketing.
On Wings of Hope wins gold in the MarCom competition for marketing

…winning awards in a competition for marketing, does a couple of things for your business:

  • First of all it validates the work you submit.
  • It proves to potential clients, you can create award winning visual assets
  • The work will get exposed to a whole new audience – those who watch and judge the competition or read about it
  • Winning the award gives you the perfect opportunity to talk about the award wining work your business delivers to your clients on social media
  • It’s a great ‘excuse’ to contact your past clients and remind them of the work you’ve done for them in the past
  • And you often get an inbound link to your website from the awards site.

The result:

When a competition for marketing lists you as a winner, that is never a bad thing. An award increases the strength of your brand and having a collection of statues and award certificates, helps your burn your brand into their brains.

What opportunities have you utilized when your work wins award? I’d love to hear about them – tell me your wining stories on Twitter (@photosbydepuhl) or share them in the comments.

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Pascal Depuhl


Miami product photographer, video producer, cinematographer and chief mindchanger at Photography by Depuhl

I love to share the knowledge I've gained over the past two decades. Catching light in motion.

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