Most marketing teams will be more than familiar with the challenges of awards-pitch season. Working on these pitches can sometimes feel like a repetitive whirl, spinning out similar case studies and arguments from year to year.
Yet the value of these efforts cannot be understated. In the financial services industry, award wins remain a powerful asset for brand, marketing and sales teams. However, amongst the rush of submission deadlines, resource restrictions and writing fatigue, pitch execution can fall short of best practice.
Check out the following tips for writing a winning awards pitch:
1. Don’t skim the guidelines.
Perhaps an obvious point, but so often overlooked – especially when submitting for the same awards programmes year after year. Ideally, you should review the guidelines from a practical and narrative perspective:
- For the former, make sure you understand the parameters of each category applied for. This will help guide your story, but also avoid exclusion based on something as simple as date ranges (it happens!)
- For the latter, try to gleam from the guidelines what the judges are really looking for. Take care to look for subtle differences from prior years. It also can’t hurt to read write-ups of previous years’ winners in the relevant categories to uncover their secrets to success.
2. Constantly ask: So what?
When so focused on your organisation’s success, it can be easy to write with unconscious bias. The judges won’t be following the same pattern, so take pause to evaluate the relevance of your words. For example – was your solution really innovative, or do your competitors provide a similar offer? Always ask ‘why should the judges care?’ and re-write if it doesn’t come across.
3. Be careful with jargon
Not unique to awards-pitch content, jargon continues to irk marketers across the financial services industry. Now put yourself in the judges’ shoes – would you want to read the words ‘best-in-class solution’ for 20 pitches in a row? Writing succinctly and without jargon is an easy way to stand out.
4. Take breaks
Depending on the sector, products etc., the content volume required in awards pitches can be overwhelming. To avoid repetition-induced burnout (which leads to errors), try to spread the workload as much as possible. The key to this is good scheduling – especially in the financial services industry where the main awards programmes have a pretty well-established annual calander.
5. Find your second pair of eyes
As with any marketing content, a layered approach to final editing is vital – especially given the volume typically involved in awards pitches. Moreover, even if you feel assured that the indiviudal components make sense, can you be sure they collectively tell the narrative that gives you the best chance of winning? A second or even third pair of eyes is the key final step.
Struggling with the content for, or simply the volume of awards pitches you’re working on? Financial Content Lab is here to help. Please reach out as you start planing your next pitch.
