Awards come and go all the time and this has never been truer than during the past 18 months, when lots of established UK awards have vanished without trace.
Dedicating a few hours a month in your business to finding awards that are open for entries can really pay off. Lots of business awards have been pushed back after ceremonies were delayed during lockdowns, which has had a knock-on effect to this year. Businesses that are relying on knowing that a certain award always opens for entries in February each year could be caught out when they miss a deadline that’s changed by several months.
Here are five ways to find awards that you can enter your business in today:
- Check any publications that cover your geographical area. If you’re based in Nottingham, check out the Nottingham Post to see when their business awards are running. Check out awards that cover your wider area, such as North East or Wales.
- Google any awards around niches that apply to you as an individual. Anything that makes you a minority category – race, sex, disability, being from a background that isn’t usually associated with your chosen job – may well have several awards linked to it that you can enter.
- Look at publications that cover your business type or target customers, as these often run their own awards. For example, if you run classes for toddlers, look in parenting magazines.
- If you’ve got an industry body, or are a member of a business organisation, find out whether they run their own awards that you can enter.
- Finally, there are lots of national business awards that are open to everyone. It can seem daunting to enter a national award. Keep in mind lots of other businesses will be put off entering for the same reason.
Remember, any awards entries are better than none. You’ve got to be in it to win it and regularly entering business awards is the only way you can hope to regularly win them.