Today’s B2B companies face a number of unique challenges, including increased competition, improving customer experience and talent shortages just to name a few. While such challenges are usually addressed across departments, senior marketers are often pulled in just about every direction to assist. Don’t believe me? Take a look at how CMOs’ responsibilities have changed over the years.
According to a recent Gartner study, CMOs are taking on expanded responsibility in everything from digital commerce and customer experience to innovation, sales and even IT. So then, it should come as no surprise to learn that CMOs are not only feeling the pressures of these added responsibilities but so too are their marketing teams who look to them for direction and leadership.
Despite the magnitude of such added responsibilities, CMOs and senior marketers remain most accountable for marketing qualified leads (MQLs) that can move through the funnel and morph into qualified leads as quickly as possible. To ensure that marketing activities are doing just that, most marketing teams are measuring their tactics to key performance indicators (KPIs). Responsibilities like content marketing, social media and digital advertising remain high priorities because marketers can easily align results to KPIs. In contrast, brand awareness tactics like industry awards often end up on the chopping block as marketers and business leaders claim to have a harder time tracking overall impact to the business.
As a judge for the SIIA CODiE’s Awards -- a program that honors companies that achieve excellence and innovation in technology -- I not only know firsthand about the power of industry awards, but I am also very passionate about the value they provide. Below are four ways that industry awards meet and even exceed the KPIs that marketers are increasingly held accountable for:
Expedited Revenue Generation: Recent research reveals that corporate award winners grew sales by an astounding 37%. In addition, award-winning companies increased their stock price return by 44%. Companies that win awards seemingly gain a leg up on the competition, especially those that take advantage of the opportunity to extend the news to build awareness and bolster a positive perception.
Increased Web Authority: Researching preferred buyer key terms and incorporating them into website copy isn’t the only way to improve SEO. Off-site SEO, or website backlinks, and disseminating an SEO-optimized award-win press release can also boost your SEO ranking. And let’s face it, it’s Google’s world and we just have to do the best we can to live in it.
Competitive Intelligence: For some industry awards, judges will provide feedback to all applicants after the winners are announced. This information is invaluable because the criteria they are using to evaluate your company or solution is a lot of the same criteria that your prospective customers will use to evaluate your company against competitors. A best practice is to provide this feedback to leadership and the product team so that they can use it to continuously improve products, customer satisfaction and more.
Talent Recruitment: A company is only as good as its employees, so it’s no surprise that recruiting top talent is critical to a business’ success. Employee benefits, compensation and flexible working options are just a few offerings that companies use to attract new talent and fortunately enough, this criteria is what national and regional best places to work awards use to determine their rankings. Even better, national publications like Inc. and Fortune and local media like regional Business Chronicles refresh their best places to work lists annually. Not only will an award win for a “Best Places to Work” be read by the outlet’s readers, but it is likely to increase the pool of future applicants who want to work for a company that gets recognized for its work and culture.
Industry awards, when approached strategically, drive qualified leads, improve products, bolster SEO and boost talent recruitment. That’s why Alloy includes advocates for awards as part of our Alloy Methodology. Need help determining what industry awards are right for your company? Get in touch with us today.