Can winning industry awards help sell products and services? According to the Influencer Marketing book, the answer is no:
“Industry awards are primarily self-congratulatory ‘feel good’ exercises, which have limited marketing value and all but zero influence on the top decision-makers.”
– Nick Hayes and Duncan Brown
They do credit awards with some value in the early stage of a decision process, such as in response to a Request For Proposal.
Is that the practical extent of the value of an industry award?
I agree with them insofar as few industry awards have the impact of the Oscars. However, that seems more a shortcoming of the typical awards organizer than the nature of awards in general.
Every industry has its awards programs that amount to little more than karaoke. It pays to avoid those. Or, bury them.
Likewise, every industry has its awards programs that do matter.
As with all forms of influence, the trick is knowing which is which.
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February 19th, 2009 at 7:29 am
I think it depends on whether these are industry awards given to a company generally, or whether they are personal achievement awards for an individual. From my own experience, I don’t really care all that much about my firm being named Top XYZ of the Year, but I do care about getting awards for performance and I pay a lot of attention to the people that do receive them.
I know I’m a minority here — the managers on my team feel that the only thing that motivates staff is money. But I feel like awards that identify key behaviors in a positive way are a definite influence on the way I perform my job.