Entry Preparation Tips

Here is some advice from past winners and judges that can help you prepare an entry that best showcases your work.

• Put yourself in the judges’ shoes. The average judge is going through 10-15 entries and has limited time to dig through your entry for the information they need to evaluate it.
  • Make your summaries easily scannable with headers, subheads, and bolded key terms (e.g., measurable objectives, budget, evaluation). 
• Use your summary to tell a compelling story.
  • You only have two pages, so make it impactful and engaging. 
  •  Review the judging rubric and make sure you’ve included all of the elements in your summary and supporting materials.
• In your research section, explain how you came to the conclusion that your campaign or tactic was the right approach. While gathering qualitative/measurable data (e.g., opinion surveys) is ideal, it’s okay to include secondary sources (e.g., industry reports) or qualitative research (e.g., lessons learned from the previous campaign, anecdotal feedback from client leaders).
  • Is this a continuation of an annual campaign? Did you research feedback from past event evaluations? Meet with the client? Look at what competitor organizations are doing? Exploring innovative approaches from other markets or industry sectors?
• Include overall goals at least one measurable objective. All objectives need to identify at least one target audience. Establish what you want them to do, how much of “it” you want them to do and by when. Review this advice for ideas and examples. 
• Make the differences between your strategies and tactics clear. For example, educating industry association members about member benefits is a strategy while creating an e‐newsletter to share news and information is a tactic. Tactics support strategies that then, in turn, help your organization achieve its communications goals with its target audiences. Here’s an example for a non-profit looking to increase the number of donors:

• Include budget information. Judges are required to keep entry information confidential and  budget information helps determine the cost-effectiveness of your submission. There is no such thing as “no budget.” If you still choose to keep costs confidential – be prepared for judges to mark off points in their evaluation.
  • This could include freelancers you hired, production of support materials, purchases of stock images, etc.
  • Were there unexpected expenses? Did you seek out partnerships to reduce costs?
  • If the effort was within a retainer or your regular scope of work, reference the time and resources used (e.g., The effort required 10 hours for research, writing, and editing; five hours for media outreach and responses; and two hours for media tracking and evaluation of coverage using the firm’s contracted media monitoring service). 
• Include relevant support materials.
  • Include no more than 15 pages of materials to support your entry.
  • List all of your earned media coverage and include only the clips that best tell your story.
  • Include pictures of large or three‐dimensional elements to your campaign.
  • Video and other large files should be posted on YouTube or DropBox with links in the summary.
  • Unless it’s an entry specific to the medium (e.g., video, website), keep videos short and sweet. They will trust your summary to accurately reflect your results.
  • Include links to external/public websites and make sure sites are up and running during the judging period.
  •  If your entry has a number of web-based elements or is not publicly accessible for the judges (e.g., an intranet site, a temporary page from a crisis), include screenshots.
• Follow AP Style, edit and proofread several times. Read it out loud. Swap entries with someone unfamiliar with the campaign who can catch items you may have missed.