Welcome to another week and we are delighted to remind you that our great friends at
Smarta have launched their annual Smarta 100 Awards and there is less than 10 days
left to send in your entry. It is free to enter and there is a prize pool of
£20,000 up for grabs.
Smarta was founded by digital entrepreneur and best
selling author Shaa Wasmund as the innovative advice platform for SMEs and
their annual Smarta 100 Awards are hugely influential. Find out more and put
your entry in by September 1st. Every entry will receive a free business
boosting ebook too! Enter online now!
Smarta
founder Shaa Wasmund on why business awards are your most cost-effective
marketing activity and her tips on how to win them. "Nothing will convince a
prospective customer to buy from you more than a third party endorsement:
proving other people value you and are excited by your product is infinitely
more powerful than spending thousands on advertising.
What do you trust more: a
hotel that pays to get to the top of Google or the one 500 people vote to rank
as No.1 on TripAvisor? As a consumer I buy from
brands I trust. That trust isn’t based on what that brand tells me about how it
treats its customer, but how its customers tell me that brand treats
them.
As a businessperson, my
company’s products have to create positive experiences that my customers want to
share and repeat.Influence isn’t just a
product of customer recommendation, however. Credibility comes via other
activities too.
In the first year, my
company Smarta partnered with the likes of RBS, Vodafone and Intuit, lending us
far more credibility and authority than would have otherwise been given to a
five-person, pre-revenue start-up. Securing an experienced
and respected investor or non-exec is another way to convince clients and
customers you’re the real deal.
In my opinion though,
there’s no more cost-effective or powerful way of amplifying how great your
fledgling business is than earning a public stamp of approval by winning an
award.
When an independent body,
respected in its field that high profile individuals and the media are happy to
associate with presents your business an award, customers, clients and investors
alike sit up and take notice.
Awards are the ultimate
third-party endorsement. It’s like being able to walk into a sales meeting
wearing a big badge saying ‘someone really important thinks I’m better than
everyone else you could be working with’. BIG WIN.
Pick your awards
carefully: select only awards respected by your industry and with an alumni of
proud winners. Avoid awards that don’t excite you or whose priority is to take
money off you.
When you’re applying,
treat the judges as a customer: they need to buy into your product and you as a
person. Demonstrate why your customers buy into you. Delight and excite – just
don’t make wild claims you can’t back up. Evidence everything.
Get this right and you’ll
earn the recognition your business deserves. Just be sure you’re ready for it.
If you’re exposed overnight to hundreds of thousands of potential new customers,
make sure you’re geared up to capture them and ready to take full advantage of
the opportunities that suddenly come your way.
In 2012, our Smarta 100
winning businesses were viewed more than 1 million times; attracted 100,000
public votes, trended on Twitter, were pictured in the national and regional
press with our Dragon judges and were inundated with new enquiries.
Our winners have gone on
to secure £5m investments, exit and treble in size in the space of 12 months –
the really smart ones are doing even better.Every year the Smarta 100
recognises 100 new emerging, exciting and innovative small businesses. This year
it could be YOU.
Don’t miss the
1st September 2013 deadline by
completing your application online in under 10 minutes RIGHT NOW"
