Winning an award is great. It’s a feeling that some of us are lucky enough to experience throughout our lives, starting when we got a prize at school, and our mums proudly put it on the fridge. Fast forward to your adult life, and what you really want is to get your whole team onto a glitzy stage while being applauded at an iGaming awards night. And why not? It always feels good to be appreciated by your peers. As Mario Cacciottolo, Industry Awards Lead at GameOn, explains…

Now, having secured your mum’s support, let’s talk specifically about iGaming awards and how to increase your chances of winning one.

Like most things in life, success can’t be guaranteed, but you can do the right things to improve the odds of being shortlisted and even winning.

Tell tales of success

People love information relayed via a storyline. So wherever possible, give a bit of extra insight into how your company, product or service came to life.

Go beyond the surface. Explain how you identified a problem, built a solution, and brought it to market.

For example, explain how you built something to solve a problem, or how your team realised there was a gap in the slot game market while on a team-building night in the pub (that scenario was actually in one entry I edited)

Talk about the problems you’ve had and how you overcame them. Mention late nights, increased staffing, financial investment, and take them on the journey of your product’s creation.

The point is to make the judges feel that a team of people worked hard to create something – or a company – that they cared about.

Lead with data

Statistics might win you your award. Words are brilliant but can only go so far.

Strong claims without data are easy to ignore. Strong claims backed by numbers are hard to challenge.

So if you say: “We’ve had impressively strong growth so far this year” and don’t throw in a statistic to back that up, the judges’ eyes will likely glaze over at that point.

Anyone can say their performance is strong, but only a few can show it. Here are some ways in which you can do that:

• Highlight your growth and strong performances, both in finances and user numbers, where applicable. Use percentages if you don’t want to reveal raw numbers.
• Give the kind of QvQ or YoY comparisons that will show the highest percentage increases. Be honest but use the comparisons that work best to show growth.
• Get your commercial and product teams to draft a two-page report showing how strong your financials/user numbers/performance have been during the judging period, in as many ways as they can truthfully demonstrate – then use that data to help you write your entry.

A company I once worked for did the last point really well. I used their commercial and SEO teams’ very thorough information as the basis of our award entries, and we won five in four years.

Timing is strategy

Timing is absolutely vital when it comes to award entries. A common mistake I see is companies entering awards far too soon.

Every award has a clearly marked judging period, and the information you provide must be from that time.

This means entering your company, product or service once it’s had a good run during the 12 months (usually) under scrutiny. Otherwise, you’re entering with barely any activity in the judging period.

If nominations open and your product has been running for only six weeks, have patience and don’t enter it right now. Wait until another award opens up in a few months, when you can back up what you say with statistical proof.

Treat awards as proof of success, not as a launch event.

Write for the judges

People are asked to be judges because they’re high achievers and respected in iGaming.

This means they’re busy. Like, really busy. Running companies, dealing with boards and shareholders, running their departments and then, often, going home to deal with family life as well.

This means their time is limited, and on top of all that, they have to carefully read the many nomination entries coming their way.

Your job is to make their decision to choose you as the winner as easy as possible.

If your entry is really long, with repeated information, then you risk the judges running out of interest, fast.

Nominations come with word counts, but see those as a guideline, not a target. So you have a 1,000-word allowance? Aim for 800. And if it’s 800, aim for 650.

Fewer words, with eye-catching stats and short, punchy points being made once each, have far more impact.

Milk the spotlight

Finally, should you get nominated, or even better – win! – then make sure you get the full juice out of this achievement.

Awards are not the finish  line; they are a marketing opportunity.

Splash the fact you’re shortlisted on LinkedIn and do a short blog for that platform and your website. Write a couple of posts talking about the nominated  company/product/service as you get closer to Awards Night. Use photos of the relevant team/person, don’t use a boring graphic.

Get the person or team you send to the awards to take photos, especially if you win.

If you don’t, post photos from the awards night anyway and tag in the winner to congratulate them. People will still be impressed that you were shortlisted and were classy enough to clap the victor.

Winning an award (and decorating your mum’s fridge) is great, but there are many ways to get that winning feeling, for your company and for the people who drive its success. Good luck!