The accolades clients, customers, industry groups or important members of the community at large give to your company are all valuable sources of marketing collateral. Whenever your organization is recognized for excellence in any area, it’s a smart idea to make the most of the honor by broadcasting it far and wide to establish credibility and convince your target audience that your brand is worth doing business with.
The key to maximizing the benefits that awards, testimonials and positive reviews can provide is to include them in your content marketing strategy, repurposing them in different formats that can be distributed and shared in various channels. Below, 14 members of Forbes Agency Council share their best ideas for amplifying the praise and kudos your company receives.
Forbes Agency Council members share smart ways to make the most of the accolades a company receives.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Strike While The Iron Is Hot And Ask Them To Share It
Strike while the iron is hot and ask if they can share it where it matters. If you can leverage reviews on search engines, ask if they can copy and paste what they’ve already said in their comment. Just having to copy and paste makes it easy for them. The same goes for social media; to take it a level higher, ask if they’d be willing to share the same message in a video testimonial. The key is to make the experience seamless for them. – Damon Burton, SEO National
2. Create A Case Study To Show Why You Deserve The Praise
Create an elaborate case study that flaunts the accolade you’ve received and shows what you did to deserve it. At the same time, it should reflect what sets you apart from your competitors. Approach influential online sites that have the same target audience as yours and ask them to publish your case study. This will help you reach a large volume of prospective customers and make a great first impression! – Ajay Prasad, GMR Web Team
3. Pull Testimonial Quotes To Use In Paid Media Campaigns
Testimonials can be a valuable source of validation or confirmation for a user to see before they convert. Pulling testimonial quotes to incorporate into a company’s paid media campaign is a powerful and unique way to demonstrate authority and trustworthiness to your target audience and push likely-to-convert users over the finish line. – Donna Robinson, Collective Measures
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4. Share Your Process To Tell The Story Behind The Accolade
Seeing positive reviews everywhere is becoming overwhelming, and yet we all want to know the story behind them. So, get creative and share your process with the world. Posting videos on social media and portfolio case studies on a website with accolades from clients added in at the end are perfect ways to share what made a project great. – Oganes Vagramovich Barsegyan, Digital Beverly Marketing Solutions
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5. Create Content About Your Audience’s Experience, Not Your Company
When a company receives a terrific accolade, it’s natural for its leaders to want to leverage it. The problem is, they often amplify it by making it about themselves and sharing it through a blog or social media post. The trick is to create and amplify content around the reasons why that accolade was given to them, making it about their audience’s experience rather than themselves. – Roger Hurni, Off Madison Ave
6. Show Your Gratitude To The Team Whose Work Earned The Praise
First and foremost, be grateful. Then capture an authentic moment to share with those whose hard work led to that recognition. While case studies that speak to your company’s value are great pieces of content for your website and social media, ensuring the internal fulfillment of the team that makes it all happen will drive them to perform at a higher level and deliver the next round of praiseworthy work. – Jonathan Schwartz, Bullseye Strategy
7. Announce Achievements On Your Site With Pop-Up Messages And Visuals
Featuring achievements on your website is a simple way to significantly increase your credibility. Create a temporary pop-up message announcing the award and add any relevant badges or logos to a banner on your website. Use visual interest to draw attention to the accolade. – Hannah Trivette, NUVEW Web Solutions
8. Use Accolades In Newsletter Headlines, Social Media Captions And Email Signatures
While you should obviously repurpose any accolade or testimonial in your marketing tactics, an even more eye-catching and effective way to do this is to use it as the headline in a newsletter or as the caption on a social media post. Including an award or testimonial in your email signature is another great way to build credibility for your company and get more eyes on it. – Spencer Hadelman, Advantage Marketing
9. Read The Message To Employees And Ask Them To Reflect On How They Contributed
There’s nothing wrong with promoting these messages externally, but in my experience, they provide the most value internally. Most pro services firms struggle with alignment, and these messages serve to remind people of the mission, which can create a stronger sense of team pride. Have a leader read the message to employees, then ask them to reflect on how they contributed to that outcome. – Randy Shattuck, The Shattuck Group
10. Create An Inspiring And Celebratory Promotional Video To Share The News
You could create an inspiring promotional video that includes an interview with the client, customer or an industry group representative speaking about why the accolade was well-deserved. It could also feature images and footage demonstrating the story or reason behind the accolade. Everyone loves to watch great, feel-good, celebratory videos on social media, in e-newsletters and on websites. – April Margulies, Trust Relations
11. Deconstruct, Explore And Present The Factors That Contributed To Your Success
By exploring and presenting what led to the accolade in writing, via video, through a seminar or in any other format, you are able to demonstrate what makes your brand different. This not only provides an opportunity for you to share key messages but also an attractive and compelling reason for customers to seek out and engage with your brand. – Chris Martin, FlexMR
12. Get Involved In The Group That Provided The Accolade To Extend Its Reach
Once you win an accolade, get involved in the group that gave it to you to extend the reach of that accolade. The basic approach is rooted in amplification to aid your marketing and sales efforts with prospects. To extend the value of the initial accolade, however, you should also strive to participate, innovate and leverage networking opportunities by offering to join advisory boards and inquiring about other opportunities. – Albert Moufarrij, MACH9
13. Provide Context By Featuring The Accolade Alongside Corresponding Content
Feature the accolade anywhere and everywhere: in branding videos, ad campaigns, alongside website content—there are really no limits. What really matters is context. What is the accolade referring to? If it is referencing your service or quality, you want to make sure that you feature this accolade alongside corresponding content. Doing this will make your existing content even more valuable. – Bernard May, National Positions
14. Reserve A Place For Reviews In Your Integrated Marketing Strategy
If you don’t already have an integrated marketing strategy for your business, create one and reserve a place for reviews within it. Create a process for collecting feedback and amplifying it on social media and your website and in client newsletters and internal communications to boost employee engagement internally and drive customers’ and prospects’ attraction to your brand externally. – Mary Ann O’Brien, OBI Creative
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Author: Expert Panel®, Forbes Councils Member
