By Heather Ripley
Winning a business award as a result of all your hard work is certainly exciting in its own right.
But you can also take this opportunity to strategically promote your awards to help build up your franchise’s reputation and credibility.
With an improved reputation and more visibility, your company is more likely to widen its sales funnels, satisfy its customers and strengthen its talent pool.
Attract Customers for Franchisees
Simply put, awards give your franchisees an edge over their competitors. Consumers want to do business with award-winning companies.
Winning awards within your industry shows that your team is made up of innovators who are ahead of the crowd, and it validates marketing campaigns that feature your company’s technology and solutions. After all, you can claim you are the best in your market, but an award presented by a third party proves that you are.
When potential clients see that you, and by extension, your franchise owners, have been celebrated by an industry publication or have been voted by current customers as having the best products or services, they are more likely to trust that your solutions work.
Build Your Talent Pool
Awards are also essential to your recruiting efforts.
As Baby Boomers continue to retire and Generation X starts its retirement journey, many companies are finding it difficult to attract and retain enough talent to fill open positions.
But when the nation’s brightest see that your company is respected enough to win industry or individual awards, they become more interested in working with you. Recruits who value career development want to learn from the best in the industry and will go where they know they can get this training.
Awards also boost morale for your current employees. It’s a badge of honor to work for a company that wins the praise of its peers.
Increase Your Visibility
Awards also put your team in the spotlight. An effective public relations campaign should include efforts to get the word out about your wins. There are a variety of ways to promote your awards, including:
- Issuing a press release. A press release allows you to not only announce the award but also explain the importance of winning it. Your PR or marketing team should research the trade publications and news outlets that would get your message in front of your target audience.
- Including your awards in your marketing collateral. By posting an image of the award or logo of the group that issued the award on your website, you have a constant reminder of your achievement visible when potential clients visit your site. Including your wins in your company’s boilerplate and on flyers, direct mail and other printed marketing collateral keeps your award top of mind.
- Announcing your awards on social media. Since many consumers get their news from social media in today’s world, announcing your wins and their significance on your social media platforms is a great way to alert others. Social media is an effective means to get your message out to consumers and potential employees more directly.
- Make a video. Consider producing a video for use on your website and on social media that explains the significance of the award and what your team did to earn it. Social media surveys show that 66% of social media users say that a short-form video is the most engaging content. Adding videos to your marketing strategy increases visibility.
Attract Franchisees
As a franchisor, promoting your wins helps you attract potential franchise owners. An award signals to entrepreneurs that your company is credible and has a sound business strategy that is beneficial to their own business ownership plans.
The right awards can also show that you foster your company’s culture and support your employees’ growth. For entrepreneurs who are considering your company as a franchise investment, your award-winning culture or team might be the difference in why they choose your company over your competitors.
One company that has used its awards as an effective means to drive its recruiting efforts, increase its sales funnels and attract franchisees is Tint World®, a leading auto accessory and window tinting franchise. They take advantage of awards by making sure would-be franchisees know of the company’s penchant for growth and domination in the auto accessory market.
The company earned spots on Entrepreneur Magazine’s Top Global Franchise list in 2021 and 2022 and has made Entrepreneur’s highly competitive Franchise 500 for eight consecutive years. This has propelled the company’s visibility in several franchising publications.
Pursuing accolades can be time-consuming, but the benefits of winning them don’t stop with the presentation of the award. With a good PR strategy, your company can increase its bottom line, attract the best talent, attract more sales and position itself as the best in your industry.
Heather Ripley is founder and CEO of Ripley PR, an elite, global public relations agency specializing in franchising, the skilled trades and B2B tech. Ripley PR is recognized as the top PR agency for the home service industry. It also has been listed by Entrepreneur Magazine as a Top Franchise PR Agency six consecutive years and was named to Forbes’ America’s Best PR Agencies for 2021. Ripley is the author of “NEXT LEVEL NOW: PR Secrets to Drive Explosive Growth for your Home Service Business,” which is now available on all audiobook platforms. For additional information, visit www.ripleypr.com.