How to make a successful Entry to the AEMT Awards
If you don’t enter; you can’t expect to win. In other words – what have you got to lose by entering for an AEMT award? The awards have been designed to celebrate and promote the best of the electrical and mechanical trades sector. Starting to make your entry now will give you plenty of time to make a well formed and considered entry.
Choose a category to nominate yourself, a partner company, or individual, and make yourself aware of the questions. Don’t rush your answers, and spend time over the application form.
Save your entry for later..
There’s nothing worse than clicking the submit button and then realising you neglected to include a crucial piece of winning material. Don’t worry - it’s not over! We’ve specifically designed the www.aemtawards.com entry forms, so that this can never happen. Once your entry has been submitted you will receive an email confirming the receipt of your nomination. At the bottom of the email will be a link to edit your form. You can tweak and change your form until you are convinced you are giving yourself the best opportunity to win – but remember, your final submission has to reach us by 5pm on Thursday, 5th of September.
Below we outline ten pieces of advice to help you make your award entry a winning one.
Preparation is key. Read the criteria carefully and allow yourself plenty of time to develop a well-thought-out entry. Don’t get caught out by the deadline.
Enter more than one category. Increase your chances of winning and enter for as many applicable awards as you can: But ensure that you tailor your entry to each category – as each award has unique criteria.
Make sure clients give you the thumbs up. Collaborate with your customer on the testimonial or endorsement. Customers also receive promotion through the ceremony and PR, so the benefit is twofold.
Answer the questions properly and write persuasively. Set out clear and concise benefits of your entry, use bullet points and don’t just write a ‘stream of consciousness’.
Banish all Salesy and PR jargon. By writing in clear, plain English, the judges will love your entry even more, avoid jargon and explain uncommon abbreviations.
Use attachments wisely. You may attach documents to support your entry but they should be limited to useful information that will help the judges to understand the impact of your work. However the essential elements of the entry must be kept within the word count of the entry – we won’t be able to accept entries on an attached PDF, unless it is a supporting endorsement or testimonial. Supporting documents should be compressed into a zipped folder to make uploading of multiple items possible.
Judges are looking for strong evidence to back up your claims. Collect good data and show it off! Even if the project is new, an estimate or a projection of the benefits is important. If an installed project has given “25 per cent more efficiency” for instance, tell the judges what the increase relates to – for example, compare it to it's predecessor, to rivals, to the relevant standard etc.
Read through the criteria and double check that you are meeting all the requirements.
Ask someone else, such as a colleague, to look through your entry before you submit. It can be helpful to ask someone who was not directly involved in the work you are entering – because, like the judges, they will not have intimate knowledge of the entry, so they may be able to suggest ways to clarify the details. You can share the form you are working on easily – just click on the ‘save for later’ link at the bottom of the form.
Stop before you submit! And double-check that you have fulfilled all the applicable fields and elements of the form and provided all the evidence that the judges need. If you get stuck then call Thomas Marks at the AEMT on +44 (0)1904 674 895, or email awards@aemt.co.uk.
Closing date for entries
The closing date for all entries is 5.00pm on Thrusday 5th September. So for those wanting industry-wide recognition for a job well done, be it for a product, service, application know-how, or commitment to industry and training, they should make a note of this important date.
It is completely free of charge to enter the awards, but the promotional value associated with being selected as a finalist is worth many hundreds of pounds. And for those individuals and companies who become one of the seven winners, the promotional benefit is even greater.
Further details
The gala awards dinner will be staged on Thursday 29th November at the Doubletree by Hilton in Coventry. For more information, please visit the website www.aemtawards.com or call the event producers, Touchwave Media on +44 (0)7785 290 034.
