by Bright Ewuru | Dec 5, 2022 | Articles
You should certainly get that rest! However, the off-season is also a great time to continue to engage your awards community. This period is a great time to actually grow your awards program, and you can do so through good engagement practices.
Below are pointers on how to engage your awards community during the off-season.
Sharing your awards program news and content is a trusted way to ensure brand recall and awareness during the off-season. It’s likely you have oodles of good content that you can post for your awards community to enjoy when the tides are low.
Begin with artwork or other submissions from your entrants. Similarly, you can post pictures and video reels of the winners and runners-up to fetch them recognition on social media. You can provide a link to an online gallery of finalists or winners; this way, your community can have unfettered access to the breathtaking visual galleries in your program during the low season.
You can also feature your program’s judges by posting their photos with their bio or profile. Take it a step further by posting video-recorded Q&A sessions with them about their takes on the various submissions and their favourite entries. It’s a clever way to stay front-of-mind of the awards community while simultaneously giving your judges some visibility and creating inspiration for next season
Another great content idea is to post about your program sponsors and express gratitude for their support. This gesture is highly beneficial as it also gives your sponsors a positive spotlight, boosts the chances of their continued support and subtly markets their products and services.
A good communication plan for awards community engagement could involve a recap of the year’s activities, awards and highlights. Newsletters can prove handy for this purpose. When the dust settles, you can maintain contact with your online community by sending newsletters with a rundown of the year’s awards program, its winners and what’s next for them.
You could include highlights of the awards, participants’ feedback, the inspiration behind impressive submissions and the winners’ latest accomplishments. This community engagement strategy keeps your community apprised of your award program and its entrants’ journey .
Asking for program feedback is an efficient way to engage your online awards community in the off-season and help you prepare in advance for next season’s program
Reconnect with the entrants, program managers and judges to ask what they think. Invite them to share their thoughts on what went well and what can be improved. This can be done through a survey or simple form.
Your community engagement strategy action plan should also include information about next season’s program. While there might not be much going on at the moment, engage your awards community by giving them a glimpse of what lies ahead. You can take to social media, email or blog posts on your brand’s website to talk about what’s next. Include any upcoming dates or program developments.
It’s also a great opportunity to highlight any new sponsors or high-profile judges. Offering a look ahead keeps your community informed and excited about the coming season.
As simple as they are, holiday or end-of-year emails are highly effective when it comes to engaging your awards community. Emails that express compliments of the season have a way of securing your awards program a place in their hearts during festive periods. They demonstrate thoughtfulness on your part and indicate that your organisation stays active even without a program actively running.
Besides the pleasantries, these emails can equally communicate your awards program’s growth stats, milestones, achievements and industry gist. Who doesn’t love a good story?
However, with such emails, be careful to not appear spammy to your awards community. Instead of flooding their inbox with your messages pace the emails just enough to keep their interest going.
The off-season is an ideal time to engage your community. And when the next season begins, you’ll be glad to find them already excited about it. And consider using an SPF record checkers as well as taking other email security measures.
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