From entries to excellence: How to improve submission quality this year

If you’re an awards program manager, you’ve probably felt this pain: you open entries, and the quality is uneven. Some submissions are compelling, well-structured and clearly aligned to the criteria. Others are vague, rushed or miss the point entirely. 

The result? Judges spend more time deciphering entries than evaluating them, and deserving entrants may lose out simply because they didn’t know how to write an awards submission effectively.

The good news is that submission quality isn’t just down to the entrant. As a program manager, you have more influence over it than you might think.

First, look at your entry form

With more than half a million entries submitted through Award Force last year alone, we can say with confidence: the single most effective lever you have over submission quality is your entry form. 

A well-designed form guides entrants naturally towards stronger, more relevant responses. A poorly structured one leaves them guessing.

Start by making your judging criteria visible within the form itself. When entrants can see exactly what will be evaluated and how, they’re far more likely to address it directly. 

In Award Force, you can use hint text and help text, instructional content blocks and bulleted criteria breakdowns to give entrants the contextual guidance they need at every stage. This also creates consistency across submissions, making your judges’ lives considerably easier.

Word and character limits are another underused tool. They level the playing field, discourage padding and force entrants to prioritise their strongest points. Similarly, capping the number of supporting attachments also encourages entrants to be selective and submit only their best supporting evidence.

Be specific about what “good” looks like

One of the most common reasons for weak award submissions is that entrants simply don’t know what’s expected. Vague prompts produce vague answers.

Where possible, share examples of strong past submissions or provide a clear award submission template that sets out the structure you’re looking for. 

Be explicit: if you want data, say so. If you want a narrative, say so. The clearer your expectations, the fewer entries will fall short of them.

This is particularly important for results-focused criteria. Judges consistently report that quantified achievement, such as revenue growth, efficiency gains, measurable impact, carry more weight than claims unsupported by evidence. 

Prompting entrants to include specific metrics in your form instructions can make a meaningful difference to the calibre of submissions.

Align your criteria with your judging process

Submission quality improves when entries are judged in line with the evaluation framework. If there’s a disconnect between what the form asks and how judges score, even a strong entry can feel like it’s missed the mark.

Building fair, structured judging criteria gives both entrants and judges a shared language. Break down the criteria into clearly defined subsets with explicit scoring descriptors. This way, entrants can write to the criteria with confidence; judges can assess with consistency. 

Award Force’s VIP judging mode lets you configure criteria, weighting and comment fields to match your program’s specific needs, keeping the entire evaluation process in one place and reducing ambiguity.

Lean on your awards platform to catch issues

Even with the best form design and clear guidance, some submissions will still need attention before they reach your judges. Eligibility screening, moderation workflows and auto-scoring tools can help you filter out incomplete or non-compliant entries early, so your judging panel focuses only on entries that meet your program’s standards.

Award Force’s Review Flow feature allows you to set up staged approval workflows, giving entrants, managers or administrators the opportunity to review and improve a submission before it’s locked in. It’s a practical way to raise the floor on submission quality without adding manual overhead.

The platform’s AI field can also surface useful signals at scale: summarising entries, flagging where criteria responses are thin or identifying patterns across submissions that might point to a gap in your form instructions.

Close the loop with feedback

Programs that share structured feedback with entrants, whether they win or not, tend to attract higher-quality submissions the following year. Entrants who understand how they were assessed and where they fell short come back better prepared.

Organising your entries by category and judging round makes it easier to generate consistent, targeted feedback at scale. Combined with your scoring rubric, it also gives you a defensible, transparent record of how decisions were made, which matters for program credibility.

Make small steps for a big leap in quality

Improving award submission quality isn’t a single fix; it’s a combination of clear expectations, thoughtful form design, aligned judging criteria and consistent feedback. Each element reinforces the others.

Start with your entry form. Review your criteria. Look at where judges are spending the most time. That’s where the opportunity lies.

Award Force is built to support every stage of this process, from first draft to final decision. If you’d like to see how it can work for your program, watch a demo today.