Set for success: Configuring Award Force to support first-time entrants

How many of your awards entrants are first-timers to your program? It’s a question worth considering when organising and structuring your entry process.

Why? If your first-time entrants are confused or disoriented at the start, it can have negative knock-on effects: extra admin work for your team, poor submission quality and lagging participation and submission rates.

The choices you make when designing your entry process can shape a first-time entrant’s experience before they even get to the entry form. (Learn more about entry form design here.)

The moment of first approach can welcome the entrant, provide a warm introduction to your organisation or brand, and set the stage for a pleasant experience.

In this article, we’ll go over five best practices in configuring Award Force to support your first-time entrants and provide an experience that keeps them coming back, season after season.

1. Welcome with a simple login and registration process

Let’s start at the very beginning.Your awards website or login portal should immediately answer some questions for the entrant. What organisation is behind the award? What are the eligibility requirements? What’s required in the entry form?

In Award Force, your program’s home page is the starting point for users to log in or register. Award Force gives you the flexibility to customise this page with branding, featured categories, public galleries and more.

A few tips for your home page in Award Force:

• Make registration easy. You can allow users to securely log in or register using social logins, WordPress, SAML, SSO and other providers.
• Add branding. You can add logos, images and colours to your home page through the theme settings.
• Give a warm welcome. Provide key program details and dates on the page. There are content blocks available for you to configure and personalise to fit your needs.

2. Make entry easier with eligibility screening and category options

First-time entrants will likely have questions about their eligibility. And, about which entry categories are available, if your program offers them.

Consider checking for eligibility so your entrants can quickly find out if they are eligible for the awards program without spending time filling out the entire entry form. Award Force provides options for you to use automatic scoring and screening, manual review, or a combination of both.

If your program offers categories, be sure to provide category descriptions to help first-time entrants select the appropriate category correctly. Award Force also provides the option for entrants to click on their category from the home page, making the entry process more streamlined.

3. Use help and hint text to guide entrants

As your first-time entrants get started on the entry form, they’ll likely have questions. To cut down on support emails and phone calls, provide contextual information directly on the form.

In Award Force, you can use both hint text (located alongside the field/question) or help text (appears as a hover tooltip).

Tips: Use plain language; avoid industry jargon, and anticipate the “what do you mean by…?” question for every field. Also consider including format guidance (file types, word counts, character limits) where relevant.

4. Use error-prevention defaults for stress-free entry

Award Force comes packed with error-prevention defaults that protect first-timers from making time-consuming mistakes.

This includes:

• Auto-save functionality: Award Force continuously auto-saves entries in the background as entrants are working to ensure they can pick up right where they left off, at any time before your entry round closes.
• Easy error identification: Your entrants are quickly advised if their entry contains any errors. Incorrect format for an email address? Over the word limit? Forgot to answer a required question? Award Force will alert the user, highlight the location of the problem and provide entrants an opportunity to rectify before they submit.

5. Communicate early and often

You don’t have to rely on 3rd party communication tools to engage with your entrants in Award Force. We make it easy to stay in touch, directly from the platform. And this is important with first-time entrants, who might need additional support or reminders on program deadlines and details.

In Award Force, there are two options for communications:

• Bulk email with broadcast functionality. If you want to send a group of entrants a specific note or communication, you can do so through broadcast emails. Simply choose your recipients, compile your message and hit send. You can also include collaborators in your selected audience, ensuring everyone involved in an entry stays informed. These emails are good to advise on entry deadlines, notify entrants of shortlisting, request additional information and more.
• Automated program notifications. Save time by leveraging Award Force notifications. You can send automatic notifications for entry confirmations, payment receipts, status updates, and much more. Pair automatic notifications with our powerful tagging functionality to really ramp up the utility and maximise your time savings. For example, tag entrants as “first-timers” and send personalised notifications directly to entrants to provide additional assistance, FAQs, or other helpful information. 

An experience worth coming back for

Setting up your first-time entrants for success doesn’t require much additional effort. The extra considerations can also help your returning participants! 

By providing an easy log-in portal, contextual information that helps answer questions before they arise, and helpful guidance and communications along the journey can set your entrants up for success.

Want to learn more about Award Force? Watch a demo here.