SBC Awards: The key to an effective submission

The SBC Awards, which is now in its seventh year, has officially opened its nominations section allowing individuals to reward and celebrate the very best in sports betting and gaming.

In our latest webinar, ‘SBC Awards – How to write an Awards submission’ a panel of esteemed experts discussed the do’s and don’ts when it comes to writing the perfect nomination.

Robin Hutchison, Director at Square in the Air, stated: “In terms of what you put into the Awards, the more you do the more you get out of it. The days of ripping a page out of the brochure and saying ‘look there’s our awards submission’ have gone. 

“For me you just have to prove what you are saying and there are different ways of doing that. But it’s not good enough just to say we have done well this year, it’s really important to prove to people that you have done well.

“You’ve really got to put your heart and soul into it because if you don’t there are plenty of other people who will.”

This year the SBC Awards, which is scheduled to take place in December, will feature 43 categories spanning across operators achievements to the payment sector. During the webinar, Dan Towse, Marathonbet’s head of brand, discussed that in order to be considered for an award, it is imperative that nominations are done in a collaborative effort and not just given to one person to submit. 

He explained: “Don’t just go to your copywriter and go “Can you write us an awards submission?” It needs to have everybody’s input going into it.

“You’ve got to tell a story and that story has got to have a start, middle and an end to it and therefore everybody needs to be a part of that. I’ve been in businesses before and there have been a couple of occasions where they go ‘oh let’s go do an awards submission’. They give it to the copywriter and they have had nothing to do with the campaign. All of a sudden they are dumped with a load of metrics on their table and asked to create a compelling argument as to why they should win that particular award.” 

From a judge’s perspective, SEM Global’s director Phillip Canavan issued an insight in how the awards submission will be analysed. He highlighted that the process could be similar to reading a CV and so there are some key points that must be abided by to grab the judges attention.

“There is an element of likening a submission to a CV,” Canavan commented. “For me as a judge when I’ve done it over the last few years it needs to be simplistic.”

“You need to try and keep it simple and have a succinct answer. The reality is that the judges are not going to be able to chore through reams and reams of pages for a single submission. It needs to focus on the genuine impact that has been made of the course of that year. Ideally through some sort of numerical evidence or third-party endorsement from a client.

“That’s really the key for me, it’s to illustrate that you have made a positive impact to a client of somebody you work with in the industry so you can evidence to others why they should be using you.”

The webinar, which can be viewed in its entirety on Youtube, also discussed the starting points of writing a submission, the different techniques that could be used to catch a judges eye, and also managing expectations for the submission.

On the question of common mistakes that are made during submission entries, Towse emphasised that two things that should be avoided are talking about your competition and also grammatical mistakes as these mistakes severely impact a submission.

“Don’t call out your competitors, the submission is about you,” he said. “It’s not about what they have done or what they have tried to achieve. Don’t compare yourselves to them, it’s about you. Tell me your story, tell me why you have been a success.

“The biggest one is typos. You wouldn’t submit a CV for a role and you cover it in typos. Typos come across as a lackadaisical approach, it hasn’t really been checked and you have submitted it because you have been told to submit it. Make sure your grammar and typos are as tight as possible.”

SBC Awards submissions are open until the 25th September with the event scheduled to take place physically in December. To submit your application, or to find out more about the event, click here.