Position. Persuade. Protect.
CUSTARD’s Guide to creating a winning award strategy
There is no shortage of awards to enter. The hard part is deciding which ones are worth your attention.
This guide looks at how to choose awards that support what you want to be known for, what judges are actually looking for in an entry, and how to turn a shortlisting or a win into something that can support your positioning for the rest of the year.
An award carries weight because it’s not your own opinion. Any hotel can describe its service as exceptional. An award says a panel with no stake in your business looked at the evidence and agreed with those claims. That independence is what makes it useful, but it only counts if the award means something to the people you are trying to reach. A win nobody in your market recognises is a lot of work for a badge of honour.
Our guide is built for hoteliers, marketing teams and operators planning their awards activity for the year ahead. It covers how to judge whether an award is worth entering, what evidence to have ready before you start, how to write entries that hold up when judges are reading dozens in one sitting, and how to make noise properly once a shortlisting or a win lands.
Inside the guide, you’ll learn:
- Why awards are a positioning tool, not just a marketing one
- The questions to ask before you commit to a single entry
- What previous winners and the judging panel tell you about an award
- How to work to the criteria and back up every claim with evidence
- Using customer feedback, imagery and case studies to stand out
- How to market a shortlisting or a win, starting with your own team
