In days long gone, your instinct may have been to reach out to your local newspaper or radio station. Today, it’s your keyboard. Through search, email, social – everyone you know (and don’t) can be reached through digital channels. It’s not just the nominees and finalists who can benefit. As a sponsor of the event, it provides a great opportunity to further maximise your investment and effectively capitalise on the high levels of engagement around the event. This will help to increase your social media following, exposure and brand profiling within the industry.

To help you leverage your award nomination or your involvement this year, we’re going to outline four quick wins to help you reach key audiences with a message of your achievement and support for the event.

Social media

Social media is not only a great place to stay in touch with friends and family. It’s also the most effective platform on which to share stories and successes; to network; and to market. Start by sharing a post about your nomination or involvement on your primary social media accounts.

With a hint of modesty, make sure all your connections - personal and professional - know that you’ve been nominated and that your nomination is a reflection of your skills and expertise in the legal field.

Remember to speak in your audience’s language. If you’re letting family and friends know on Facebook and Instagram, stick to a conversational tone. When announcing it to professional networks or broader audiences on LinkedIn and Twitter, maintain the vernacular you would employ in a business setting.

To increase your reach and encourage others to share, make sure you mention and tag others as part of your social media posts.

VIEW ALL

Email marketing

Never underestimate your email list. More than any other marketing audience, your email list is full of qualified, relevant contacts. To make the most of these connections, share your message in a promotional email or newsletter. Make your nomination or involvement the focus of your email to reinforce your unique business proposition and exemplary service.

A successful marketing email featuring your nomination will not only remind current and lapsed clients of your professional pedigree, but open the door for future referrals and business.

Internal communications

Whether you work in a small to medium-sized firm or a top-tier global conglomerate, award nominations are great for morale. From your company newsletter to the local intranet, spreading word of your nomination reflects well not only on your own efforts within the firm, but on the staff and business as a whole.

Corporate website

Your corporate website is the face of your firm. Always a port of call for any prospective client or business partner, an award nomination being featured on your homepage is a powerful marketing message.

But to really engage your website visitors, an accompanying blog post is essential. Posting a feature article with genuine insight into your career coupled with personal commentary not only gives the award context, but adds a sense of humanity – a quality that is becoming increasingly more important in the professional services industry today.

Nicole Shelley B.Com, CPA, CIMA is the operations manager at Pepper IT, a full service digital and social media agency with a particular expertise advising clients in the professional services sector. Nicole has a diverse and broad corporate background having held finance, strategic planning, operational management and practice management roles for leading professional services firms, including top-tier global law firm Herbert Smith Freehills.