Award deadlines coming up (scroll down below text for a list of awards organised by industry) 

Welcome to my latest award deadline update. With the arrival of February comes a whole host of award schemes opening their doors for entry – and it’s the perfect time to plan which awards to enter in 2020.

As ever, contact our team here at Boost if you need help with your entries or guidance on which awards to enter. But please bear in mind that we work on a first-come-first-served basis – and our capacity is filling up fast, so don’t leave it until the last minute. Okay let’s get started…

Business awards

For a well-run, credible and well-established general business award to enter, you need look no further than The BQF UK Excellence Awards. Run by the British Quality Foundation, they feature some fantastic categories, for example: Excellence in Customer Experience Award, Excellence in Innovation Award, Excellence in Environmental Responsibility Award, and the most prestigious accolade, The UK Excellence Award – awarded to Large Private/Public Sector, SME/Small Public Sector and Third Sector/Not for Profit organisations. The submission deadline is 7th February.  

Insurance awards

For a more comprehensive overview, please read our guide, Which are the best Insurance awards to enter?
The insurance industry loves its awards. In such a highly competitive marketplace, the need to differentiate on something other than price is essential. Some research by Fly Research a fair few years back identified that a good award could swing the buying decision between two similarly priced offerings for over 70% of insurance buyers. So which insurance awards are coming up?

Firstly… the big one…The British Insurance Awards: Run by Insurance Post Magazine, with the gig at the Royal Albert Hall, these are arguably the main awards. (The Insurance Times Awards might argue with this, but these are first up, so let’s focus on them.) This year the deadline is 2nd March, with 27 categories to choose from for brokers, customer-facing initiatives, operational innovations, partnerships, individuals and teams. Loads to choose from if you work in the insurance industry. There are three new categories for 2020 – Industry Impact Award; Broker Partner of the Year; and Best Insurance Employer Award. 

While sorting your entry for the BIAs, you could consider one or two of the THREE claims awards. No other industry has multiple awards for just one part of their service!

The Claims Awards: These UK awards by Insurance Post Magazine (the same people who run the BIAs) have a much earlier deadline of 14th February, with 19 categories for customer care, initiatives, teams and individuals. The Insurance Times Claims Excellence Awards are a similar scheme with a later deadline of 10th March. Categories here are for claims solutions, teams and individuals. The British Claims Awards are competing UK awards organised by the niche Claims Magazine, with a deadline of 3rd April. They have a much more diverse collection of categories including Outsourced Partner of the Year, Training Award and important ones like “Personal Lines Broker of the Year”, among others.

Comms and IT awards

Two directly competing awards are coming up – The Comms Dealer Sales and Marketing Awards are UK awards aimed squarely at the business telecommunications marketplace. The deadline is 2nd March, and they feature categories for distributors, vendors, service providers, resellers and special awards for things like events, fundraising, campaigns and support teams. The CRN Sales & Marketing Awards are also UK entry, but with a slightly later deadline of 27th March. They are broader in that they are aimed at the wider tech marketplace – all the way up and down the supply chain with similar sounding categories for distributors, vendor, resellers and best channel marketing/PR Agency. 

HR awards and training awards

I wanted to share a quick summary here, but for more information please check out our more detailed guides – ‘Which are the best HR awards to enter?‘ or ‘Which training awards should I enter?‘

The HR Excellence Awards (HR Magazine): These UK awards have a deadline of 13th March. One of the most popular schemes with our clients, they feature all the usual HR categories that you might expect, but also some more quirky ones like: Best CSR strategy and the Best Transformation Strategy Award. 

The Princess Royal Training Awards: These prestigious UK awards recognise good, solid, well-evaluated training – both in terms of the company-wide strategy, and one particular headline case study. It is a robust process with a huge entry form, three supporting documents and a lengthy site visit; BUT the reward at the end is royal recognition. The scheme attracts big brands, is extremely credible, and – being a multi-winner scheme – winnable, too. Very worthwhile if you put in the investment of time. While they have a deadline of 29th March, you will find two months will fly by! 

Marketing awards and PR awards

The Marketing Society Brave Awards is the new branding for the Marketing Society Excellence Awards. The deadline for 2020 is 14th February. In their own words, the 15 categories recognise: “The teams behind campaigns that demonstrated not only marketing excellence but also bravery in their approach to a considerable challenge, pushed boundaries or made an impact either in business or society in general.”

The CIPR Excellence Awards are arguably the most prestigious of the PR awards. They’re technically open to international entry – but in reality, they’re very UK-focused. There’s a deadline of 27th February with lots of categories to choose from, mostly for campaigns – but many for agencies and teams too.

If you are seeking more global recognition, do consider The Muse Creative Awards, which aim to recognise all those pushing the creative boundaries. They feature a huge number of categories, covering everything from advertising to events, social media to content marketing. The deadline is set for 26th March, so definitely a credible and winnable way of getting international recognition. Also worth noting that they run a sister programme in the form of The Muse Design Awards (deadline also 26th March) which follow a similar format.  

CSR awards

A special mention for the awards that we consider the most ethically-run in the industry – The Global Good Awards.They are a sustainability awards programme, open to all organisations small and large, but they are so much more than this – also aiming to practice what they preach by running their awards as sustainably and ethically as possible.There are two new categories for 2020 – Young Campaigner of the Year and Carbon Footprint Reduction of the Year. The deadline for entering is 6th March.    

Grocery awards

Last but not least, it’s a busy time for some of the most prominent awards in the world of food, drink and groceries. The Food and Drink Federation FDF Awards are open until 28th February and recognise all those involved in the food and drink supply chain, while the prestigious Grocer Gold Awards have a slightly later deadline 2nd March but also feature categories for products, retailers, people and supply chain.   

Hopefully these highlights have provided some insights to help you plan which awards to enter. Below you will find all the awards with deadlines occurring within the next two months, organised by industry sector. Remember, do please contact Boost if you need a helping hand entering any of these – our in-house team of experienced award writers have won over 1,300 awards and can increase your chances of a win significantly.

You can also sign up for our email deadline reminder service, so that the next two months of deadlines arrive in your inbox – completely free of charge. Handy, I think you will agree!  

Finally, I would like to wish you all the best of luck with your awards strategy/entering awards – and hope 2020 will be an award-winning year for you. 

Chris.