Managing an Awards Program

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Welcome

Hosted by Zack Schwartz

Director of Customer Onboarding at OpenWater

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Agenda

• Common frustrations for admins of awards programs

• How other awards programs are addressing these issues

• Walk through of an OpenWater onboarding

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THE MACGYVER

METHOD

MacGyver

Someone who can jump-start a truck with a cactus. –Urban

Dictionary

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MacGyver

To use ingenuity to fix or remedy a problem using the tools

available at hand. –Urban Dictionary

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Masters of MacGyver

• Binders

• Snail Mail

• Excel

• Email

• Dropbox

• Event Registration Systems

• Jury Rigged Custom Solutions

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The Effects

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“I built a house of cards. And it collapsed.”

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The Effects

• You are frustrated

• Entrants are frustrated

• Judges are frustrated

• Entrants give up and do not submit

• Lost opportunities

• Lost revenue

• Too many man hours keeping everything organized

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How much is this costing you?

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MARKETING YOUR

AWARDS PROGRAM

Marketing Goals

• Increase submissions

• Increase brand recognition

• Getting data on your members

• Who are they, actually?

• Recruit new members

• Increase your prestige

• People are proud of their awards programs.

• Also increase submissions

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The Marketing Dream

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The Marketing Dream

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The Marketing Dream

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The Marketing Dream

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The Marketing Reality

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The Effects

• Not reaching target markets

• Not using best practices

• Lost opportunities

• Lost revenue

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How much is this costing you?

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WHAT OTHERS HAVE

DONE

ABANDON MACGYER.

CONSOLIDATE

Consolidate

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The entire workflow should all happen in one online system

Forms Should be Easy For Applicants

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Entrants go through multi-

page forms, save and

return later. Upload large

files.

Pay for all entries at once

Should be Painless for Judges

Judges login, score entries,

and be done with it

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It Should Be Easy For You

Understand what is happening with your submissions

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It Should Be Easy For You

Understand what is happening with your judges

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It Should Be Easy For You

Understand what is happening with your revenue

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It Should Be Easy For You

Email your entrants who have started, but not completed

their entries

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It Should Be Easy For You

Manage the entries that come in

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It Should Be Easy For You

See who the highest performers are in real time

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MARKETING BEST

PRACTICES

Clean Awards Websites

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All Information in One Place

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Social Sharing

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Galleries

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Galleries

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Free Guides

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Free Case Studies

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Free Toolkits

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OPENWATER

ONBOARDING

OpenWater Onboarding

• Starts off with an onboarding call

• Learn the ins and outs of your program

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Training and Implementation

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• Basecamp project

management tool

• Step by step process

• Review calls with your

implementation specialist to

verify best practices

• Nothing gets left behind,

nothing forgotten

COMMITMENT TO

CHANGE

Commitment to Change

• Nobody likes change

• Some people love MacGyver Method

• You have to be committed to making a change

• “I need to mull this over.” = no change

• Every program is different

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Schedule a Demo

Talk to an OpenWater rep to see if this software is a right fit

for you at getopenwater.com

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