Published by Leenesha Friend
Published Date 21.06.2023 
SocialNorth exists to celebrate the digital, creative, and marketing scene across the North of England. Its businesses, agencies, people, campaigns and content are all shared at our events and across our community in celebration of the contribution we make to this industry every day.
An organisation that echoes that pride in celebrating the North is the Northern Digital Awards. A night that celebrates not only the talent and innovation happening across our brand, agency and freelancer communities every day but also bringing those communities together to celebrate in one room. A truly amazing night for all.
Both Justin and Lee have spent many nights with the Northern Digital Awards. As judges, as nominees, and as winners, we’ve seen every side of this event or, at least, we thought we had. However, in 2023/2024, we’re now seeing it as a partner of the event and we couldn’t be prouder to join them this year.
So we thought we’d use our new powered positions to good use. We want to share our top tips for entering this year’s awards. We’ll be judging and looking out for these things so consider these your little inside scoop on winning big this year 😉
First up, LOOK at the categories.
It may sound obvious but with so much choice from an agency, person, and campaign perspective, you have lots of opportunity to both win big but also miss the mark. You’re going to want to put yourself in the best position to win and that only comes from looking at the clear criteria set by the awards committee. With this understood, you are free to select the right category for your business, for your work and for your team.
Secondly, impact matters.
No getting around this one. Impact, results, effectiveness and change WILL factor heavily in the judge’s perceptions on the entry. That impact can be on your bottom line, on conversation or on culture; all are credible impacts but make sure you share that information clearly. Doesn’t matter if it’s in a graph or bullets or fancy graphics. Just make sure it’s there.
Finally, celebrate your work.
Everyone gets asked the same questions and everyone is judged fairly on how they answer those questions but show us how much you LOVED working on this campaign or how EXCITED the team is to win your award. We don’t reward praise alone (see previous points) but we do reward demonstration of energy and love for the work and industry. The event is a celebration so it makes sense that we want to see that in the nomination and judging process too.
And that’s it. Sounds simple but being targeted, effective, and energetic is not as easy as it initially seems. Take care, get those entries in, and we cannot wait to judge them (and celebrate the beautiful north together on the night).
