Five Common Mistakes That Can Weigh Down Your PRSA Paper Anvil Entries
By Lyn Wineman
The PRSA Nebraska Paper Anvil Awards celebrate the best of Nebraska’s public relations and communications industries. As such, the competition is fierce, and a few small mistakes can drop a campaign from being the top of the category to being out of the awards.
Last year was my first opportunity as Paper Anvil’s Chair to see the behind-the-scenes of the judging and I witnessed several great campaigns that did not get full marks because of the following small mistakes.
- Missing Research Details
Judges are looking for some explanation of what research you used to build your strategy. This doesn’t mean every campaign needs to have expensive primary research. You can reference secondary research, online research, access to proprietary information, informal interviews, or any other type of research you may have used. If you don’t mention any research – you won’t get full points for this area.
- Failing to Craft S.M.A.R.T. Goals and Objectives
The best objectives are outlined as S.M.A.R.T. goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-Sensitive). The more specific the better, particularly the measurable aspect. For example, if you set a nonspecific goal of “generating leads,” the judges won’t have any idea how many leads you needed to generate for the campaign to be a success. If you set a more specific goal of “generating 200 leads,” the judges will have a clear understanding of whether or not the goal has been achieved.
- Leaving Out Matching Results
Once you have identified clear goals, it should be easy to outline your results. Make it clear to the judges that you have met or achieved all of your goals. Using the example above, if your goal was to generate 200 leads and your campaign resulted in 300 leads, you should clearly state that your work led to 100 leads over goal, or 150% of goal.
- Forgetting Budget Explanations
The judges scoring guidelines ask, “How was your budget used effectively?” Many entrants forget to include this information. Provide the judges with one or two sentences on whether you were within budget and how the results provided a return on the investment. Feel free to let the judges know if you were under very tight budget constraints as well.
- Skipping Over Supplementary Documentation
Depending on your category, your summary will be limited to one or two pages. If you have additional information on your research, objectives, results or budget, include supplementary documents with your entry. You are required to have one supplementary document, and allowed up to five that will be reviewed by the judges. You can also include additional optional documentation that will be reviewed at the judge’s discretion.
When the entry guideline are published for 2022, there will be a complete list of judging instructions that you can use to craft your entries and ensure you get the highest tally of points possible for your hard work.
Another way to get insight into the process is to volunteer to be a Paper Anvil judge for another chapter. This year, PRSA Nebraska will be judging for the Southern PR Federation. If you volunteer to judge, it not only helps our chapter, but it will give you full insight to what it’s like for the judges when they see and score your paper anvil entries. We’ll start recruiting judges in April and May and judging will occur in June.
