RECOGNITION
Each category winner will receive:
- A featured write-up in a Special Edition of Ragan.com
- An elegant trophy
- Fifteen percent off registration to as many conferences as you’d like within one year of the winner announcement
PLUS: Grand Prize winners receive all of the above, as well as a complimentary one-year membership to Ragan Training, our premier portal featuring hundreds of high-quality streaming videos that can be browsed by topic area, keywords or speakers.
The digital ecosystem is overcrowded with content that bombards audiences on a minute-to-minute basis. Standing out on these digital channels can be a seemingly impossible task—but not for you.
How did your digital prowess captivate audiences and deliver impressive results for your organization or clients? We want to hear about the campaigns and content that boosted revenue, engaged busy audiences and flat-out knocked these projects out of the park!
PR Daily’s 2020 Digital Marketing & Social Media Awards features more than 50 categories, covering every aspect of digital communications and social media, across all digital channels.
This is the industry’s top program for honoring the digital gurus behind this successful work. Don’t miss the categories dedicated specifically to recognizing the individual professionals, teams and firms that delivered impressive results, including Digital Communicator of the Year, Digital Team of the Year and Social Media Campaign of the Year.
This is your opportunity to earn the recognition you deserve for your digital dominance. Enter the Digital Marketing & Social Media Awards to showcase your impressive work!
Pro Tip: Enter a campaign or project into multiple categories, and you’ll pay the original entry fee, and then only $199 for each additional category.
HOW TO ENTER
On the entry form, be sure to include a thorough synopsis explaining the purpose and scope of your project. We ask that the synopsis does not exceed 1,250 words and include the following sub-headings (when applicable):
- Goals
- Strategy and tactics
- Execution
- Evaluation: success, results or ROI
Be sure to follow the guidelines laid out in the category descriptions, as the judges will look for those elements when they select the winners.
You will be able to upload up to five additional documents to your submission. We encourage you to include press releases, design concepts, videos, analytics, testimonials and anything else you feel will give us a better sense of your project.
Supporting documents that can’t be uploaded to the system should be mailed to:
*NEW ADDRESS*
Brendan Gannon
Ragan Communications
10 S. LaSalle St., Suite 310
Chicago, IL 60603
ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS
These awards are open to in-house, agency and independent communication practitioners in the private, corporate, nonprofit and government sectors. Enter your work, the work of your organization or submit entries on behalf of your client.
Companies from around the world are welcome to enter as long as the entry is submitted in English.
Contact Brendan Gannon to find the perfect category for your campaign or project. You can reach him at 312-960-4407 or brendang@ragan.com
This year’s program is open to any work executed between Dec. 1, 2018, and Jan. 24, 2020, inclusive.
ENTRY FEES
The fee for this program is $425 per entry.
Entry fee for Grand Prize categories is $475.
A late fee of $199 per entry will added to all entries after 11:59 p.m. Central time, Jan. 24, 2020.
Do you have a campaign or project you'd like to enter into multiple categories? Pay the original entry fee, and then only $199 for each additional category!
CATEGORIES
CAMPAIGNS AND CATEGORIES
Annual Report
It’s difficult to deliver essential information while simultaneously conveying what makes your organization amazing—but you captured the essence of your organization in your annual report. What story did your report tell? We want to hear it.
Augmented/Virtual Reality
You brought new meaning to the “try it before you buy it” mantra. Let us know why an immersive experience was the best way to engage your audience, and share your success.
Blog
Tell us why your blog is a destination for your target audience. Why does your content provide the most relevant information? How do you keep readers coming back for more? Do you use visuals to entice your audience? Do you provide practical facts and tips? Include statistical analysis or metrics and links to at least three blog posts you’ve created for your organization or client.
Brand Awareness
Explain how you used to social media platforms or digital PR to create a community of loyal customers. How did you turn followers into advocates for your brand? Tell us your goals, strategy and results. We want to see your flawless creative execution and the data to back it up.
Cause Marketing/CSR
Tell us about a cause that was underrepresented in the media. How did you use digital communication to advocate for an important social issue? How did you get your employees enthusiastically on-board? Did it help you raise money, awareness or inspire others to get involved?
Community Engagement
You tapped into your company, client or agencies roots to discover local tastemakers, influencers and leaders. How did you engage a community of people and help them develop an affinity for your organization? Tell us how you engaged a network of people using social and digital media. Please include posts, examples of interactions and statistics from your measurement.
Content Marketing
How did you develop a content strategy that expressed your organization’s expertise? Tell us how you transferred this new stream of interesting stories to social media. Include examples and metrics.
Contest or Game
You created an online contest or game to promote your brand. What prize, what service did you offer the winner? Was this for an internal or external audience? Show us how you promoted this across platforms to maximize your reach. Include metrics which highlight the number of participants or contestants. How did that increase brand loyalty or awareness?
Crisis Management
Communicating effectively during a crisis is essential. How did you use social media or other digital platforms to share an honest and transparent message? Why was this effective and what were the results?
Data-Driven PR Campaign
We want to see PR campaigns that are supported by data. Does your organization conduct its own research? How did you spin those numbers into a newsworthy story? Maybe your organization is qualified to chime in about a newly released research report from another organization. Tell us how you turned numbers into news and raised awareness about your organization.
Email Marketing Campaign
How did you re-imagine your email marketing strategy to get dramatic results? Did you promote a product, event or brand? What made it successful? We want to see a powerful, memorable, well-designed email that got the job done far beyond your expectations. Show us how you triumphed with the most common form of digital communication.
Email Newsletter
Inboxes are infiltrated daily by messaging from numerous outside sources. How did you keep your newsletter from being dragged immediately into the digital dumpster? We want to hear about it. Share metrics and other pertinent information.
Employee Communications
Tell us how your digital efforts increased workplace collaboration and encouraged new business ideas. Did your internal site redesign increase cooperation? We want to know how you engaged employees through digital channels and achieved business results.
Event Promotion
Share your secrets for promoting an event that everyone wants to attend. How did you build buzz and brand awareness using social media, video or contests to excite attendees? We want to know your event hashtag, attendee numbers and post-event results.
How did you make use of the world’s largest social network for your client or organization? Tell us your strategy for using Facebook to share your message and create an engaged community. How does your Facebook page enhance your PR and marketing strategy? Entries for this category do not need to focus on a specific campaign.
Facebook Stories
Your quick image or series of images captivated audiences and delivered results. We want to hear about it. How did you use these visuals to tell stories in the social media juggernaut’s Stories section? What were the results? We want all the details!
Healthcare Marketing Campaign
How did you illustrate the talent and tirelessness of the healthcare marketing pros in your organization? Did you publish stories about miracle patients? Did you raise awareness about community health issues? Tell us how you used digital media to engage prospective patients and brand your healthcare organization’s practice in a field or discipline of medicine as one of the most trusted in your city, state, or region.
Influencer Campaign
How did you work with digital influencers to increase brand awareness within your target audience? Tell us your strategy for finding the right tastemakers to represent your brand. What content did you collaborate on and what were the results?
Your organization’s Instagram account speaks volumes about your brand’s aesthetic and who its customers are. How did you make yours stand out? Did you use Instagram to display and sell products or to share an inside look at day-to-day operations? What was your special Instagram strategy and what kind of results have you seen? We want to know how you used this popular visual platform to connect with your consumers.
Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories are an opportunity for your brand to show personality and share longer form content. How did you use Instagram Stories to enhance your social media presence this year? Did you create custom GIFs, use special templates or post videos to IGTV? Share your strategy and results.
Interactive Content
You cut through the noise and kept audiences engaged with your interactive content. This created a more personalized experience and provided value to your audience—and your organization or client. What content did you use? What were the overall goals? Share with us how your tailored experience delivered incredible results.
Intranet
All too often, organizations’ internal hubs become digital wastelands where information goes to die. This wasn’t the case for yours. Tell us how you made your intranet an essential, engaging destination for employees.
We want to hear how you used the premier professional networking site to deliver impressive campaigns, projects and initiatives. Was your marketing campaign incredibly successful on the platform? Was this the perfect channel for delivering your organization’s content? Did your efforts help attract and retain the industry’s top talent? We want to hear all about it.
Location-Based Campaign
You targeted a specific area—and people took notice. Tell us how you found the perfect location(s) for your campaign and delivered results with pinpoint (or maybe pin drop) accuracy. Be sure to share metrics and results.
Marketing Campaign
We’re seeking marketing campaigns with strong digital elements. How did you make your brand or product’s presence known in the over-saturated online world? Send us the results of your killer online marketing campaign. The goals of your campaign should be clearly stated, and measures of success must be included.
Media Relations Campaign
Tell us how you collaborated with journalists and storytellers to get your brand’s message out there. Did you work with influencers, subject matter experts or academics to reach a larger audience? Did you earn media placement in a newspaper or magazine? How did you make an extra push to establish relationships with journalists? Start with the goals of your campaign and how you achieved them.
Microsite or Custom Website
We’re looking for the cleanest, most valuable websites out there. Was your website created with a single purpose or does it serve as a hub that represents your entire organization? How does it beat your competition’s web sites in design, organization, user experience and value? What features did you add to give it a unique, premium look and feel? Tell us the results you produced.
Mobile App
You met your audience where they are—on their phones. How did you make your mobile app a brand experience? Tell us how you used mobile technology to provide or promote a service to your audience. Did you use your mobile app to engage and inform them? Tell us about your mobile content, design and features. Show us why your mobile app has users reaching for their phones—on their way to work, at work and after work.
Most Engaged Brand
Multichannel Campaign
We want to see campaigns that performed well across several platforms. Why was your project best suited for a more than one channel? Tell us your plan and which mediums made the most sense for your work. How did you alter your message for different platforms? How did it reach a broader audience?
New Site
You launched a website that provided all the information your audience could want. This was also packaged in a well-designed format that garnered attention. What made your site the authority for interested parties and kept them coming back for more?
Online Community
Were you instrumental in creating a digital destination where like-minded people could connect? How did you foster an online community that users loved?
Online Newsroom/Brand Journalism
Did you develop an online newsroom with up-to-the-minute updates and fresh takes on industry news? Tell us what makes yours the go-to digital newsroom for people in your industry.
Personalized Marketing Campaign
Digging into the data lets you identify what audiences really want to see. Generic content won’t captivate busy audiences, so you went with a more personal touch. Tell us how.
Podcast
You inspired an audience to listen up. Your podcast tells your brand’s story and publicizes your organization. What does your podcast intend to teach or share? Tell us about your expectations and how they matched up with your listener count. How do you engage and incentivize your listeners on multiple platforms? Share your strategy for generating a continuous conversation.
Product or Service Launch
Share your strategy for launching your product or service digitally. What platforms did you employ? What was your marketing plan? What were your goals and expectations and how did they match up with the results? Imaginative, daring, risk-taking concepts count the most here.
Public Affairs Campaign
Your work built and maintained your organization’s or client’s reputation and influenced public policy. Tell us how you used digital channels to achieve success.
Public Relations Campaign
How did you use digital PR to inform audiences about your product or service? What were your campaign goals? Did it solve a problem or launch a new product? Tell us about your intended audience, your creative vision, strategy, execution and results.
Recruitment
How did you use digital PR and social media to give your internal culture a makeover? Tell us how digital and social media increased bolstered recruitment efforts. Did your video or social media shine a light on what makes your culture unique? Tell us how digital marketing and social media made jobs in your organization so attractive.
Snapchat
You went on Snapchat to engage with your audiences in real-time. Did your strategy include product demos, influencer takeovers, day-in-the-life employee profiles? How did your strategy help to increase brand awareness and followers on other accounts? Include screenshots of Snaps, saved videos and metrics.
Social Listening and Real-Time Response
In order to understand your audience, you have to listen to it. Tell us about your social listening strategy and how you’ve been able to use that information to engage in real-time conversations with your audience. Is social listening a part of your online customer care strategy? Did it help you during a crisis? What tools do you use? Share examples and feedback that prove this strategy is working.
Social Media Campaign
You wanted to engage a specific audience, so you found them where they spend most of their time – on social media. Who did you target and what platforms do they use? Was this a multi-channel campaign? Did you use video, text or photos to entice your desired audience? Tell us your plan, show us your content and give us data to back up your success.
Specialty Campaign
Did you launch a campaign aimed at a consumer group last year? How did your custom-made message strike a chord in that audience? Who did you reach? French bulldog owners in the Pacific Northwest? Yoga instructors? People named Karen? Tell us how you reached your ideal consumers, and how you tailored a message just for them.
TikTok
This relative newcomer to the social media ecosystem is generating a lot of buzz, and you tapped into its potential. We want to hear how you use this visual platform to engage your audiences.
Do you use Twitter to build a following for your client or organization, handle a crisis or deliver news? How do your tweets fit into your PR and marketing strategy? How do you use Twitter to interact with customers in real time? Entries for this category need not focus on a campaign. We want to see your most interactive, inviting Twitter accounts.
Video
How did you use video to enhance your PR? Tell us your vision for video as well as your execution. Did you share it on Instagram, on YouTube, in emails or at a live event? Were you seeking increased brand awareness or did you want to inspire action? Give us the details on how it increased engagement on your site or social platforms.
Visual Design
Why was visual design the right medium for the story you wanted to tell? Tell us about your goals and how your design met them. We want to see your best infographics, slide decks, photos, data visualization, web, mobile and social media content design. What were the results?
Viral Campaign
How did your inspired concept go viral and get noticed by the entire company, Web or world? Tell us how your digital campaign caught fire. If you really did go viral, either internally, nationally or globally, our readers will want to know every detail of your viral secret.
Voice Search Campaign
You optimized your product or service for voice search, and it got people … talking. What made voice search so crucial to your success? What tactics did you employ? What was the overall strategy? We want to know how you tapped into the power of voice search and achieved success.
Website Redesign/Relaunch
Your revamped digital hub caught the attention of audiences. What made people take notice of your newly redesigned site? Be sure to share before-and-after images.
YouTube
Tell us how you used YouTube to connect with your audience. Did you post product marketing or demonstration videos? Did you create a video series that your audience came back for week after week? Tell us about the personalities that starred on your channel, and your overall strategy. Our program judge will evaluate your YouTube channel as a whole.
GRAND PRIZE
Digital Communicator of the Year
You masterminded strategic campaigns across digital channels that achieved outstanding success for your organization or client(s). What tactics did you employ? On which channels did you excel? What made you the best communicator in the digital realm? We want to hear about it.
Digital Firm of the Year
Your firm’s services delivered incredibly successful campaigns for your client(s). How did you navigate the digital stratosphere? What tactics and strategies did you employ that earned engagement across digital channels? Why was yours the best digital firm?
Digital Marketing Campaign of the Year
Your campaign demonstrated communications expertise, creativity and a distinct point-of-view.
You created a digital campaign that delighted your audience and startled your competition. Tell us about it. Outline your goals, strategy, execution, and results. The Campaign of the Year Award will honor the communicator, department or agency whose campaign caused a stir. Your concept must be groundbreaking. your implementation inventive, unexpected and even daring.
Digital Team of the Year
Your team’s collaborative efforts returned impressive results for your organization or client(s). How did you get everyone on the same page to create a killer digital campaign? What obstacles did you have to overcome? What made your team the industry’s best group of digital communicators?
Social Media Campaign of the Year
We want to know how you brought all the pieces together into your best social media campaign. The grand prize winner will go to an exceptional campaign that was stunningly executed on two or more platforms. Our judges will look for creativity, innovation, sound communication and, of course, data and metrics.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why should you apply?
Our award programs help you measure the success of your work and prove the value of your contributions to your organization. You can set yourself apart in the industry as an expert, which will open doors throughout your career. As a winner, you’ll earn publicity for your brand across our websites and social media audiences, discounted training at Ragan conferences, a custom write-up about your campaign and a trophy.Who can enter?
Entries may be submitted by organizations worldwide. The only requirement is that entries be submitted in English. The program is open to in-house, agency, independent communication practitioners and vendors in the private, corporate, nonprofit and government sectors.What does it take to be a winner?
We look for top-quality work that shows clear, bold and creative ideas that benefit your business or client. Please provide metrics or media coverage that back up your claims, and share creative collateral such as videos, visual design or websites that were a part of your project. Please look at our past award winners to see what gets recognized and rewarded. We encourage you to submit the same campaign to multiple categories, if you feel they are relevant. Doing so increases your chances of winning.What are the entry requirements?
The entry form requires that you submit a synopsis explaining the purpose and scope of your project. The synopsis—no more than 1,250 words, please—should include the following sub-headings (when applicable):- Goals
- Strategy and tactics
- Execution
- Evaluation: success, results or ROI
Why are some deadlines extended?
We extend deadlines based on applicant needs and upcoming promotional opportunities.When will I find out results?
We try to announce a list of finalists six to eight weeks after the close of the program. The announcement of the winners comes about three to four weeks after the announcement of the finalists. Each announcement will be made with a headline on our website, in our daily email newsletter and on our social media platforms. Emails notify entrants in advance of these announcements. As deadlines are extended, so are expected announcement dates.Additional Questions
If you have any questions about the program or problems submitting your entry, please call Brendan Gannon at 312-960-4407 or email him at brendang@ragan.com.
Sponsorship Opportunities
If you are interested in sponsoring one of Ragan Communications’ award programs, please contact Hannah Lavelle at hannahl@ragan.com
Ragan Communications is not responsible for international shipping fees related to Winner trophies.
