SMA 2021 - Distributor Criteria

Everything distributors need to know on crafting a winning entry for the 2021 Sales and Marketing Awards

Below are the criteria for all the Distributor categories:

Best Sales and Marketing support team

Criteria

Who can enter? This award is open to any company that falls under the distribution category, whether a volume player or value-added specialist working in particular vertical markets. The award is not limited to a certain size of company, so if you have thousands of customers or a few hundred, your entry will be given the same treatment. The period covered by the awards runs from Jan 2020 to Jan 2021, so please bear in mind when writing entries.

• Please provide a brief background to the team you are entering including their levels of experience and any specialist skill sets. What is the team called? Why are you entering this particular team?
• Describe the characters in your team and how this helps with their success. Introduce them to the judges - make it personal. Also any little quirks of the team would be interesting to hear about.
• Outline the success of the team in terms of partner results. Please use partner/vendor feedback to illustrate this
• Highlight examples where your team has effectively worked with reseller or vendor partners to develop a successful marketing campaign resulting in strong channel sales
• Highlight an example where your team has worked with a partner sales team to win a key piece of business
• REQUIREMENT: Include a testimonial - either vendor or reseller (or both) within the entry itself

Written entries must be no more than 1,000 words, and try to think about the judges when composing them. Use plenty of spacing, bullet points and paragraphs to construct your entry to make them easier on the eye. PDF and other multimedia entries are encouraged, and you can add personality to your entry too to make it stand out. If you are submitting a video, please keep it to FIVE minutes or less. Videos longer than five minutes are likely not to be watched in full.

Best Marketing Campaign (not event) - Distributor

Criteria

Who can enter? This award is open to any company that falls under the distribution category, whether a volume player or value-added specialist working in particular vertical markets. The award is not limited to a certain size of company, so if you have thousands of customers or a few hundred, your entry will be given the same treatment. The period covered by the awards runs from Jan 2020 to Jan 2021, so please bear in mind when writing entries and referring to particular campaigns. It can cover a social media/viral campaign or a more ‘traditionally' executed campaign.

• What was the campaign and when did it run? How did it work? Please describe the campaign itself, what mediums you used to run it on (ie social media/online/print etc) and its title.
• Did the Covid pandemic change how you approached your marketing campaigns this year? Please explain further.
• Why are you entering this particular campaign? What makes it stand out?
• Which partner was it in conjunction with?
• Who was it aimed at? ie SMBs, Enterprises, Public sector (or other specific sectors)
• How successful was the campaign - use facts and figures to back up claims. How many customers benefitted from the campaign?
• Was there anything quirky or unusual about the campaign that really got it noticed? i.e. did it use cutting edge technology, or go viral?
• REQUIREMENT: Please provide a customer (reseller) testimonial within the entry

Written entries must be no more than 1,000 words, and try to think about the judges when composing them. Use plenty of spacing, bullet points and paragraphs to construct your entry to make them easier on the eye. PDF and other multimedia entries are encouraged, and you can add personality to your entry too to make it stand out. If you are submitting a video, please keep it to FIVE minutes or less. Videos longer than five minutes are likely not to be watched in full.

Best Company to Work For - Distributor

Criteria

Who can enter? This award is open to any company that falls under the distribution category, whether a volume player or value-added specialist working in particular vertical markets. The company must pride itself on being a great place to work both in terms of results/growth, staff/employee satisfaction/motivation, CSR and general company culture. This award is not limited to a certain size of company, so if you have thousands of customers or a few hundred, your entry will be given the same treatment. The period covered by the awards runs from Jan 2020 to Jan 2021, so please bear in mind when talking about particular incentives offered to staff. Images can also be used if required.

• Why is your company such a great place to work?
• What do you think makes it stand out from your peers?
• How did you keep staff morale up during lockdowns and all the restrictions?
• How has your workplace changed as a result of Covid? Ie - are more people set up for homeworking than before? Will this continue?
• How does company culture help generate results?
• Has your company used internal social media campaigns to generate a fun working environment? How has this enhanced the staff morale? Give examples.
• How does your company empower staff to do their jobs better? Give examples.
• How are you addressing the gender pay gap/skills gap in the industry? Any particular campaigns you are running in your company?
• Can you give examples of CSR activities? ie Charity events etc
• How do you motivate staff and engender loyalty? This can include outlines of bonus/commission schemes, extra leave, holidays, prizes etc
• REQUIREMENT: Please provide testimonials from your staff within the entry

Written entries must be no more than 1,000 words, and try to think about the judges when composing them. Use plenty of spacing, bullet points and paragraphs to construct your entry to make them easier on the eye. PDF and other multimedia entries are encouraged, and you can add personality to your entry too to make it stand out. If you are submitting a video, please keep it to FIVE minutes or less. Videos longer than five minutes are likely not to be watched in full.

Best Graduate and/or Apprenticeship Scheme - Distributor

Criteria

Who can enter? This award is open to any company that falls under the distribution category, whether a volume player or value added specialist working in particular vertical markets. The award is not limited to a certain size of company, so if you have thousands of customers or a few hundred, your entry will be given the same treatment. The Graduate or Apprenticeship scheme must have been running from, or further developed since January 2019.

• The skills gap is a top challenge many channel firms are facing. Describe how your company is looking to plug that gap with a dedicated Graduate and/or Apprenticeship scheme.
• Tell us about your particular programme and why you launched it/how long it has been running. Where do you get your Graduates/Apprentices from - how do they apply and how do you select them?
• How many Graduates/Apprentices have you trained so far and are you planning on increasing this?
• How did the pandemic affect your scheme and how did you overcome the challenges to keep new graduates motivated?
• Are you doing anything in particular to encourage more female graduates into your schemes?
• How long is the process and what do they do once it is finished?
• What have been the biggest challenges in running your scheme?
• Describe any particular success stories - ie, someone who has gone on to become a senior manager within your own company or has been headhunted somewhere and has done really well for themselves.
• REQUIREMENT: A testimonial from a graduate/apprentice within the entry - either a current one, or one that has flourished after completing their training with your company.

Written entries must be no more than 1,000 words, and try to think about the judges when composing them. Use plenty of spacing, bullet points and paragraphs to construct your entry to make them easier on the eye. PDF and other multimedia entries are encouraged, and you can add personality to your entry too to make it stand out. If you are submitting a video, please keep it to FIVE minutes or less. Videos longer than five minutes are likely not to be watched in full.

Best Online/Hybrid Event- Distributor

Criteria

Who can enter? This award is open to any company that falls under the distribution category, whether a volume player or value added specialist working in particular vertical markets. The award is not limited to a certain size of company, so if you have thousands of customers or a few hundred, your entry will be given the same treatment. . Due to Covid restrictions this category covers both physical events that were forced to become online events, or brand-new online events launched over the past year or events that took place in Jan/Feb before the pandemic. The period the award covers is between Jan 2020 and Jan 2021- so please detail an event that you created for your customers/partners that successfully ran during that period only to qualify for entry. Images can be used.

• What was the event (please describe) and when/where did it run? explain if appropriate how you had to adapt the event from a physical one to an online/hybrid event as a result of restrictions, and why you are entering it for this award. How did you get customers to sign up/attend? (please explain)
• Why are you entering this particular event? What made it stand out for you? Why are you so proud of it?
• Which partners (vendors) was it in conjunction with?
• Who was it aimed at? Ie - was it a specific sector, or open to all your customers?
• How successful was the event? How many came along? What results did you achieve? Use facts and figures to back up claims.
• Was there anything quirky or unusual about the event that really got it noticed?
• REQUIREMENT: Please provide customer testimonials within the entry itself

Written entries must be no more than 1,000 words, and try to think about the judges when composing them. Use plenty of spacing, bullet points and paragraphs to construct your entry to make them easier on the eye. PDF and other multimedia entries are encouraged, and you can add personality to your entry too to make it stand out. If you are submitting a video, please keep it to FIVE minutes or less. Videos longer than five minutes are likely not to be viewed in full.

The ‘Over and Above' Award - Distributor

This is a new award for 2021 aimed at highlighting the amazing work by an individual or a team during the ongoing challenges of the global pandemic.

It is a chance to give those individuals or teams some credit for going ‘over and above' their duties to ensure a customer was served, or a project was completed, or they managed to keep everybody's spirits up by being an exceptional manager or supportive colleague or even a community-minded individual/team.

Anyone can receive this award, from the company as a whole, to an exceptional sales/marketing/support team; a particular manager or staff member within any team, the CEO or even a company cleaner that went the extra mile to keep the office safe during the pandemic. Anyone you feel has definitely gone ‘over and above' their normal duties to make peoples' lives easier during difficult times, and deserves special recognition.

Below are some tips for constructing the entry but please make it as personal as you like.

• Describe the individual or team that you are entering for this award - why do they deserve special recognition?
• What have they done that you feel is ‘over and above' their usual duties? Please explain.
• What kind of a difference has their actions during the pandemic made to either individuals, customers/partners/the company or their local community?
• What would winning this award mean to them/the company?

Entries can be up to 1,000 words on why the particular individual or team deserves recognition- but shorter entries will not be penalised - if individuals want to nominate their colleagues, we will accept between 250-500 words as long as the above points are covered to some extent. Please do make sure these are personal entries as it is an emotive category. The timeframe this covers is Jan 2020 - Jan 2021.

The deadline for entry is Friday 9 April. To enter, click here.