Managing an Awards Program

getopenwater.com

Welcome

Hosted by Zack Schwartz

Director of Customer Onboarding at OpenWater

getopenwater.com

Agenda

• Common frustrations for admins of awards programs

• How other awards programs are addressing these issues

• Walk through of an OpenWater onboarding

getopenwater.com

THE MACGYVER

METHOD

MacGyver

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

Dictionary

getopenwater.com

MacGyver

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

available at hand. –Urban Dictionary

getopenwater.com

Masters of MacGyver

• Binders

• Snail Mail

• Excel

• Email

• Dropbox

• Event Registration Systems

• Jury Rigged Custom Solutions

getopenwater.com

The Effects

getopenwater.com

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

getopenwater.com

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

getopenwater.com

How much is this costing you?

getopenwater.com

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

getopenwater.com

The Marketing Dream

getopenwater.com

The Marketing Reality

getopenwater.com

The Effects

• Not reaching target markets

• Not using best practices

• Lost opportunities

• Lost revenue

getopenwater.com

How much is this costing you?

getopenwater.com

WHAT OTHERS HAVE

DONE

ABANDON MACGYER.

CONSOLIDATE

Consolidate

getopenwater.com

The entire workflow should all happen in one online system

Forms Should be Easy For Applicants

getopenwater.com

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

getopenwater.com

It Should Be Easy For You

Understand what is happening with your submissions

getopenwater.com


Understand what is happening with your judges

getopenwater.com


Understand what is happening with your revenue

getopenwater.com


Email your entrants who have started, but not completed

their entries

getopenwater.com


Manage the entries that come in

getopenwater.com


See who the highest performers are in real time

getopenwater.com

MARKETING BEST

PRACTICES

Clean Awards Websites

getopenwater.com

All Information in One Place

getopenwater.com

Social Sharing

getopenwater.com

Galleries

getopenwater.com

Free Guides

getopenwater.com/resources

getopenwater.com

Free Case Studies


getopenwater.com

Free Toolkits


getopenwater.com

OPENWATER

ONBOARDING

OpenWater Onboarding

• Starts off with an onboarding call

• Learn the ins and outs of your program

getopenwater.com

Training and Implementation

getopenwater.com

• 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

getopenwater.com

Schedule a Demo

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

for you at getopenwater.com

getopenwater.com

Managing an Awards Program

Technology

Transcript of Managing an Awards Program