B2B software awards are a mark of credibility that increases the trust of customers because they show your product’s winnability. And how we love winners. Likewise, winning a B2B award increases your team’s morale and spruces up their competitive spirit to come up with more best-in-class features. That’s why you should make securing an award for your B2B software a part of your digital marketing mix to get more leads and sales. But how do you get awards for B2B software?
Awards given by the B2B industry organizations
In the SaaS industry, awards are usually granted by industry organizations that have been covering the B2B landscape for many years. A few examples are the Content Marketing Awards by the Content Marketing Institute, Shorty Awards, the Internet Advertising Competition Awards, and the B2B Awards. B2B companies, if they’re lucky, can also take home a trophy in the more popular B2C award event such as the Cannes Lions International Festival.
Although the more popular awards focus on B2B marketing campaigns, there are also other types of industry-wide awards. For example, EGR B2B Awards caters to e-gaming solutions, while the MITX What’s Next Awards focuses on innovative technologies in B2B. On the other hand, PYMNTS Innovator Awards caters to the best payments systems.
Awards given by B2B review sites
Winning a major B2B award takes time and a dash of luck. In the meantime, if you haven’t yet got a trophy to brag about, there’s another source of trust-building awards for your SaaS product: B2B review sites.
These are third-party web platforms that assess business solutions across different categories, from accounting and customer relationship management to learning management and project management. B2B review sites offer buyers who conduct product research a single location to discover software products that they need. To achieve this, these sites constantly research for and review SaaS products as they are released on the market or get upgraded.
Because of their wide-reaching exposure to numerous SaaS solutions, B2B review sites have a front-seat insight, not only on the best-in-class products, but the best features in each of these products. These sites grant their own B2B awards to help buyers–their readers–easily shortlist the top software during the initial product research.
The good news is, aside from rating products for overall winnability, B2B review sites digs deeper into your product’s features and key aspects to grant special awards or certificates. For example, on a B2B review platform FinancesOnline,, even if your software can’t compete for the overall top-in-class award, it can merit a special award or quality certificate for an aspect where it excels, for instance, customer support or mobile support. Take a look at some of the B2B awards that your product can win:
A few awards that can highlight your quality and win you more leads.
Meriting a special award on a B2B review site also reinforces your presence on that site, where the award seal is displayed beside your logo. Why should this be a big deal? In the Google/Millward Brown study about the changing B2B buying behavior, buyers are reported to perform the following even before visiting a product website:
- Conduct generic searches
- Compare products
- Read user reviews
- Note product ratings
- Watch videos
All the above activities are happening on B2B review sites, which have become a de facto leader during the buyer’s initial product research. That means when buyers see your software on any of the top B2B review directories, if you have an award seal featured next to your logo, it projects winnability to buyers even before they visit your website. In short, that award can give your software a tactical advantage during the critical stage when buyers are comparing products and helps you distinguish yourself from your competitors.
How to get a B2B software award
Getting a B2B award is not as difficult as it would seem. You just need to follow a few calculated steps to position your software in its best footing.
1. Identify your software’s strengths
List the top qualities of your software in order of performance. For example, if your application has a better integration ability than it has flexibility in pricing, integration should come on top of pricing. Do the same with ease-of-use, free trial offer, and other aspects that impact user satisfaction. This is a self-assessment, so be honest and stay objective to avoid wasting your effort and resources (most awards require processing fees and interviews).
Look at the list, does your software have all the best qualities for a major award? Does your company have the infrastructure to back the software for delivery and support? If yes, then, you’re probably qualified to join the major industry awards that we’ve mentioned above.
2. Target the award that highlights your best qualities
Many SaaS solutions focus on specific features as their value proposition. For example, Live2Support has a superb live chat app, while Freshdesk offers a great ticketing feature. Which are your software’s best three assets?
Look for special awards that highlight these qualities or have meaningful metrics for your software. Step 2 depends on how you came up with the list in step 1, so to reiterate, stay objective and be clear about your product’s main strengths.
Many B2B review sites have special awards that may match your software’s key features. To give you an idea on what you can strive for here are some B2B awards and quality certificates from FinancesOnline.
3. Submit your software for a review
Whether it’s a review of your marketing campaign or the product features, a B2B award usually requires you to submit an entry into the review platform’s liting, which sometimes includes a processing fee and usually involves accommodating a few interview requests from the site’s review team.
When submitting an entry make sure you highlight your product’s value proposition and key strengths, if permissible, or mention them during an interview. This helps to draw judges’ attention to your software’s strengths and uniqueness.
On FinancesOnline, for instance, you can request a review to get awards for your B2B software and their review team will even do an assessment of which would be the most fitting awards based on your software’s key strengths. If your product excels in all criteria, it can even be awarded the best product in your category or even for the whole SaaS industry. Their media team can also provide you with free publicity by sharing a press release about your awards in well-known news sites like Google News or Yahoo! Finance.
CONCLUSION
B2B awards are morale-boosting and give your team some bragging rights, but more importantly, they generate more leads and sales. They are third-party seals of approval that you can showcase across your digital channels to project credibility and trust in your buyers’ eyes.