HOW TO WIN AN ECHO TIPS

The ECHO competition recognizes "the whole package": marketing strategy and tactics, creative execution and results. To win an ECHO, you must prove you have a brilliant strategy, revolutionary creative and astounding results. And it is important to submit a good entry write‐up. Write your entry like a short story, but keep it simple, clear, and concise. Know the difference between objectives, strategies and tactics. The judges who read the entries know the difference and expect intelligently‐written entries. With your entry form, everything counts.

Here are a few pointers to increase your chance to win an ECHO.

Get started on the entry process early
The ECHO entry deadline is April 25, 2012. Read the rules and entry application; note the requirements, the number of samples you will need to gather, and in what format they must be submitted. Remember, you must get client approval for each entry submitted.

Understand the categories and select carefully
There are 12 separate categories representing business segments. Unlike other awards, which are judged by media category, the ECHOs are judged by business category. Read the business category glossary carefully and select the proper business category for your entries. An auto dealer traffic-building campaign belongs in the Automotive category, not the Retailing category. A website for a pain clinic belongs in the Pharmaceutical/Healthcare category, not Consumer Services.

Completeness counts
Be sure to fill out the form completely. If the information requested is not relevant to the entry, or if it's confidential and the client will not approve its release, say so. But complete the form.

Spelling counts
Misspellings, grammatical errors and typos are other ways of showing carelessness — and spelling counts. Also, the DMA maintains archives of winning entries, so poorly‐written entries make you look bad for years to come.

Math counts
Incorrect or improperly stated figures can undermine your opportunity to show your entry at its best. For example, a few years back we read an entry where the section on results included something like this: "The new package got a 2.4% response, compared to a 1.2% response for the control. This entry should be a winner because it pulled 1.2% better than the control." Huh? An improvement of 1.2%? The new package doubled response. It improved response by 100% over the control. This kind of performance can get your entry into award consideration . . . as long as it is presented properly. So look for ways to express your results most dramatically. And share as much result information as you can in hard, numerical form. Percent response, cost per lead, conversion rates, cost per sale and ROI. Judges are impressed by hard results. And results count for 33% of your entry's score.

Content counts
As that example about results illustrates, what you say and how you say it can be extremely important, especially when you summarize the reasons why your entry is deserving of an ECHO award. When you get to this point, focus on why your entry is so significant.

Context counts
To dramatize the importance of your entry, you often have to put your accomplishments in some kind of context. With the ECHOs, you have the opportunity to explain how the entry was measured. In the marketplace challenge and marketing strategy sections, set up the context in which your program was devised and evaluated. This helps the judges know the challenges you faced.

Context counts, too, when it comes to results. If your client won't let you reveal results in terms of actual response rates or sales, express results in relative terms — like percentage improvement over control or return on investment ratio. Index results against your target metrics, your past campaigns' successful performance or another standard. But if you do, be sure to explain what that standard is. Index numbers are meaningless if out of context.

Conciseness counts
Be clear and concise — pay attention to word limits within appropriate sections of the entry form. Watch the adjectives. And resist the temptation to add "stuff" to the entry.

When you have a multimedia/integrated campaign, it's not easy to say much about each step of the campaign in the Marketing Tactics section of the ECHO entry form. In such cases, add a Campaign Flow page in with the creative samples to help explain the order of the efforts and to whom they were directed. This will help in explaining complicated campaigns.

Keep hotlinks live until August
The ECHO judges want to review actual, live samples. If you're entering a three-dimensional campaign, send actual samples instead of an electronic photograph. If you're entering electronic media, your website should be live, and continue live — exactly the same as it was when you entered it — until August. Judges want to see the entry in the way that the target audience would be seeing it. You can move it to a server so it is the way it was at the time of the entry. And remember to provide appropriate user IDs and passwords.

Borrow portfolios and visit the ECHO Case Studies Library
For additional insight and to see which campaigns really worked and how the entry form was written, contact the ECHO Department to see the Gold winning portfolios from the last several years of competition. You can also go online to the ECHO Case Studies Library. Go to the ECHO website, www.dma-echo.org and click on the library icon.

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