Why B2B Brands Should Enter Industry Awards (And How to Win)

If you’ve been keeping half an eye on LinkedIn, you may have recently spotted Babel’s ‘humble brag’ post. That’s right, we’ve been shortlisted for B2B PR Agency of the Year and Technology Agency of the Year at the 2026 PR Moment Awards. These are just the most recent in a series of incredible shortlistings and accolades that the team has racked up over the last two decades. Now, while I’m unbelievably proud of our team and the recognition they’ve rightly received, I won’t continue to self-congratulate ad nauseam. Rather, I’d like to talk about why we enter awards in the first place, and more importantly, why B2B tech brands need to start backing their own brave to get noticed on the industry stage. 

Why Many B2B Brands Avoid Entering Industry Awards

Kicking off, let’s just call it out: in B2B, it can often feel like the same agencies, or brand heavyweights, take home the same trophies every year. I’ve had my fair share of eye-roll moments, looking at various award shortlists and winner announcements, and with budgets tighter than ever, it can be tempting to batten down the hatches and save the entry fee for something that feels more worthwhile. But here’s the reality - opting out is just another way of playing it safe. And if you’ve been paying attention to Babel in recent months, you’ll know that we’re all about brave choices - implementing smarter, bolder decisions for growth. Because safe = invisible. 

Why B2B Industry Awards Still Matter

I may be preaching to the choir here, but we need to remember that the old marketing tactics are still valuable. Investing in industry awards isn't just an exercise in vanity; it’s a critical commercial tool that maintains your brand perception, drives familiarity, and ultimately puts you in the right place when your buyer eventually comes to market. Babel’s 2025 B2B Tech Barometer revealed that almost 15% of tech buyers rely on industry awards to help them shortlist brands. So if we’re looking to expand our reach, crack into new markets, even establish our industry dominance, awards are a brilliant, cross-industry conduit to validation. 

How to Write an Award-Winning Entry

We’re sold on the importance of awards, so now what?  How do you actually cut through the noise, step away from the herd of industry mimics and create an award-winning, shortlist-worthy entry?

1. Ditch the corporate jargon: You don’t need to prove your place in the tech landscape or justify your position in the market. Judges won’t be impressed with corporate jargon and are remarkably unbothered by “synergies” or “best-in-class” examples. We talk a lot at Babel about H2H (Human-to-Human) marketing, and award entries are no different. Judges are human beings, and after reading dozens of entries, you can bet that they’re bored to tears by corporate speak. Humanise your approach, write as you talk, climb that emotional ladder and tell the human story behind your complex tech brand.

2. Activity doesn’t equal impact: While we’ve come to obsess over shopping lists of deliverables and sudden spikes in MQLs, most judges are wise to the fact that they mean very little in terms of actual business outcomes. Winning entries don't just show that you worked really hard (that’s a given). What they do show is an undeniable commercial impact that ladders directly to broader business goals.

3. Back your brave and be real: Take some time to roadtest your ideas - does it feel like the right angle because it’s safe and familiar? Once you’ve fixed on a plan, tell your story, warts and all. Many winning entries actually discuss the route you almost took, the safe, predictable path, the errors made along the way, before ultimately framing the brave choice you made, the risk you took to be different and the data that proves it paid off. 

4. Make the customer the hero, not your product: You may feel wildly enthusiastic about your product or service, and rightly so, but remember that your entry isn’t a brochure to shout about how fast your platform is. Instead, shifting your narrative to explain why speed and efficiency matter to your end user, transforms your entry to a human-centric, emotionally driven story that separates your brand from those furiously peddling their wares. 

5. Your entry is essentially a high-level board pitch: Your judges are likely senior leaders themselves. They’re reviewing dozens of submissions, in addition to their actual day jobs, and making them dig through dense, wordy copy is a great way to lose their attention. Be ruthlessly concise. 

• Use bullet points where you can
• Use bold text to guide their eye to your strongest data 
• Hit them straight-up with why you’re different 

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Putting your work up for public scrutiny is daunting, I get it, and the time to create unusual, unique entries, not to mention the cost, can be off-putting. But as we celebrate our own shortlist recognition this month, my message is simple: do the hard thing, back your brave. After all, you have to be in it to win it, right? 

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