Winning programs aren’t “lucky”—they follow a deliberate growth formula that blends smart list-building, multi-channel storytelling, and friction-free tech. Use the six steps below (plus two bonus accelerators) to eclipse every past year’s entry count—and do it without burning out your team.

The 6-Step Growth Formula for 5x Nominations

1. Turn Legacy Data into a 10K-Plus “Goldmine” List

Your past entrants and finalists are the warmest prospects you’ll ever have. Across nonprofit and professional award programs, the average list size is just 2,191 contacts; the top performers actively grow theirs to 10,000 + records by merging ten years of historical data with fresh industry leads.

Pro tip: Segment the list by category or category before your first send. Tailored subject lines can lift open rates as much as 26%.

2. Run a Fortnightly “Drip,” Not an Annual Blast

Email still crushes every other channel for cost-per-conversion. Nonprofit benchmarks show a healthy 28.6% open rate and 3.3% click-through, but programs that send one value-packed email every 15 days consistently outperform those that rely on a single call-for-entries announcement.

Automate your email marketing inside Awardocado: choose a template, plug in deadlines, and let the system fire (and re-fire) until the form is completed.

3. Own Social Proof With a Lightweight Content Engine

Combine email and social and you’ll do more than double your reach—mixed campaigns lifted overall engagement +220 % in 60 days in our 2024 client cohort, and marketers worldwide report a 6% YoY gain in email opens when social is used to amplify the same message.

The evergreen schedule that wins:

• 3 static posts per week (category spotlights, deadline reminders)
• 1 vertical video every 15 days (past winner stories work best)
• Continual redistribution of archived photos and highlight reels

4. Fix the Entry Experience (Half of Submissions Are Now Mobile)

Nearly 45–50 % of web forms are completed on a phone. If your entry journey isn’t mobile-first, you could be losing half your potential nominees before they even start. Awardocado’s responsive, no-code forms have raised completed-submission rates 42% on average by eliminating extra fields, autosaving progress, and letting nominees finish on any device—while giving reviewers a single dashboard instead of messy spreadsheets.

5. Sell the Aspiration, Not the Logistics

People apply because of what winning does for them: career credibility, new clients, board-level PR. Weave that narrative into every touchpoint—hero banner, email PS line, LinkedIn caption—and you’ll see a snowball effect as aspirants share the badge across their own networks.

6. Deploy the “Handwritten Letter” Secret Weapon

Digital overload means physical mail now stands out. Personalized direct-mail pieces enjoy up to a 29% higher open rate than generic postcards and an overall 80-90% read rate—triple most email benchmarks.

Mail 200 custom letters to C-suite targets and include a short-URL or QR code to your nomination page. One Awardocado user secured 18 Fortune-500 entrants with exactly that tactic.

Conclusion

Achieving five-times the nominations isn’t about luck or marketing muscle—it’s about executing a repeatable system. Collect and segment ten years of contacts, nurture them with steady value-led outreach, amplify social proof, remove every ounce of friction from the entry flow, and add a few high-impact touches—like handwritten C-suite letters and winner referrals—that rivals overlook.

Awardocado was built to automate those very steps. When your database is organized, your campaigns are on autopilot, and your nomination portal feels effortless on any device, record-breaking numbers follow naturally.

If you’re serious about turning 2025 into your most successful awards cycle yet, let’s talk. A 15-minute demo will show exactly how the playbook translates into real submissions—and real prestige—for your program.