With the Australian Podcast Awards submission date extended to midday Monday 3rd October, Matt Hill, co-founder of the Australian Podcast Awards, has prepared a few helpful tips and tricks to put together your best entry.
Entering creative work for an award can be a daunting and stressful experience in itself, let alone entering into the thriving new industry of audio podcasts. With an increasing number of podcasts popping up and the evident growing competition, one question remains amongst audio creators - how can my podcast win an award?
What defines your show?
Always start with your best work when creating your submission. Choose a piece of work that is the most impactful and telling piece of audio that defines what your show is and gives the judges a sense why you're different from other podcasts or media. You may have created A+ work and received extensive reviews and accolades from your listeners, however, remember judges aren’t your regular audience and listen to hundreds, if not thousands of podcasts during competition rounds.
Judges don’t want to hear the jingle, they want to hear what you are doing and the impact you are making. Starting with an interesting piece of work that defines your show, will make the judges sit up and will help grab their attention straight away, allowing you to stand out amongst the competition.
Create a narrative for the judges
Think about how a stand-up comedian plans their set - they lead with their best joke and end on their second-best joke. This process is strategically designed to immediately capture their audience's attention, and then leave them wanting more.
It’s important to adopt the same process when structuring your entry, your first clip should command attention but your last clip should leave your audience with a real impact. You want the judges to think “I need to listen to the rest of that episode” or “I need hit follow right now and find out what happens next in the series”.
Written entries have layers
The written component of your entry is secondary and is the place to add layers of understanding and context to your piece. It’s important to include how your podcast has had an impact on an area or audience. For example - how it’s changed lives in some way, how it has impacted a community, taught people a new perspective or questioned a way of thinking. Ensure you supplement these claims with both qualitative and quantitative evidence, such as podcast and/or press reviews, reactions from the media or even listeners, emails, a written statement or a change in listener numbers.
Be in the right category to win it
When choosing what categories to enter into, it may seem logical to enter into as many categories that are related to your podcast as possible, however, this could in fact work against you. Don’t just think about all the possible entries you could do to win or what categories you’d like to win, instead think, “if I were to win category A, B or C, would this win really define my show?”.
For example, if you have a documentary podcast with some fictional elements in it, and enter into the “Best Fiction” category and win, you then need to explain to people, we're actually a documentary podcast, not a Fictional podcast show. This isn’t doing your branding any favours, and can cause confusion amongst your audiences.
All good things come in three
The three areas that the judges are scoring your entry on are:
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Quality - The quality of your audio entry and how you structure it is important. You don’t need special intros or jingles, you need your work to be clear and to define your show. Quality also doesn't mean sound quality, it can relate to a well-produced interview, where it's clear that research has been done and treatment has been made.
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Impact - Evidence of change, what has your podcast done for a person, a community, has it changed someone's life? What impact does it have?
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New perspectives - With podcasting’s low barrier to entry, there is more spectrum for people to air their stories, from presenters to guests, it gives everyone a voice. We welcome and actively look for podcasts that bring new ideas, new formats, or new things you wouldn’t hear in regular media.
The last thing to remember is that every entry goes through at least 12 sets of judges. Each judge analyses these three areas, and each of them will have signed off on the winning podcast. Set yourself apart from the talent and be seen to be different.