Last week we won FOUR awards at the RAR Digital Awards and we’re on cloud nine! Alongside the prizes for Online Advertising, Online Analytics and Conversion & Optimisation, we also scooped the Grand Prix award, marking a hugely successful night for SearchStar. But it took repeated attempts to bag the prize(s), so what changed?
We’ve traditionally had a relaxed approach to awards. We’ve never been quite sure whether the effort was quite worth the reward (or whether it’s just about how many tables you buy or your sponsorship deal)...
Last year we upped our game and were rewarded when we became finalists in the Google Premier Partner Awards, and recognised by The Drum and Recommended Agencies Register in various censuses and awards. But, we still didn’t have any trophies to adorn our meeting room with and shout about. We’re a competitive bunch at SearchStar and if there’s a chance of winning something we’re in, so the gauntlet was well and truly laid down for 2017.
We started with some awards local to us, the Bath Life Awards - the awards event is the jewel in the crown of the Bath business social calendar. We were determined to make a splash locally, so we sat down as a team and worked out what it meant to be a successful business in Bath, and what we contributed to the wider business community. We’ve been in Bath for as long as we’ve been around, and when we picked up our first award of 2017 (as Business Service of the Year), we were delighted to have been recognised by our peers locally!
Next up, the RAR Digital Awards. We’ve been members of the Recommended Agencies Register for years. It’s a place for us to publicly collect testimonials from our clients, as well as having them (anonymously) ‘mark’ us against a list of criteria and services - in our opinion, the RAR Digital Awards are as close to unbiased and independent as you can get! It’s nail biting watching the results come in, but we’re confident in what we do and the impact we have with the companies we work with. There’s no lengthy entry form for the RAR Digital Awards, just get as many reviews as your can from your clients for a chance to win. All finalists nominate five clients that can be interviewed by RAR so they can really get a feel for what it’s like to work with us.
Our focus on delighting clients paid off, and we scooped four awards, one for each of our core services (Online Advertising, Online Analytics and Conversion & Optimisation) and the GRAND PRIX prize! To say we’re delighted would be an understatement…
So, what next? We’ve entered the Google Premier Partner Awards, and finalists are announced next month. If we’re successful, we’ll be off to Dublin in September for the EMEA awards…
And finally, a BIG thank you to the SearchStar team and our clients. Without them being the outstanding individuals that they are we couldn’t have done it, and without our clients taking the time to shout about our successes we wouldn’t have won. As a thank you to the team, we’re whisking them away for a night next week to celebrate our win and set out our vision for the next 12 months - expect a report in full shortly after…
