Marketing Award

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Christian Authors Network > Marketing Award

CAN Excellence in Marketing

Christian Authors Network Presents
The fourth annual

CAN Excellence in Marketing Awards!

The awards celebrate excellence in Christian media and marketing by authors.

Purpose of the CAN Excellence in Marketing Awards: To recognize, educate, and encourage superior marketing and promotional skills of Christian authors.

BENEFITS OF ENTERING THE CONTEST: Each participant will receive feedback on their marketing campaign. Winners of the marketing awards will be announced to 400 Christian media, including several TV networks; press releases will be sent to Publishers Weekly and ECPA.

The three first-place winners will win a publicity packet including a book announcement sent to 20,000 Christian readers, 1400 Christian retailers, and 400 book review bloggers. And they will be featured on a CAN blog tour and receive Celebrate Lit’s Social Media Building Giveaway Share Promo. Award trophies and certificates will be presented at at The Well Conference on April 22, 2023.

The top-place winner will receive a publicity package with Jones Literary public relations firm valued at $1495. This package includes a custom-built press kit, list of over 250 Christian media contacts from coast to coast, media training course, two hours of one-on-one consult/coaching, 365-day editorial calendar, copy of Jason Jones book on how to book media and build relationships, email scripts to help write the perfect pitches, and membership in a private Facebook group of publicists, publishing pros, and media!

Read what other authors are saying about the CAN Excellence in Marketing Award HERE.

Download a copy of the Excellence in Marketing Awards Rules PDF

(After opening the Google Doc, click File and Download to get the links in the file to work.)

Who can enter: Traditional and independent authors. Multiple unique submissions within a category are accepted. However, no single submission may be entered across multiple categories. For example, two different books written by one author may enter one category, but the same book cannot be entered into more than one category. Each individual entry is counted as a single submission. You may enter as many times as you like. Each entry must be fully complete with payment per category to be eligible.

Cost per entry: $97 CAN and CIPA member/$117 non-member, paid via PayPal or check.

Contest opens: December 1, 2022 (for marketing performed in 2022)

Last day of entry: February 1, 2023

The CAN Excellence in Marketing Awards will be presented at The Well Conference on April 22, 2023. In March, finalist will be announced via Facebook Live on the CAN Facebook page.

Three Award Categories for both Fiction and Non-fiction

Online Presentation: website, blog, newsletter, memes, social media and interactions.
Physical Media: print materials such as postcards, posters, flyers, etc.
Broadcasting: television, radio, podcast, vlog, video, speaking, book signings/events, etc. Your entry may be a focused segment of a longer show or be the entire show. All must be specific to the author or their book, series, or brand via interview or themed presentation.

Judging Components

35% Engagement (real human interaction)
35% Innovation (creativity)
20% Investment (financial and time)
10% Return on Investment

CAN judges include experts from the fields of business and publication.

Contest Rules

Marketing campaign entries must focus on a book, book series, or brand.
The marketing campaign must have started between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2022. (The campaign does not need to encompass the entire 12 month span, but it should begin with in those dates to be eligible.)
Entrants will submit a description of the marketing campaign to include, but not limited to:

– Goal of campaign with measurable outcomes. We are looking for results.
– Calendar of campaign events.
– Overview description of campaign expectation and results.
– Links to campaign and/or promo videos/website/broadcast that represent well the full scale of marketing/promotion.
– Meme(s) or meme campaign (submit as jpegs and include response numbers if you are cropping a screenshot).
– Bookmark (submit as PDF or JPG/JPEG).

Links to any online submissions must be included and be viewable at that link during competition judging.
We accept multiple submissions, as long as they are not the same campaign.
A separate entry form and fee must be submitted for each unique entry.
Multiple unique submissions within a category are accepted. However, no single submission may be entered in multiple categories. Each individual entry is counted as a single submission. You may enter both a fiction and nonfiction book in the same category. Each entry must be fully complete with payment to be eligible.
Any book/book series with multiple authors is eligible per the appropriate category. However, there is only one award given for groups of two or more.
Depending on the number of entries, categories may be combined at the discretion of the contest director.

What Makes an Eligible Marketing Campaign?

A eligible campaign is a marketing plan built for recognition and/or sales that integrates multi-faceted engaging, shareable, and effective strategies to communicate the book, book series, or brand to readers, retailers, and/or librarians.

The CAN Excellence in Marketing Awards recognize that each book, book series, and/or brand are individual. Submissions should portray the full scale of the marketing campaign. Eligible submissions could include, but are not limited to:

Website: WordPress, Blogger, etc. Statistics independently verified by judges. Websites cannot be a static landing page, though a specialized landing page can be part of the media strategy in the campaign.
Newsletters: Authors must submit a PDF of the newsletter and/or series of newsletters that make up one marketing campaign.
Blogs: Blogs must be accessible through the author’s website. Judging will focus on the overall blog, not an individual blog post.
Social Media: Authors must submit JPGs/JPEGs of memes, screenshots of interaction with their audience, etc., that make up one marketing campaign. Interaction numbers should be visible as of the date of the screenshot. Do not cut them out of the cropped photo.
Physical media: Authors must submit PDFs of print materials: postcards, posters, flyers, etc., that make up one marketing campaign. Please be sure the images submitted are not blurry or pixelated.
Broadcast: Ongoing broadcast or single broadcast can be on any audio or audio/visual platform such as podcast/vlogcast, Facebook Live, Instagram, TV, talk radio, iHeartRadio, YouTube, Vimeo, etc. It can also include audio and/or audio-visual media interviews of which the author must be the featured guest. If a broadcast is within a private group, judges must be able to access it for the purpose of judging. This can also include in-person speaking and book signings/events which leads to book sales.
Other: Book tours, talks, etc., that make up one marketing campaign. Authors must submit PDFs, JPGs/JPEGs, etc., of events or other marketing campaign elements.
Additional options: Apps for smartphones and tablets created for the purpose of the campaign may also be submitted. CAN will need to utilize a generic login/password, if required for the app, so the judges can view without divulging their personal information in order to protect the anonymity and objectivity of the judging process.