Awards are everywhere these days. Winning them can further your career, generate positive PR for your company, promote staff morale, impress potential clientsor simply boost your ego. So if your trophy cabinet is looking a bit threadbare, here are some tips for picking up your share of the glory.

1. Creating a really brilliant piece of work is useful, but not essential. Youd be amazed at the amount of stuff thats entered for awards that is barely competent, let alone outstanding. Sometimes it even wins a gold.

2. It helps if your company is a big name, preferably one thats known for creative advertising. It shouldnt, but it does.

3. If the piece has had wide exposure its better placed than if it ran once in the local rag. Unless its not that good in the first place or its been over-exposed.

4. Come up with something that really stands out in its environment. All car ads pretty much looked the same until Volkswagen came along. It can be done, even with the likes of financial, medical, or recruitment advertising. Although the world still awaits truly ground-breaking ads for corporate multinationals.

5. If the criteria are strategy, execution and results, then that is how your entry will be judged, and youll be expected to deliver the goods in each area. If the creative was great but the strategy stinks, or you try and fudge poor results, youll likely be found out.

6. Ensure the details are right. Correct grammar, punctuation and spelling still count for something, and however good the idea, shoddy art direction will put you out of the running.

7. Make sure the entry goes to the right place at the right time with all the right bits and bobs. I recently judged a field of twenty-nine different entries for an award. Three had items missing and one had neglected to include the work altogether. What a waste of time, effort and entry fee.

8. Get someone who can write clearly and concisely to complete the application form. Dont exceed the word count, but dont make it too short either. It looks bad if its padded out (and probably means it wasnt worth entering in the first place). Remember, youve only got a short time to impress or put off a judge.

9. Keep entering. There are so many organisations and publications dishing out awards that youre bound to win something sometime. Even if its only Runner-Up for Best Use of Colour in a Small Space in Widget World Weekly.

10. Be lucky. Every year, first rate pieces of work fail to win major awards, and every year something not so great gets onto the winners podium. So good luck.

* Peter Wise is a freelance copywriter, website copywriter and SEO copywriter based in London, UK. He also writes direct mail, brochures, newsletter articles and press releases. If youre looking for a freelance copywriter, please call +44 (0) 7767 687524 or visit http://www.ideaswise.com