How to create criteria for judging a contest

When it comes to spreading the word about a brand, contests are one of the best options to pick. Are you an event planner who helps in organizing contests and various other award programs for brands who want to judge, identify and reward the best of the best? If so, then this blog is something you should read.

According to the Oxford dictionary, the term contest can be defined as “an event in which people compete for supremacy in a sport or other activity, or in a quality”. But what kind of quality are we really talking about here? It could be any skill that you possess – perhaps you like writing, love taking photographs or making cool videos – the list is endless! Given a chance, each one of us would like to take our skill and passion forward but excelling in it. Winning a contest requires fair play and judgment criteria. But what should be good criteria for someone to judge a contest? 

What is a judging criteria?

The kind of competition one takes part in does not matter because every level requires a competitor to put their best foot forward. Judging criteria are referred to as the various pointers that a judge or jury of judges evaluates the entries on. Having a set of judging criteria is important to make sure that the best entry wins. 

Why does it matter?

With hundreds and thousands of entries that every contest gets, it can be very tiresome to go through each one of them and compare them to figure out the most ideal one. But all of this becomes a child’s play when you have a set of clear judgment criteria by your side. We are pretty sure that nobody wants their contest to be judged in a biased, long drawn out and tedious manner. When you have a well laid out judging criteria, you simplify the lives of judges. They analyse each and every entry as per the well-designed pointers that have been set up. A lengthy process made easy, we say.

Types of contests

One of the best ways through which you can build your brand is organizing a creative contest. Not only does it help in boosting the engagement but it also lets you reach out to specific customers on behalf of your business. A contest can be set up quickly, is very easy to manage and has the potential to give you a brilliant return on your investment if it is done in the right manner. 

Judging Criteria requirements

Wondering what all criteria can you put to use while judging an entry? The skills and efforts that a competitor puts in are judged on various yardsticks which are listed below. 

• the judging criteria should be equally distributed and have an emphasis on the audience. 
• rules should be in line with the goals of the sponsor for the contest.
• the basis on which each and every entry shall be judged should be clearly stated.
• the kind of ROI and information that a contest aims to look at should be absolutely clear.
•  the sponsors of the contest should also give time to think about how exactly would be the contest fit into their social media or advertising plan.
• the golden rule to base any kind of judgment should be to work around and find out what kind of contests have worked the best for promoting the brand in the past. 
• the amount of percentage that has been given to each criterion should be deeply thought of and it should be relative to the kind of promotion a brand is looking up at.

Creating criteria for judging a contest with examples

If you look around, you will find innumerable and different kinds of contests happening everywhere. Now, these contests can range from being a beauty pageant to being something as simple as answering a simple question on social media. Listed below are different kinds of contests and the criteria that they should be judged upon. 

Writing contest

Want your customers and target audience to put their views on your product/ brand or cause in words? Set up a writing contest for them.

You may ask your followers to explain in detail what makes them appreciate your cause, what makes your brand stand out, or if your fans have a story that they would like to share. Giving your audience a chance to let their voices be heard is one of the best ways to connect with them. 

What a writing contest would do is that it can help your followers in getting more involved by letting them know your intention of getting to know them. If you are wondering what parameters you should set to select the best entry, check out the following pointers – 

• Fresh point of view
• Originality
• Ideas and concepts
• Word limit (if any)
• Grammar
• Unique writing style 
• Creativity
• Descriptive language
• Good diction

Video contest

Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are full of viral videos. Now, how do these videos become viral? The answer is simple. Their content is interesting! Here is how you can organize a video contest for your brand – 

Ask your followers to make/shoot and submit a creative video with you around anything that you think relates to your brand. It could also be something like asking people to describe the kind of experience they have had with your brand, show the way they use your product by adding a touch of creativity to it. In return, you can offer the winner a reward which good be a giveaway, shout out or a voucher. Got a video contest coming up? Here are a few judgement criteria that can help you out. 

• Whether the video narrates a short story
• The clarity in the thought process
• The way the audience perceives the entry 
• Visual appeal
• Overall impression of the narrative
• Audio and visual quality
• Level of motivation in the video
• Compelling idea
• Attention to detail

Photo contest

One of the most amazing ways to increase your social media engagement is to organize a photo contest. In the present times when everybody has access to a smartphone, it seems like everyone around is passionate about photography. What makes a photo contest an even more lucrative option is that everybody likes click and share them. 

Simply ask the contestants to upload and share their entries on social media, tag your brand and voila you are done! 

Photo contests do not just help in creating a buzz about your brand amongst the family and friends of a contestant, but it can also add to the overall engagement. Listed below are a few criteria that can be put to use while judging a photo contest.

• Innovation
• Brand recall ability
• Precision in idea
• Overall composition
• Distinctiveness in conceptualization
• Creativity in expression
• Inspirational Power
• Whether the entry is in line with the theme
• Quality of amusement
• The clarity in the thought process
• Appeal among the audience

Art contest

Art is diverse! With things such as painting, calligraphy, drawing, sketching and lots more to choose from, a contest related to art is sure to make waves if implemented in the right way. Reach out to your fans and followers and ask them to send you their entries which revolve around your brand or talk about a cause that you intend to represent.

• Originality
• Artistry
• Adherence to the theme
• Composition and design of the work
• Overall presentation
• Does the art stand in line with the brand’s ideology?
• Color scheme
• Aesthetic value

Tip: If you have a small business, you do not need to break the bank to give out prizes to the winners. Something as small as recognizing a piece of writing by your selected entry and posting it on your website or perhaps giving them a memoir of something that relates to your cause or brand can be good alternates. 

Judging Criteria and sponsor’s goal(s)

Now that we have talked about what a contest is, why judging criteria is important, the different kinds of contests that you can run and various criteria they should be judged on, let us have a look at what should be the judging criteria and sponsor’s goals while running a contest.

Checklist

First of all, as a sponsor, you will need to figure out what exactly do you aim to achieve by running a contest. Do you want to –

Grow the number of users and followers for your brand?

Grow your presence on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter?

Amplify the sales of your brand by giving out coupons and incentives?

Create a buzz about a new or soon to be launched product?

Generate new email leads?

Gain insight into popular products?

Or do all of the above?

Next, while attracting entries for your contest, think about – 

What do you want the ideal contest entry to be like?

What do your contestant will be interested in?

And finally, when you are judging an entry, you must evaluate them on the following basis –

Is the entry original and creative?

Does it fulfill all the conditions of the contest that you stated?

Does it represent your brand?

Does it fulfill what you were looking for as an entry for your contest?

Will the winning entry be able to make an impression about your business?

How to pick & invite judges

Narrowing down on judges and consequently sending them an invitation to attend an award function is not as easy as it seems. The role of a judge includes watching the contest process – making sure that it is run smoothly, analyzing and vouching for the winner. He or she should ideally belong to the industry around which the contest is being run. 

After you have selected a judge to help you figure out a winner, the next step would be inviting them for your event. In today’s digital era, you can make use of one or all the different methods at the same time to send a formal invitation to the judge. 

By the means of e-mail

Sending them a printed invitation card

Using an event judging module

And that’s all! Simply draft an email or an invitation letter to send it to the potential judges for your contest. While doing so, remember that your email would be one of the most important means of communicating with your prospective judge. Keep the message simple, explain in a crisp manner what the program is about, what are the dates and what do you expect out of them. 

How to judge a contest?

Just before a judge begins judging, he or she should go through the rules, terms, and conditions that govern the contest. The inputs provided by a judge are quite essential since they help in running amazing contests in an unbiased manner. Following are the essential points which sum up the entire process of judging an event – 

1. Understanding the judging criteria, being able to make a clear decision about how an entry is supposed to be rated. 
2. Creating as per the rules and submitting the judgment you have made.
3. Judge with consistency.
4. Remember to focus on: “Is this entry effective?”
5. Let go of personal opinions. While you are giving a score to entry, do not be biased – instead, keep an eye on whether the objective is being fulfilled or not.

Judging management tools

Are you on a look out for making your contest a dynamic one? Do you need help to set the judgment criteria right for your upcoming contest? Get in touch with team Judgify and we will help you out. 

Judgify is an easy end to end automated award management software that makes judging a contest effortless for you. We have got a centralized submission dashboard which makes judging a contest cakewalk for the judges. Apart from saving time, energy and money, Judgify lets you filter out any irrelevant entries, customize the rules of submission and judge a contest in a hassle free manner. 

Our Final Judgement

Ever since social media has emerged as the biggest tool to influence people, organic reach has been on a rapid decline. Social media contests are one of the few ways to give your brand the boost that it needs!  

We hope that this article has given you a better understanding of what are the criteria for judging a contest, different kinds of contests, various parameters to judge them and how to run a successful one. 

Got a question about any of the ideas we mentioned above? Shoot it to us in the comments section below!