Finding the right business awards can take hours of searching across industry associations, publications, professional organizations, and individual award websites. Featured’s Find Awards capability makes the process faster by allowing businesses to search for awards and recognition opportunities using plain-language prompts.
Featured is an AI copilot for PR and marketing. Find Awards is one capability within Featured that helps businesses discover relevant awards, rankings, and other recognition opportunities.
The process is simple: define what the company wants to be recognized for, search for relevant awards, and apply to the best opportunities.
What Is Featured’s Find Awards Tool?
Featured is an AI copilot for PR and marketing that helps businesses find media opportunities, build visibility and manage recurring PR workflows. One of its capabilities is Find Awards, which uses AI to search for relevant business awards, rankings and other recognition opportunities.
Instead of manually searching award websites, industry associations and publications, businesses can describe the recognition they are looking for in plain language. Featured then searches its database of 4,596 awards and recognition opportunities and returns relevant results that can be filtered and evaluated based on the business’s criteria.
Award results can include:
- Award name
- Sponsor
- Application or entry link
- Deadline
- Entry cost
- Location
- Industry
- Business function
- Eligibility
- Previous winners
Find Awards can be used to search for many types of recognition, including industry awards, local business awards, innovation awards, workplace awards, leadership awards, entrepreneurship awards and more.
The capability is designed for both one-time award research and ongoing discovery. A PR team can search for awards for a specific campaign or client, filter the results to match its requirements, or create a workflow that continuously finds new opportunities based on defined criteria.
Step 1: Define What the Company Wants to Be Recognized For
Before searching for awards, determine what the company has actually achieved and wants to be recognized for.
Common areas include:
- Product innovation
- Company growth
- Customer service
- Leadership
- Workplace culture
- Technology
- Marketing
- Sustainability
- Entrepreneurship
- Industry-specific achievements
Starting with a specific achievement is more useful than simply searching for “business awards.”
For example, a B2B SaaS company that recently launched a new product might want recognition for product innovation. An ecommerce company could be looking for customer service awards, while a fast-growing startup might want awards focused on growth or entrepreneurship.
It is also useful to consider who the recognition should matter to. An industry award may be particularly valuable for reaching customers and prospects in that sector, while a local business award may be more relevant for building recognition within a specific community.
Once the company knows what it wants to be recognized for, that information can be used to build the search.
Step 2: Search for Relevant Awards
Featured’s Find Awards capability uses natural-language search, so businesses can describe the recognition they are looking for without knowing the exact name of an award.
The more specific the search, the more granular the results can be. A prompt can include details about the company’s industry, location, size, achievement, business function, budget, and preferred deadline.
For example:
Find awards for a B2B SaaS company that recognize product innovation.
A more specific search could be:
Find product innovation awards for US B2B SaaS companies with deadlines in the next six months and entry fees under $500.
Businesses can get granular about criteria such as:
- Industry: SaaS, healthcare, financial services, retail, technology, etc.
- Location: Country, state, city, or region
- Business function: Product, marketing, leadership, customer service, HR, etc.
- Recognition type: Innovation, growth, entrepreneurship, workplace culture, leadership, and other achievements
- Sponsor: Specific organizations or types of award sponsors
- Cost: Free-to-enter awards or awards below a specific entry fee
- Deadline: Awards closing within a particular timeframe
Featured searches its database of more than 4,596 awards and recognition opportunities and returns relevant results. Depending on the award, results can include the award name, sponsor, entry link, deadline, entry cost, location, industry, eligibility, and previous winners.
A specific initial search can make it easier to find awards that are relevant to the company’s actual goals and constraints, rather than sorting through a broad list of unrelated opportunities.
When an award looks promising, the details should still be verified on the award organizer’s official website before an application is submitted. Deadlines, eligibility requirements, fees, and application criteria can change between award cycles.
Step 3: Apply for the Best-Fit Awards
The goal is not to apply for every award that appears in a search. The strongest opportunities are those where the company’s achievements closely match the award category and where the recognition is relevant to its audience.
Before applying, review:
- Eligibility: Does the company meet the requirements?
- Category: Does the achievement fit what judges are evaluating?
- Deadline: Is there enough time to prepare a strong application?
- Cost: Is the entry fee appropriate for the potential value?
- Sponsor: Is the organization behind the award credible?
- Previous winners: Do past winners indicate that the award is relevant and competitive?
Once the strongest opportunities have been identified, Featured allows the results to be downloaded as a CSV. This can make it easier to organize potential applications, track deadlines, assign applications to team members, and keep an awards list for future reference.
From there, visit the official award website, confirm the current requirements, and begin the application.
Finding Business Awards With Featured
A focused awards search does not need to involve dozens of separate websites or hours of manual research.
The process can start by defining what the company wants to be recognized for, using Featured to search for relevant opportunities, and applying to the awards that are the strongest fit.
Define → Search → Apply
That simple process can turn awards research from an open-ended search into a more focused part of a company’s PR and marketing strategy.