The digital marketing awards are really nice…..though it’s the results that drive business!

Over the last year the (add)ventures Interactive / Technology team has won a variety interactive web awards. Most recently, we won two different Interactive Media Awards (IMA), one for an eCommerce site and the other for a sports event site.  While winning these awards is incredibly rewarding for the information architects, project managers, designers, copywriters and engineers that contributed to these projects, marketing results are the key determinant of a successful site.

Don’t get me wrong, winning an IMA award is extremely gratifying since you compete against the top national agencies and each site is rigorously evaluated.  However, I do wish that there was a sixth evaluation criteria called “Business Results”.  Here is some context on one of our IMA awards and how they are evaluated:

Websites receiving an overall score between 460 and 479 receive our Outstanding Achievement award. Websites receiving an overall score between 480 and 500 receive our Best in Class award.

Your individual scores are as follows:

Design: 93
Content: 95
Feature Functionality: 98
Usability: 98
Standards Compliance & Cross-Browser Compatibility: 97
———————-

Total: 481 / 500

What’s lacking in all the different website awards is a measurement of business value. Whether the measurement is leads, sales or advertising click-throughs, the success of a site must be quantitatively measured and improved over time. Our goal as strategists, marketers and web technologists is to drive business value and have an impact on business results. So, while winning awards is really nice, delivering websites, web applications, social media applications or mobile applications that exceed expectations, and having the quantitative results to prove their business effectiveness, is the truly gratifying part of working in digital strategy and interactive marketing.