Today is the final entry deadline for The 2012 (10th Annual) American Business Awards, the premier business awards program in the U.S.A. All ABA entries are submitted directly online through your account and the web site will be open all night to accept your entries. You can begin by registering here.

We thought it would be helpful for marketing professionals if we highlighted the top four reasons to submit entries to the 2012 ABA marketing awards categories.  

1. Impress potential clients.
   Your work will not only be reviewed and honored by peers and competitors, but also by potential clients.  Show off your organization's achievements in the 2012 ABAs.
2. Global recognition and free publicity.   
   Gold Stevie® Award winners will have the opportunity to make a 30-second acceptance speech before an audience of 600+ executives from across the country during a nationally-broadcast awards ceremony that will also be streamed worldwide over the Internet.
3. Earn industry status.
   Submitting ABA entries is a great way to benchmark your achievements against competitors in your industry.
4. Low entry fees. 
   The publicity that comes with winning a Stevie Award is well worth the low entry fees.

Marketing award entries should include the following information:

• An essay of up to 500 words describing the nominee's achievements since January 1 2011
• A biography of the nominee or the leader of the nominated company, department or team of up to 100 words
• Optional (but highly recommended), a collection of supporting files and web addresses that you may upload to our server to support your entry and provide more background information to the judges

If you have questions regarding the submission process, we have several resources including a step-by-step video on how to submit entries, past winners' entries for your review, and  7 tips on submitting winning entries to help you make the most out of your entries. Don't hesitate to contact us with your questions about how to participate in The 2012 American Business Awards, email us at help@stevieawards.com or call us at + 1 703-547-8389.

2012 ABA Finalists will be announced mid-May and the 10th Annual award winners will be announced at our traditional banquet on June 18th at the Marriott Marquis in New York City. Click here to see the ABA calendar.

Looking for more communication awards? Our corporate literature awards, annual report awards, website awards, video awards, and live event awards categories have several opportunities that would be of interest to communications professionals.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Durham, NC, USA won a Stevie® Award for Marketing Campaign of the Year in the marketing awards categories of The 2011 American Business Awards, the premier business awards program in the U.S.A. (The final entry deadline for the 2012 ABAs is April 25, you can request an entry kit here and you will receive it right away.) Here we look at how Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (BCBSNC) used emerging technology to help the lives of their customers.

Seeking innovative ways to reach their constituency, the marketing award winner developed HealthNAV, an application for the iPhone to help customers save time and money. Easily accessible, the app has several features, including:

• An Urgent Care Finder that locates the closest in-network urgent care center anywhere you are in North Carolina and then maps the way there, and
• A Find-A-Drug feature that gives average pricing for formulary drugs, including cheaper generic options, to help users save money on medications.

BCBSNC used best marketing practices to run their HealthNAV campaign which encouraged customers to download the free app. Running between October 1 and December 31, 2010, the campaign focused on advertising that would connect with people on the go. The insurance company:

1. Placed ads in North Carolina’s three major airports,
2. Placed posters in a popular sports and entertainment arena,
3. Aired a radio spot during local broadcasts, and
4. Used online banner ads.

BCBSNC's use of innovative technology paid off; during the campaign period, the app was:

• Downloaded 5,504 times,
• Opened 8,186 times,
• The Urgent Care function was accessed 6,483 times, and
• Find-a-Drug was accessed 4,449 times.

Through the development of their HealthNAV app, BCBSNC successfully showed customers that the company is both tech-savvy and looks for ways to make health care less expensive and more convenient for customers.

About Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina delivers innovative health care products, services and information to more than 3.7 million members. For 76 years, the company has served its customers by offering health insurance at a competitive price and has served the people of North Carolina through support of community organizations, programs and events that promote good health. To learn more, visit www.bcbsnc.com.

We have added 43 new marketing awards categories to The 2012 International Business Awards to help marketing professionals highlight their successes. (The 2012 IBAs, the world's premiere business awards program, is now open for entries. Showcase your organization's best marketing practices and submit entries by the 11 April early-bird deadline for discounted entry fees. Don't worry if you can't make the 11 April early-bird deadline, the entry deadline is 16 May and we will continue to accept late entries through 27 June; request your entry kit here.)

Our marketing award categories for Marketing Campaign of the Year - Industry include:

• Accounting
• Advertising, Marketing, & Public Relations
• Aerospace & Defense
• Automotive & Transport Equipment
• Banking
• Business Services
• Chemicals
• Computer Hardware
• Computer Software
• Computer Services
• Conglomerates
• Consumer Products - Durables
• Consumer Products - Non-Durables
• Diversified Services
• Electronics
• Energy
• Financial Services
• Food & Beverage
• Health Products & Services
• Hospitality & Leisure
• Internet/New Media
• Insurance
• Legal
• Manufacturing
• Materials & Construction
• Media & Entertainment
• Metals & Mining
• Non-Profit Organizations
• Real Estate
• Retail
• Pharmaceuticals
• Telecommunications
• Transportation
• Utilities

Our Marketing Campaign of the Year - Specialty Categories include:

• Business-to-Business Advertising Campaign of the Year
• Business-to-Business Marketing Campaign of the Year
• Consumer Advertising Campaign of the Year
• Consumer Marketing Campaign of the Year
• Mobile Marketing Campaign of the Year
• Online Marketing Campaign of the Year
• Retail/Merchandising Marketing Campaign of the Year
• Small-Budget Marketing Campaign of the Year (<$3 million / €5 million)
• Viral Marketing Campaign of the Year

Our communication award categories include:

• Marketing Department of the Year
• Marketing Team of the Year
• Marketing Executive of the Year

Want more communications awards? There are a number of other IBA categories that should be of interest to marketing professionals, including many of the annual report awards and other literature categories, website awards categories, app awards categories, video awards categories, and live event awards categories.

Kirby Wadsworth, Vice President of Global Marketing for F5 Networks, is Chair of the final judging committee for the marketing awards categories of The 2012 American Business Awards. (The final entry deadline for 10th Annual ABAs, the premier business awards program in the U.S.A., is April 25; request your entry kit now.) Here Kirby shares best marketing tips for business-to-business marketing.

What are your top 3 tips on how to make your mark in business-to-business marketing?

1. Align marketing and sales efforts into one holistic effort. 
   Marketing must start a conversation that sales is ready and willing to carry to conclusion.  Success here requires alignment of targets, content, training, process, and compensation systems. Research proves that companies that focus on sales and marketing alignment outperform those that allow the two functions to operate orthogonally.

2. Measurement is the basis for alignment. 
   Marketing operations should be your first investment. Fill this group with experts in data analysis who are fully up to speed on modern marketing automation systems. Don’t be afraid of what you find initially. Measurement allows you to find and fix leaks in the system, and you will find many ugly ones when you first start measuring.

3. Make sure you have broad cross-functional agreement on key performance indicators (KPIs). 
   Make sure everyone understands and agrees with the areas you are measuring and reporting, then stick to it and report transparently on a regular basis. It's important to keep educating internal audiences, especially in finance, sales, and executive offices, on the value marketing is bringing to the business, and to do it without “taking credit.” Uniquely, marketing is both a service organization and a leadership organization, but is rarely appreciated for its contributions to pipeline. 

What item of news recently caught your eye and why?
The evolution in appreciation for Big Data and Business Intelligence—these areas are quickly becoming the hottest topics in a decade. I'm particularly fascinated by the potential for virtually every enterprise to leverage the power of Big Data to improve customer experience, create customized offers, and differentiate themselves.  In a lot of ways, Big Data feels like the Internet did back in the late 1990s: Lots of hype, but also massive underlying substance.

What is your favorite sport or hobby?
I use my time in airplanes and hotels to write. I'm 100,000 words into a paranormal novel that takes place in 1850s Nantucket.  It’s a lot of fun.

If you could choose another profession, what would it be?
Bestselling author…

What quality or qualities do you most value in your business associates?
Honesty and a sense of humor.

As someone at the top of your profession, what keeps you inspired or makes you hit the ground running in the morning?
I get my motivation helping others learn and grow in our profession.  Teaching and coaching others forces me to really know my stuff—or at least stay one step ahead of my employees and students.  They push pretty hard, and keep me on my toes. My best day is the day I can help someone overcome a problem, learn something new, or take on a new responsibility.

About Kirby Wadsworth:
Kirby Wadsworth is Vice President of Global Marketing for F5 Networks and leads all marketing-demand generation and branding functions worldwide. Kirby has played a key role in many projects including the installation F5's global marketing function which delivers outbound communication, branding, PR/AR, marketing services, web experience, and global demand campaigns, introducing F5’s first marketing automation system, and creating a global revenue campaign model to align marketing with sales objectives. Prior to F5, Kirby served as Senior Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for several startups including Acopia Networks, Revivio, and Storability. Kirby has been named a Stevie® Award Finalist twice, and F5 received the Stevie Award for Best Marketing Campaign in The 2011 American Business Awards.

About F5 Networks:
F5 Networks, Inc., a global leader in Application Delivery Networking (ADN), helps some of the world’s largest enterprises and service providers to realize the full value of virtualization, cloud computing, and on-demand IT. F5® solutions help integrate disparate technologies to provide greater control of the infrastructure, improve application delivery and data management, and give users seamless, secure, and accelerated access to applications from their corporate desktops and smart devices. F5 products give customers the agility they need to align IT with changing business conditions, deploy scalable solutions on demand, and manage mobile access to data and services. Enterprises, service and cloud providers, and leading online companies worldwide rely on F5 to optimize their IT investments and drive business forward. For more information, go to www.f5.com.