How to Submit Winning Entries to The American Business Awards
Follow these simple steps to ensure that you submit entries that are worthy of receiving a Stevie® Award in 2025:
1. Subscribe to the Free Stevie Awards Email Newsletter
The weekly email newsletter is the best way to stay informed about entry deadline extensions, new categories, and other announcements from the organizers of the Stevie Awards. We have a very strict privacy policy, so we will not share your email address with anyone else for any reason. Click here to learn more.
2. Request an Entry Kit
Click here to have an entry kit sent to you right away by email.
3. Determine Who or What You Want to Nominate, and in Which Categories
Decide which individuals, groups, or media (web sites, campaigns, etc.) within your organization that you will nominate/enter, then select the most appropriate categories for those entries. Contact the Stevie Awards office in with your questions about the most appropriate categories, entry fees, and so on. Click here to complete the information request form, or contact us at help@stevieawards.com.
4. Use the 2024 Gold Stevie-winning Entries as Models
2024 Gold Stevie-winning entries are examples of entries that judges scored highly, and we recommend that you emulate their style, tone, and structure. Click here to go to the list of 2024 Stevie winners.
5. Prepare Your Entries
Stevie-winning entries are:
a. Well-written. They are terse and succinct. Their tone is modest, even when describing the most impressive accomplishments.
b. Focused on a few accomplishments. If possible, describe in detail just a few accomplishments, instead of listing many accomplishments in brief.
c. Accompanied by supporting information. Provide uploads or links to online news stories, press releases, work samples, video, images, product reviews, or other documents that support the claims made in your entries.
Stevie-winning entries are not:
a. Just about "extraordinary" accomplishments. When you read through some of the 2024 Gold Stevie-winning entries you will see that many of them simply are about organizations and people that have performed well. They are not about extraordinary, world-changing or industry-changing accomplishments. Tell your story well, and support your claims, and the judges will score your entries highly.
b. Fluffy and hyperbolic. Avoid flowery language and overblown claims. The judges tend to deduct points for undocumented immodesty.
6. Submit Your Entries By The Entry Deadline
The last day that entries will be accepted for the 2025 ABAs is March 5.
7. Participate in the Judging Process
Apply to be a judge. As a judge you will be able to see the entries submitted by many organizations around the country, and you will develop a better sense of the types of entries that judges score highly. (You will not be allowed to judge entries in categories in which you have submitted entries, however.) Click here to complete the application form.
If your application is accepted you will be assigned categories based on your function and experience. As a judge you will be able to judge as few or as many nominations as you like, at your convenience, online in February - April.