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If you are going to put work forward for an award, it is worth taking the time and effort to ensure that you present your work effectively and follow the submission brief, as Heather Westgate, chair of the DMA Awards Committee, explains.

"Taking a long-term approach is critical to success," she says. "If you have a dedicated person or team earmarking campaigns or activity that could be of a prize-winning standard, when it comes to submission time, it will be much easier to collate samples, results and testimonials and get client sign-off."

Another point to consider is the focus of the award.

"Every award programme has its own point of difference," says Westgate.

"Some focus heavily on creativity whereas others look at effectiveness. The DMA Awards take a balanced approach, giving equal weighting to three key areas: strategy, creativity and results. Consider what each award is looking for and tailor your submission accordingly."

Once the submission is drafted, says Westgate, it should be passed to someone else to ensure it does the campaign justice and clearly demonstrates what makes it worthy of an award. This person can also double check that you have supplied all the information required and followed the correct format.

"Be explicit," she advises. "If the award is celebrating originality or innovation, explain what was original or innovative. Simply saying: 'We thought it was a great campaign' won't get you anywhere. If you need to supply results, make sure you include response and conversion rates and return on investment. The more detail, the better."

Pay attention to the small print, says Westgate. It is too easy to have work disqualified because you have not followed format requirements or taken measures to ensure confidentiality. Westgate adds that it does not always need to be down to agencies to submit award entries.

"The DMA Awards accept entries from anyone involved with a campaign - agencies, clients and printers ," she says. "I would really like to see more joint entries to celebrate the great work out there. It would be good for the industry to see more collaboration on awards entries."

Smaller brands and agencies should not be put off. "Don't assume the bigger brands with the big budgets always win," she says. "Any campaign that can demonstrate real insight and satisfy the entry criteria stands a good chance, regardless of budget."

Westgate adds: "Make sure you allow plenty of time to craft your entry. The judges will have a lot of submissions and a succinct nomination that follows the criteria and makes a real impact will take you a long way."

The deadline for this year's DMA Awards is 15 September. More information on how to enter is available online at www. dmaawards.org.uk.

THE FACTS ON ... PiP

Royal Mail introduced pricing in proportion (PiP) on 21 August.

Instead of charging for postage based purely on the weight of the item being sent, Royal Mail will charge based on the weight, size and thickness of the piece of mail.

In essence, it means that smaller, lighter items will be cheaper to send than large, heavier ones. Royal Mail estimates that the cost of sending more than 70 per cent of mail will not change but there are some important points to note.

"If you have large, flat items, such as two sheets of A4 paper in a C4 envelope, they will cost more to send under the new system than previously," says DMA head of postal affairs Alex Walsh. "If you can fold the paper and put it in a C5 or DL envelope, you will save money."

You can also reduce costs, advises Walsh, if you can keep the thickness of mail below 5mm, the weight under 70g and the length shorter than 240mm.

The PiP arrangements will undoubtedly mean that some people will pay more to send certain types of mail through the post.

But, as Walsh points out, there are some benefits to arise from the changes.

"Royal Mail has provided boundaries in terms of the size of envelope but you can have creative formats within those limits," he says. This means, for example, that if someone wanted to produce a star-shaped piece of mail, as long as the points of the star remained within the overall boundary size, it would cost no more to send than a regular-shaped piece of mail of the same overall size and weight.

Also, the first price increase on letters under PiP comes in when the weight reaches 100g, compared with 60g under the current system.

"This means mailers have 40g of potential free weight to play with," says Walsh. "So when companies are sending out statements, for example, they have additional capacity to use for brochures and promotional leaflets."

But while the PiP arrangements will have the biggest impact on bulk mail, Walsh advises companies in the direct marketing business to think about how it will affect their everyday mailing needs. "All firms, whether or not they are involved in DM, produce an amount of post every day," he says. "All this ad-hoc mail can make a difference to a company's postage costs, particularly if the items being sent are of odd sizes or weights. So think about the mail that is produced every day and how it can be optimised for the new pricing regime."