Good news! The local Chamber of Commerce has recognized your agency as one of this year’s Community Champions for your ongoing involvement with several local nonprofits.

The awards event was lovely. Your colleagues and staff appreciated the recognition from the Chamber, fellow members, and the nonprofits you’ve been loyally supporting. Now you can hang the plaque on the office wall and get back to business.But if you leave it at that you’d be missing the chance to squeeze plenty more promotional nectar from the Chamber’s recognition — and to market your agency brand to a much larger audience.

With just a little effort you can connect with hundreds more business prospects while boosting your name recognition, and nurturing real trust and confidence in you and your agency. These simple tactics will help make that happen:

• Put photos of the event along with quotes, call outs from the presentation, and background details on your website and social media pages.

• Include a tagline below your logo and closing signature in all your company emails that lets people know about the award – something like “Proud recipients of the Greater Atlanta Chamber of Commerce Community Champions Award for 2014.”

• You can also add a tagline like this to your new business proposals and policy renewal paperwork.

• Write your own press release and send it to the most appropriate editors at the local newspapers and magazines that cover business in your state or region. Include a photo or two as well. Google “writing press releases” for lots of easy guidelines.

• You can also send press releases to insurance trade publications like Rough Notes, Insurance Journal, Business Insurance, and IA magazine. Before you do, research both print and online versions and identify the departments or columns where your news fits best and target those editors.

• If there are any local community radio or TV shows, you’ve got a great opportunity for a guest spot to talk about the organizations you support and show appreciation for the recognition you’ve received.

• Turn the event and recognition into a topic for your podcast or blog. Expand the topic to look at state or national trends in how businesses support their local communities, and give examples of innovative fundraising campaigns and successful community partnerships.

You may not have the time and resources to dive into all of these immediately, but even if you only leverage a few of the channels, the return in widening your reach and reputation will be well worth the effort. With steady consistency your marketing efforts will pay off with more sales and opportunities – and warmer prospects.