How to Win a Best of / Readers' Choice Award (for Local Businesses)
A local business wins a Readers' Choice award in three stages: customers nominate it by exact name, it makes the finalist cut, and it wins the public vote. Put plainly, how do you win a people's choice award? You collect more counted votes than the other finalists, inside the limits each newspaper prints. Rhode Island Monthly and Pittsburgh Magazine both say in writing that advertising with them plays no part.
By Victor Brown · Last updated
How do you win a Best of or Readers' Choice award?
Readers' Choice programs run by publications such as the Arizona Daily Star, the Santa Barbara Independent and Pittsburgh Magazine reward the business that readers first nominate and then pick in a public vote. Winning one means clearing each stage the publication sets, under the counting limits it prints in its own rules.
The Arizona Daily Star calls its Readers' Choice a community-driven program, and the phrase is worth taking literally. The community does the nominating. The community does the picking. The paper writes the rules both steps run under, and it alone reads the count. A shop with loyal regulars and no marketing budget can win one of these. A shop with a big marketing budget and few regulars will struggle, because none of that budget turns into a customer typing its name into a form.
Most of the work is organizing people who already like you: telling them when the nomination round opens, which category you belong in, and what the daily limit is once the public vote starts. None of that is glamorous. All of it sits in the program's rules, which is why I'd print them before asking anyone for anything.
How do nominations work, and how do I reach the finals?
The Santa Barbara Independent runs the voting round of Best of Santa Barbara as multiple choice, and readers crafted the list of choices during nominations. A business nobody nominated is simply absent from that list when the public vote opens, so the nomination round decides who can win at all.
Nominations reward one habit above everything else: the exact name. Readers type your business in by hand at that stage, and your customers know you by a sign, a nickname, a former owner's name or the street you're on. I'd pick the one name printed on your sign and your receipts and give customers that spelling in writing. Splitting nominations across three versions of your name is a quiet way to miss a cut you had the support to make.
The finalist cut works on the same people. What you control there is how many customers name you, and whether they all use the same name and the same category. Category matters as much as spelling. A bakery that also sells coffee should decide which of the two its regulars will write it under, and then say so every time it asks.
Santa Barbara's 20-category minimum changes what you ask of customers
The Best of Santa Barbara 2026 form counts a reader's nominations and picks only when that reader fills in at least 20 categories. A customer who opens the form, chooses your shop and closes the tab has added nothing to your total, however kind the gesture felt.
Most people don't expect homework when they agree to help a local business. Twenty categories means having opinions about nineteen things besides you. I'd say the number out loud when asking, along the lines of: you have to fill in twenty categories for any of it to count. People are far more willing to finish a job when they know its size before they start.
The same minimum cuts both ways. A rival leaning on one-click favors from people who don't care about the other categories runs into the identical rule, and those half-finished forms count for nobody.
What do the newspapers' own rules forbid or cap?
Pittsburgh Magazine reserves the right to remove a finalist from its Best of the 'Burgh readers poll when it sees flagrant evidence of stuffing the count. Rhode Island Monthly counts only three votes per IP address in its 2025 awards. Both rules aim at the same pattern: lots of clicks from too few real people.
The IP cap has a practical edge that's easy to miss. Three per address means three per shared connection: your shop's guest Wi-Fi, an office network, a clinic's waiting room. A tablet at the register inviting every customer to vote would hit Rhode Island Monthly's limit by the fourth person, and every tap after that is wasted. Each customer choosing once, later, from a personal phone is what the cap is built around.
What counts as flagrant is the magazine's call, not yours. Pittsburgh Magazine does not define the word in the line it publishes, and I wouldn't go looking for the edge. Removal lands at the finalist stage, after all the nomination work is done, which makes it a costly thing to learn late.
How should I ask customers to vote without wasting their clicks?
The Arizona Daily Star lets readers cast one vote per day by texting a code to a number it publishes, in addition to its web form. A daily limit like that turns one big request into a short repeated reminder, and customers who text from their own phones are counted one person at a time.
I'd ask at a few fixed moments rather than every day. When the nomination round opens, with the exact name and category written down. When the finalists are announced, with the voting dates. And once in the final week, with a plain reminder of the daily limit. A note on the receipt, a sign by the door and one email to your customer list carry all of it. A daily text from the owner carries resentment.
Example scenario (illustrative - not a client result): a dental practice plans its push from nomination to final. At nomination, the front desk hands patients a card with the practice's name exactly as it appears on the sign, plus the category it belongs in. If the practice reaches the finalist list, the card is reprinted with the voting dates and the daily limit, and the hygienists mention it once per visit rather than at every cleaning. Nobody is asked to choose from the waiting-room Wi-Fi.
- The business name exactly as you want it nominated, matching the sign out front.
- The category you compete in, in the paper's own wording.
- The voting dates and the paper's daily or per-address limit.
- Where to choose you: the paper's own form, or its text-in code where one exists.
Can an agency help without breaking the rules?
Voting Now does not sell contest votes for Readers' Choice programs or for any other contest. Our work in a contest is promotion: paid ads, native PR, creators and blogger groups, and our own social channels, aimed at real people in the paper's area who might choose to take part. Nobody can promise a win, and we don't.
Rhode Island Monthly answers the obvious worry directly: you don't have to advertise with the magazine to win. Pittsburgh Magazine goes further, saying there is zero connection between its advertisers and its winners. So money spent advertising with the paper gets you an ad in the paper, and nothing at all in the readers' poll.
Outside promotion is a separate question, and the program's rules decide it. Before taking a Readers' Choice job we read the rules with the owner. If the rules forbid paid promotion in the contest, we decline it. If they allow it, the ads point at people in the paper's own market, because a readers' poll is meant to reflect those readers, and reach aimed anywhere else brings clicks the program was never built to weigh. The client pays for the contest promotion, priced the way advertisers price leads, with a quote agreed before anything runs. To start, send us the contest link on WhatsApp for a free analysis.
| Stage | What decides it | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Rules check | The program's published rules: dates, category list and any daily or per-address limits. | Read them before asking anyone for anything, and keep a printed copy. |
| Nomination round | Readers who name your business; in Santa Barbara they build the list the vote uses. | Give customers your exact name and category in writing. |
| Finalist cut | How often readers named you, in one consistent spelling and category. | Check the published finalist list and report errors before voting opens. |
| Public vote | Counted votes within the paper's limits, such as one Tucson text-in vote a day. | Spread reminders across the window instead of one burst. |
| Per-address cap | Rhode Island Monthly counts three votes per IP address. | Keep customers off the shop's shared Wi-Fi when they choose. |
| Removal review | Pittsburgh Magazine can remove a finalist over flagrant stuffing of the count. | Ask only real customers and skip exchange groups and anything automated. |
| When paid promotion is wrong | Rules that forbid outside or paid promotion in the contest. | Win it with regulars alone, or skip the program. |
Step by step
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Print the program's rules
Print the official rules of the Readers' Choice program you're entering and mark the nomination dates, the voting limit, and anything the paper says about removing finalists or discarding forms.
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Settle one exact name
Choose one business name, the one on your sign and receipts, and one category in the paper's own wording. Every request you make of customers repeats both, word for word.
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Ask during the nomination window
When the nomination round opens, ask regulars to name you. In Santa Barbara, tell them the form counts only when at least 20 categories are filled in, so a half-finished one helps nobody.
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Check the finalist list
When the paper publishes its finalists, confirm your name and category are listed correctly. A misspelled listing is worth one polite email to the paper before voting starts, not after it closes.
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Pace the daily choices
Through the public voting window, remind customers of the paper's limit, such as one text-in vote a day in Tucson or three per IP address in Rhode Island, and ask them to use their own phones.
Questions and answers
How to win local business awards?
Local business awards run by newspapers go to the business its own customers nominate under one exact name and then pick in the public vote, inside the paper's limits. Rhode Island Monthly states that advertising with it is not required to win. Spend the effort on people who already use you, give them the dates in writing, and read the program's rules before you ask anyone for anything.
How do you win a people's choice award?
A people's choice award goes to the entry with more counted votes than any other, so the work is reaching people who already like you and keeping their choices inside the organizer's limits. Counted is the word that matters. The Santa Barbara Independent ignores forms with fewer than 20 categories filled in, and Rhode Island Monthly stops counting at three per IP address, so careless enthusiasm can add up to nothing.
How to get nominated for readers choice?
Readers' Choice nominations come from readers, so you get nominated by asking regular customers to submit your business during the paper's nomination window, under your exact name and category. The Santa Barbara Independent's voting round is multiple choice, built from the list readers crafted, so a business missing at nomination has no place on it. Watch for the date the round opens and have your request ready that week.
How to get nominated for best of long island?
Best of Long Island nominations go through the form its organizer publishes for each year's program, during the nomination window it announces. Find that organizer's official rules, note the dates and the category list, and ask customers to use one spelling of your name. Look closely for a minimum: in Santa Barbara a nomination counts only on a form covering at least 20 categories, and a rule like that changes how you ask.
How to get nominated for best of the bay?
Best of the Bay nominations go through the publication that runs the program for your area, so first confirm whose program it is, since more than one publication uses the name. Then read its rules, give customers your exact name and category, and keep every request to real customers. Pittsburgh Magazine can remove a finalist for flagrant stuffing of the count, and a Bay program can write the same power into its own rules.
How to get nominated for homecoming queen?
Homecoming queen nominations follow the school's own process, which the school sets and publishes, and no newspaper's nomination rules apply there. Ask the school for its written rules on who may nominate, by what date, and how the court is chosen. I wouldn't bring outside promotion into a student vote at all: it belongs to the students, and the school decides how it runs.
How to win small business awards?
Small business awards with a public vote are won the way Readers' Choice titles are: nomination under one exact name, a finalist cut, then counted votes inside the organizer's limits. Some small business awards are decided by a judging panel instead, and for those customer clicks do nothing, so check which kind you're entering. In a readers' poll, Rhode Island Monthly's line that advertising is not required to win is worth remembering before anyone pitches you an ad package for the poll.
Sources
- independent.com. independent.com/2025/06/13/best-of-santa-barbara-ballot-how-to/.
- pittsburghmagazine.com. pittsburghmagazine.com.
- pittsburghmagazine.com. pittsburghmagazine.com.
- rimonthly.com. rimonthly.com/content/uploads/2025/03/t/b/BORI25-FAQ.pdf.
- rimonthly.com. rimonthly.com/content/uploads/2025/03/t/b/BORI25-FAQ.pdf.
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No quote promises a win, a ranking or a vote count, because the organizer counts the votes and applies its own rules. The Santa Barbara Independent, for one, says it will disqualify a business that offers voters incentives of any kind. Nothing runs before the client approves a written quote.