How to Win a Best of City or Local Business Award — a Community Voting Guide

Local "Best of" awards — Best Restaurant, Best Salon, Best Small Business of the Year — run almost entirely on public voting. Winning best of city award voting comes down to which business has the most motivated supporters, not the best product alone. That reality is uncomfortable for some owners, but it is also the reason a technically excellent business can sit in third place while a more organized competitor takes the trophy every year. The good news: community mobilization is a learnable system, not a matter of luck.

We have worked with local businesses through dozens of these campaigns. The gap between first and second place almost always comes down to one thing: the runner-up told people once; the winner built a system. This guide gives you that system — from the first day nominations open to the final hour of voting.

Key takeaways

• Your email subscribers and in-store regulars are your highest-converting audience — reach them before anyone else.
• Staff participation matters: each team member has their own personal network, often completely separate from yours.
• Physical signage (counter cards, window decals, receipts) captures voters who never see your social posts.
• The bandwagon effect is real: research by Farjam and Loxbo found that when a leading option's advantage is visible, it attracts roughly 7% more support from undecided voters — an early visible lead compounds.
• Read the rules before you do anything else; how the award counts votes (one per email, one per IP, daily) changes every tactic below.
• A two-week campaign with planned reminders outperforms a single launch-day blast every time.

Read the Rules Before You Campaign

Every "Best of" program has different mechanics. Some allow one vote per email address, others one per IP address per day, others unlimited daily votes from the same device. Some have nomination phases separate from voting phases. Some disqualify entrants for any solicitation that looks automated or coordinated. The FTC's guidance on prizes, sweepstakes and contests requires that promotions have clear, fair rules — but it is the organizer who sets those rules, and your job is to follow them exactly.

Before you print a single sign or send a single email, answer these questions from the official rules page:

• One vote per person per day, or one vote total?
• Is there an email-verification step? (If yes, your audience needs to check their inbox after voting.)
• Are businesses allowed to actively solicit votes, or is there any language prohibiting "vote solicitation"?
• Are there separate nomination and voting windows? Do you need a minimum number of nominations to qualify?
• What is the disqualification trigger? (Some programs flag sudden vote spikes.)

The rules answer determines your entire strategy. A daily-vote program means you need sustained engagement over weeks, not a single blast. A one-vote-per-email program means your job is reach, not repetition. Get this wrong and your effort — however large — goes to waste.

How to Get Customers to Vote for a Best-of Award

Your customers are your single best asset in a local award campaign. They already have a relationship with your business, they are motivated by positive experience rather than obligation, and — crucially — they tend to be local, which is exactly the demographic the award organizer values. The research backs this intuition: the BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey consistently finds that most consumers respond to social proof and visible community endorsement when evaluating local businesses. An award nomination is a form of that endorsement, and customers who already trust you are the most likely to act on your request.

The key is to ask at the moment of highest satisfaction — right after a good meal, a great haircut, a problem solved. That is when a customer is most willing to spend 45 seconds on a voting form. Here is a practical sequence:

1. Point-of-sale ask: Train every front-of-house team member to mention the award at checkout. Keep it short: "We have been nominated for Best [Category] in the [Award Name]. If you enjoyed your visit, we would love your vote — the link is on this card." Hand them a small card with the URL and a QR code.
2. Email list: Send a dedicated email to your subscriber list on day one. Subject line: "We have been nominated — will you take 30 seconds to vote?" Include one clear button, the direct voting URL, and brief instructions (especially if there is an email-verification step). Follow up once a week until voting closes; not every day, once a week.
3. Post-visit follow-up: If you send order confirmations, booking confirmations, or service receipts by email, add a one-line mention of the award and a link for the duration of the campaign.
4. Loyalty program members: If you run any points or loyalty program, this audience is your most engaged segment. A short push notification or in-app message performs well here.

A note on how you ask: the language matters more than most owners realize. "We need your votes" feels transactional. "You are the reason we were nominated" is truthful and lands differently. We have seen the second framing consistently generate a higher response rate, simply because it gives the customer a stake in the outcome.

Turning Your Team into Campaign Ambassadors

Staff mobilization is the most underused lever in local award campaigns. A business with twelve employees has twelve personal networks — each one largely distinct from the owner's. Activated together, that reach often exceeds what any social media push can achieve.

Can you ask staff to vote? Generally yes — they are real people expressing genuine support, which is exactly what community awards are designed to capture. The boundary is whether you are pressuring them or providing incentives in a way that amounts to coercion. A casual mention at a team meeting is fine. Making it a performance metric or a condition of a shift is not. When in doubt, frame it as optional and genuine.

The more effective ask is to empower staff to share, not just to vote themselves:

• Give each team member a simple graphic (portrait format for Stories, square for a feed post) with the award name, your business name, and the voting URL. Make it easy for them to share in one tap.
• Brief them on the key message: what the award is, how to vote, and why it matters to the business. They will get questions from their personal networks; make them confident to answer.
• Create a brief window — say, a Wednesday afternoon — where the whole team posts on the same day. A coordinated wave of social posts from different accounts amplifies reach without looking spammy from a single account.

In our experience running mobilization campaigns, staff often produce a disproportionate share of the early vote count — particularly in the first few days, when momentum matters most. An early visible lead also helps with undecided voters who see your position on the leaderboard (if the award publishes rankings live), because of the bandwagon dynamic noted in the Farjam and Loxbo study on social-proof voting.

In-Store and Physical Touchpoints

Digital campaigns reach people who are already online. Physical signage reaches people who are standing in your business right now — a high-intent moment that most campaigns completely ignore. A counter card next to the register, a small window decal, and a note on the bottom of printed receipts together reach a different segment of your customer base than any email or social post will.

Practical formats that work well:

• Counter card with QR code: A5 or tent-card format. The QR code should deep-link to the voting page, not to your home page. Include brief instructions (e.g., "Scan, tap Vote, check your email to confirm"). Test the QR code yourself before printing a batch.
• Receipt footer: If your point-of-sale system allows footer text on printed or emailed receipts, add a one-line mention of the award and a short URL (use a URL shortener if needed for print).
• Window decal or door sticker: "We are nominated for Best [Category] — vote for us at [short URL]." Passersby and new customers see this before they even walk in.
• Table tents / menu inserts: For restaurants and cafes, a small insert in the menu or a table tent works at the moment of maximum dwell time — when a customer is sitting and waiting.

One thing to check: if the award program uses an email-verification step, you need to warn voters in your signage. "You will receive a confirmation email — check your inbox after voting." Without that line, a significant share of in-store voters will tap Vote, assume they are done, and the vote will not count because they never clicked the confirmation link.

How to Promote a Best-of Award on Social Media and Email

Social media is the amplification layer, not the foundation. Your email list and in-store touchpoints do the heavy lifting with warm audiences; social reaches cold and semi-warm audiences who see you in their feed. Both matter, but confusing the order is a common mistake — owners who lead with social often see low conversion because the audience has less inherent motivation to act.

For social, a practical content plan across a two-to-three week window:

• Launch post (day 1): An announcement post explaining you have been nominated, what the award is, why it matters to the business, and exactly how to vote. Include a QR code or direct link in the caption or first comment. Pin this post for the duration of the campaign.
• Milestone updates: If the platform publishes a live leaderboard, share milestone screenshots ("We have just passed X votes — thank you!"). If it does not, you can still share general progress ("One week in, and your support has been incredible — voting is open until [date]"). Do not fabricate specific vote counts.
• Stories and Reels: Short-form video consistently outperforms static posts for reach. A 30-second clip from a team member saying "vote for us here's why" with a swipe-up or link sticker is more likely to be seen by non-followers than a static post. Run one of these every three to four days.
• Community and local group posts: If your city has active local Facebook groups or Nextdoor communities, a single post in the most relevant group (with the admin's permission, where required) can drive meaningful volume from people who have no prior connection to your business but identify as local supporters.

For email, keep it simple: one dedicated campaign-launch email, one mid-point reminder if voting runs longer than ten days, and one final-day reminder. Three emails total is sufficient and unlikely to cause unsubscribes if the tone is genuine. See our guide on how to ask people to vote without being annoying for specific language templates that work across all these channels.

Choosing Your Tactics: a Practical Comparison

How Many Votes Does It Take to Win a Best of City Award?

This is the question every business owner asks, and the honest answer is: it depends entirely on the competition in your category and the size of the program. A local neighborhood blog's "Best Coffee Shop" category might be decided by a few hundred votes; a large city-wide publication's award might require thousands. We cannot give you a target number because we do not know your market, your category, or who else is running.

What we can tell you is a more useful framing: your goal is not to reach a fixed number, it is to stay ahead of whoever is in second place. If the leaderboard is visible, check it regularly and treat it as a pacing tool. If the leaderboard is not public, focus on running the most thorough campaign you can — the ceiling of what your network can produce — rather than trying to hit an imaginary target.

The campaigns we see fall short are almost never those that ran out of people to ask. They are campaigns that ran out of time, because the business waited too long to start. If you want to understand the competitive landscape for your specific category, our guide to building a voter network before a contest starts covers how to gauge interest and test your reach before voting even opens.

The Final 48 Hours of Voting

The last two days of a voting window tend to concentrate a disproportionate share of all votes cast. People procrastinate, urgency rises, and your supporters who meant to vote but forgot are suddenly reminded by the deadline. This is the highest-leverage moment of the entire campaign — use it deliberately.

A closing-day playbook:

1. Day before close: Send a final email to your full list. Subject line: "Voting closes tomorrow — your last chance to help." Keep the email short: the deadline, one button, a genuine thank-you. Do not bury the ask in paragraphs of text.
2. Day of close: Post to social mid-morning (when engagement is higher) and ask staff to reshare. If you are in a daily-voting program, also post at a second time — evening — to capture votes from people who missed the morning post.
3. In-store: Brief your team verbally on the last day. "Voting closes at midnight — please mention it to every customer today." Remind them to reshare on their personal accounts one final time.
4. Thank your voters: Within 24 hours of the close, post a genuine thank-you regardless of outcome. If you win, celebrate with your community. If you do not, thank everyone who participated — they took time for you, and they will be more likely to help again next year.

For a deeper look at surge tactics across the final voting window, see our dedicated piece on the final 72-hour strategy for contest vote surges.

You can also review how we approach campaign analysis and ethical mobilization on our methodology page — it explains the framework we use when evaluating whether and how to run a campaign for a client.

Frequently asked questions