Alright, so we kinda made a huge deal out of this. The 2021 BEST OF NORTHERN UTAH contest was widely promoted on our radio stations and online, and many of the 800+ participating businesses promoted the contest through social media during the voting period. All in all, the website gathered over 300,000+ votes from 40,000+ unique users.
The voting period ended last week on March 29th, and now you’re probably wondering “Okay, so… what happens next?”
Let’s go over some of the upcoming pieces of the Best of Northern Utah contest:
During the first part of April, our out-of-town third-party partner is in the process of counting and validating the votes. They’re verifying IP addresses, measuring custom voting ballot performance, and ensuring that votes are legit. Because the integrity of this contest is so important to us, the Cache Valley Media Group has chosen to be kept in the dark on individual voting tallies. Please don’t ask us how many votes your business got, because we don’t know!
Once the voting has been validated, we will know who the top two businesses in each category are. Then, we’ll reach out to the winners, letting them know they won, and asking them to sign a non-disclosure agreement. This will also help to ensure the integrity of the contest and will largely be happening during the latter part of April.
Gold & Silver winners of each contest category will be automatically included in a beautiful, 8 X 11 high-gloss magazine, to be distributed throughout the community later this year. In May, we’ll be working with these winners to nail down the content and imagery to be included in the publication. We will also be giving businesses that didn’t win the opportunity to purchase space in the magazine, and working with them to design their ads.
If you’re interested in purchasing ad space for a specific category, contact us before May 10, 2021 to secure your spot.
2020 'Best of Southern Utah' & 'Best of Iron County' Magazines
Once the magazine art and ad copy for each business has been finalized, we’ll start publishing the results online and on print. The bestofnorthernutah.com will open its online directory of the best businesses in Northern Utah, and we anticipate steady web traffic based on what we’ve seen in our St. George & Cedar City markets. Then, we’ll be dropping 15,000 copies of this premium magazine throughout the community, available free of charge in high-traffic areas and winner locations. Results are set to be released on June 21, 2021.
One of the key concerns that several business owners had for us was the end result of this contest. Similar promotions they’ve seen don’t do much for their participants– they might give out a window sticker or include winners in a one-time Sunday publication, but that’s it. Using our 10 radio stations & their accompanying social media pages along with the area’s fastest-growing news site, cachevalleydaily.com, we will continue to promote the contest and its winners throughout the year. We’ll be publishing a map that shows magazine pickup locations and featuring each category winner on social media in sequence.
We’ll also be encouraging Gold & Silver winners to run “Thank You” campaigns to promote their win as Best of Northern Utah. You’ll likely hear these prominently on the radio, and we can also run sponsored Facebook blasts & targeted digital display ads with similar messaging.
See the official contest dates here.
