I thought this was a bit wild and maybe too good to be true — I was wrong

Jul 1, 2025

For years at every NNA convention, our fellow newspaper peeps were shocked that our paper did not run a readers’ choice style contest. Every year, I heard newspapers sing about how awesome readers’ choice contests were. We talked about it for years but never took action.

Until this year. We have now successfully run a Best Of Jefferson County contest.

I am joining my fellow newspaper peeps and telling you that you are absolutely crazy if you are not doing this.

We talked with several newspapers that shared they make at least or over $100,000 with their contests. I thought this was a bit wild and maybe too good to be true.

I was wrong. Our sales staff met that goal and went past it.

We had three print special sections tied to the contest. One to announce the contest and open nominations, a second to announce who moved on to voting, and a final one to announce winners and finalists. Overall, the contest ran for three months.

We sold a title sponsor for the contest, group sponsors, category sponsors, and proud sponsors. All of them had print ads in all three sections and digital ads or online listing enhancements as part of the packages.

One of the best pieces of advice I received was to avoid handing out second or third place. No one wants to be named the third-best taco place. However, calling someone a finalist or using another honorable title is much better. They are more likely to buy ads, and that rang true.

VOTING ONLINE

Many newspapers run a paper ballot and ask people to mail it back or drop it off. That seemed a bit crazy to me in the digital world.

We decided to only allow voting online for our first year. I know it seems surprising for a print newspaper to skip print ballots. But many newspapers said the hardest part of running the contests was counting the paper ballots, so I thought, what if we just don’t do that part?

You had to submit your vote online and we had 118,769 votes cast. We did have two people mail in their votes and yes, I counted those.

We also required people to sign in to vote, and we asked if they would like to subscribe to the paper or our email newsletters. We are a free direct-mail paper, so this was a chance to grow new subscribers.

Out of the 7,749 people who cast votes, 2,467 opted in to get the paper or a newsletter. That is about a 32% success rate, and I am thrilled.

Our office manager noted many were new requesters and we saw our circulation go up by 300 in one week.

Now I can also email all those people who voted this year to let them know when voting opens next year.

VOTING SOFTWARE

Can you run a contest using paper or votes submitted on a Google Form? Yes. Should you? Probably not.

At the NNA convention in 2023, I had lunch with Reinig Morris from RevFluent. I was still a readers’ choice skeptic and kind of grilled him on the software.

I did demos with several other platforms and quickly realized that RevFluent was the best fit for us.

Having a partner in RevFluent has been invaluable to me. I was able to see demo voting sites, other newspapers’ sales flyers, and get all of my questions answered.

The software also had many options for digital ads and extra products we could upsell to our clients. Do some research and find out what works best for your paper, but I highly recommend finding a partner.

THE RULES

We wanted to run a fair contest. We had a nomination round which was open for two weeks, and it only took one nomination to move on to the voting round. Businesses were allowed to nominate themselves.

Since this was our first year, we did our best to get the word out. We knew some businesses would be left out. I told the staff that I would personally take any upset client calls and emails, and I did answer many of them.

Most people understood once I explained the rules and pointed out that we had news about the contest in the paper for three months ahead of time. If you read the paper, you would have known about it.

NEXT YEAR

This year was a success, but I have taken a lot of notes and already have plans to make it even better next year.

First, we are adding more categories. We had 131 this year, but somehow left off great ones like Best Local Honey, Best Appliance Store, Best Pumpkin Patch, Best Cleaning Service, and many more.

This year, people could sign in and vote in just one category and that vote would count. On average, people voted in 12 categories, but many only voted once. Next year, we will require people to vote in at least five categories for their vote to count. I am hoping this encourages people to vote for more of their favorites.

TRY IT

If you have not done a Best Of style contest yet, do it. I will not lie, it is a ton of work, but it is worth it. We had clients who had not placed ads in years and ran a full-page ad when they won. We had new clients place their very first ad. It became a great foot in the door for our sales reps.

Plus, it created incredible buzz around our newspaper. People were talking all over town and we saw an increase in subscriptions.
Make time and do this. You will not regret it.

Katelyn Mary Skaggs is the digital marketing manager for Leader Publications, a group of four papers in Festus, Missouri. Skaggs, a Southeast Missouri State University graduate, joined their ranks in January 2019 as a reporter. Email katelynmaryskaggs@leaderpublications.biz