Wait a minute. It’s not already Best of Chico time again, is it?
The Chico News & Review’s annual celebration of all of Chico’s good stuff is back. Voting started May 3, the day this paper hit the racks. Traditionally a fall showcase, the special issue was moved back to late summer last year, and it worked out so well that we are plotting for a September reveal once again.
Best of Chico is this newspaper’s most popular issue, double the size of most of the rest of the year’s editions. The reason for this, of course, is because it’s largely focused on local businesses, with the readers’ choices for the best burritos, dentists and bike shops in town all revealed in what serves as a one-stop guide to Chico. Those businesses advertise because they know that a lot of eyes will be on these pages.
As significant as the Best of Chico edition is to the community and to the paper’s bottom line, there is a lot more to it than just that print issue. Work on the whole endeavor lasts nine months! After some preparatory tasks and organization in January, a Best of project team meets for strategic planning in February. That nine-person group includes some CN&R employees, but given our current bare-bones staff, we need to collaborate with the crew from the News & Review company’s Sacramento headquarters—as well as one very important sales coordinator keeping everything organized remotely from Missouri—in order to do all the work involved.
The campaign doesn’t officially wrap until the first week of October with the “Winners Issue,” a post-Best of promotion in which advertisers thank the readers.
In between, the nine of us design, sell, promote, create websites, tally votes, communicate with winners, write stories, distribute papers and deliver plaques.
In addition to the big reveal in print—and perhaps most important for local businesses—there’s the digital version of Best of Chico, which archives the winners online and will always be available for those searching for “best piercing studio” or visitors scouring the web for “best places to eat in Chico.”
Of course, there’s also the work of you, our readers, making all the best decisions. Like I said, voting for the 2023 edition of Best of Chico is underway. Go to chicobestof.com and do your part.
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