Are You a 2022 Nominee?

Are You a 2022 Nominee?

If you’re on the ballot for Idaho’s Best of 2022, congratulations! As a nominee, you earned your spot by having a good mix of nominations and reviews. Out of tens of thousands of Idaho businesses that were nominated, we narrowed it down to 2,678 nominees that will move on to voting.

So what should you do now? You should claim your nomination.

You may ask, “Why do I need to claim my nomination if I’m already on the ballot?” That’s a fair question and it’s what brings us to the point of this blog.

Claiming Your Nomination Helps Idaho’s Best Verify Your Business Information

You would be shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, if you knew how much effort our team spends checking information to make sure we are as fair and accurate as possible. Besides having the business name and category right, we’re comparing information and addresses across Google, Facebook, Yelp, the BBB, and your websites for all locations in Idaho to make sure that all of your votes and reviews are credited correctly.

But we’re not asking for your pity (we did this to ourselves!), just for your help.

When you claim your nomination, you have the opportunity to help us get it right. You’re able to verify that your business name, location(s), and contact information are correct.

Claiming Your Nomination Establishes a Point of Contact

Some of our nominees are sole proprietors, forging their own path with the unique skills they possess. Others have an empire across Idaho, with dozens or even hundreds of employees in our state. Either way, all of you are important to our community and it would be great if Idaho’s Best knew who to give this award to on behalf of your business.

Idaho’s Best might be the most popular “Best of” awards in Idaho business (OK, it definitely is), and we think we’re pretty awesome, but we aren’t going to assume that you’re automatically going to know the pertinent info for our awards. Claiming your nomination helps us notify the right person when your business is nominated or becomes a finalist.

Claiming Your Nomination Helps Us…and You!

It’s true! Claiming your nomination for Idaho’s Best can make it better. High levels of engagement drive the adjustments we make year-to-year. We do the best we can to compare like with like to achieve a level playing field.

Categories with few nominations and even fewer claimed nominations get less attention. They may be absorbed by another category or disappear altogether.

Categories with a lot of competitors and claimed nominations are likely to get more attention. This doesn’t mean they’re scored differently, but that it’s more likely we’ll add categories that are more narrowly defined, giving every business in that group better odds and a fairer shake.

Claiming your nomination can even give you an edge when you need it. Ties in scoring aren’t frequent, but when they occur the nod goes to a company who claimed their nomination if their opponent did not. Claimed Nomination > Unclaimed Nomination

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We Care About Your Privacy

You can see the complete Idaho’s Best privacy policy here. We want you to know that we won’t share any information you provide when you claim your nomination (or make nominations, or vote) with any other party or organization unless you request it. Our email notifications are strictly opt-in and are only used for communications regarding Idaho’s Best so we can let you know about important dates or events.

Nominations Now Open for 2022 Idaho’s Best Business Awards

Well that year was a doozie! Let’s put on our warmest socks, pour a glass of eggnog, and get ready for the best time of the year … the Idaho’s Best™ Business Awards!
[cool sequel image]

“What Makes Idaho’s Best the Best?”

Good question. The Idaho’s Best™ Awards aim to recognize the best businesses in each region of Idaho and the Gem State as a whole. Using a combination of 5-star reviews, online ratings, and votes, we recognize Idaho’s best businesses across nearly 200 categories. You can read more about how the awards work right here.

No one cares about getting it right more than Idaho’s Best™ does, period. We are relentless in our pursuit to find and recognize the best places, companies, and organizations in Idaho. We’re able to find the best (with your help) because we do it differently:

  • No pay to play — participation is free. While we couldn’t do it without our sponsors, they are still held to the same scoring standards as any business in Idaho’s Best™.
  • You choose the nominees and do the voting, not us.
  • Online reviews help determine the winners.

The Reader’s Digest Version

The Idaho’s Best Business Awards (not to be confused with the Idaho’s Best Employer Awards) take place in three stages — nominations, voting, and reputation scoring. We don’t only recognize the best overall, but also the best for each of four regions of Idaho.

Idaho's Best Region Map Central Idaho – Twin Falls, Mountain Home, McCall, Ketchum, Jerome, Burley
Eastern Idaho – Pocatello, Idaho Falls, Rexburg, Driggs, American Falls
Panhandle – Coeur d’Alene, Post Falls, Moscow, Lewiston, Sandpoint
Treasure Valley – Boise, Meridian, Nampa, Emmett, Payette

Phase 1: Nominations

Anyone who lives in Idaho can nominate a business or organization for Idaho’s Best; you can even nominate yourself! Nominations take place online from December 1- 17, 2022. Remember; the more nominations you get, the better. The top nominees in each region will progress to the voting round.
Participants who nominate 10 or more businesses will be entered in a drawing to win a $100 gift card for any Idaho restaurant of their choice (multiple prizes awarded).

Phase 2: Voting

After the nominees have been determined and notified, it’s time to get out the vote. The voting period is February 1-17, 2022. Any Idaho resident with a mobile phone can cast their vote for as many categories as they like, but only one vote for each category. Voting is done through our website and ballots are secured through SMS verification.

Every Wednesday during the voting period we’ll be giving away great prizes via our “Hump Day Giveaway”. Those who referred other voters via our voting application will be automatically entered to win; every referred voter is an additional entry.

Phase 3: Reputation

The top vote-getters for each category in their region will move on as finalists. We’ll announce this as soon as we can after tallying and confirming votes. Finalists are then scored for their online reputation. Specifically, we’ll capture the previous 12 calendar months of reviews leading up to February 17, 2022.

Announcing the Winners

Once all the data is in, we’ll announce the winners at our Idaho’s Best™ Awards Banquet, which will occur over two nights in April, 2022.
Now let’s kick this party off with some nominations!

 

Idaho’s Best™ is an awards contest that is owned and operated by Inbound Systems.

Meet Your $500 Amazon Giveaway Winners

Cha ching! The Idaho’s Best Awards of 2021 are underway, kicking off with nominations on October 16th. Thousands and thousands of nominations were made by Idaho residents showing their support for their favorite businesses.

Those of you that nominated 10 or more businesses were automatically entered into a drawing for a chance to win one of five $100 Amazon gift cards.

GIVEAWAY DETAILS: By entering this giveaway, entrants agree to these terms. Companies nominated by entrants are subject to approval by Inbound Systems to ensure the category is relevant to the company. Limited to one entry and one winner’s prize per person. To be eligible to win, entrants must live within Idaho and be at least 18 years old. Acceptance of a prize for this giveaway constitutes your approval to use your name, photo, and city for promoting Idaho’s Best™ and announcing the winners on our website. A minimum of five unique and valid entrants are required, otherwise, the giveaway will be cancelled with no prizes awarded. Employees and family members of employees of Inbound Systems and RevenueJump are not eligible to win. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited.

After complying with the fine print, we’d like to present these lucky winners:

Amazon Giveaway Winners

Why Am I Not a 2021 Nominee?

Idaho's Best 2021 nominee

With nominations for the Idaho’s BestTM of 2021 verified and counted, many inquiring minds want to know what it takes to become a nominee.

In fact, immediately after writing the first sentence of this article, I received a phone call from a gentleman who believed there must be a mistake, as the tutoring center he nominated didn’t make the list. They helped his son prepare for the SATs (a much more challenging feat this year) and do great things for the community, so why aren’t they in?

We love the passion with which you support your favorite businesses and organizations in Idaho. We love the pride that business owners have in their accomplishments and the loyal engagement of their employees and customers. And while we would love to reward all of those deserving organizations with a nomination, the numbers won’t let that work very well.

By the Numbers

Idaho is big on small business, as demonstrated with over 150,000 small businesses registered in the state. Around 36,000 of those companies have employees, providing jobs for 55 percent of Idaho’s workforce. That’s a lot of businesses to consider!

So how do we choose nominees? We don’t — you do! Through your online reviews over the last year and our nomination period held Oct. 19-30, Idahoans nominated 3,242 unique businesses for Idaho’s BestTM. Following the nomination period, our team worked day and night to review and verify each one so that we could finalize our categories and determine which nominees made it to the voting round.

3 Reasons Why a Nominee Won’t Make the Cut

Idaho's Best regions

They Don’t Meet the Criteria for Idaho’s BestTM
While minimal, there are some requirements for the Idaho’s Best AwardsTM. With few exceptions, the business or place needs to have a physical address within the state (i.e. radio stations).

And because online reviews are an important part of determining winners, nominees must have a Google My Business profile to be accepted (again, with very few exceptions).

Their Category has Changed or was Dissolved
Every year we aim to improve Idaho’s BestTM, and that includes annual tweaks to our categories. Our goal is to hit the competitive “sweet spot” between broad and narrow so that we can compare apples to apples.

There must be enough competition to merit a category, while if it’s too competitive, we may need to break it up. We will always try to help a nominee find the right home if things have shifted, but they still need to qualify and compete for any category they are in.

The Competition Was Just Too Tough
This year there are 189 categories in Idaho’s BestTM. Generally, we are looking for only 3-5 nominees representing each of the 4 regions in Idaho. If it’s a popular category, that’s not a lot of room! Unfortunately there will be some businesses left out.

How to Prepare for Next Year

There’s nothing stopping you from guaranteeing a spot on the roster next year if you didn’t make it in this time. As all of our nominations, votes, and reviews are tallied within a 12-month period, it’s open season for our 2022 awards.

That means that all you need to do is keep being great all year long. Subscribe to our notifications so we can let you know when nominations and voting begins. And when the time comes, ask your customers, family, and friends for their support.

Nominations Are In

2021 Idaho's Best Nominations

The nomination period for the Idaho’s Best Awards of 2021 is over, and the response was incredible!
I’ll admit, we were a little concerned with how it might go considering the year we’ve all had, but you folks knocked it out of the park with a tsunami of nominations…We were blown away as they came in by the thousands!

But it’s not over yet!

How do I know if my company was nominated?

Our team is moving quickly to verify each nominee and ensure they are in the appropriate categories. If your business received enough support, we’ll be notifying you shortly about your nomination. This will include instructions for claiming your nomination, details about the contest, and resources to help you pick up more votes. Nominees will be posted publicly before voting begins on November 30th. Voting is done online on this website through December 18th.

IMPORTANT: Once your company has been nominated, be sure to claim it by December 18th!

$500 Amazon Giveaway

Now that the nominations are in, we’ll find out the five winners of our $100 in Amazon gift cards. Winners will be announced and published on this website by 11/16/2020.
GIVEAWAY DETAILS: By entering this giveaway, entrants agree to these terms. Companies nominated by entrants are subject to Idaho’s Best approval to ensure the category is relevant to the company. Limited to one entry and one winner’s prize per person. To be eligible to win, entrants must live within Idaho and be at least 18 years old. Acceptance of a prize for this giveaway constitutes your approval to use your name, photo, and city for promoting Idaho’s Best and announcing the winners on our website. A minimum of five unique and valid entrants are required, otherwise, the giveaway will be cancelled with no prizes awarded. Employees and family members of employees of Inbound Systems, Idaho’s Best, and RevenueJump are not eligible to win. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited.

Idaho’s Best of 2021 — Nominations Now Open

And we’re back! Idaho’s Best solidified its position as the best “Best of” contest in Idaho last year! Great job, everyone! We’re ready to cap off this year with the 2021 awards, and we expect it to be even bestier this time.

Get your mouse-clicking digits warmed up because nominations for the 2021 Idaho’s Best begin today (October 19th) and are open through October 30th, 2020. Participants who nominate 10 or more businesses will be entered in a drawing to win a $100 gift card from Amazon (multiple prizes awarded).

2021 Idaho's Best nominations

“I literally live under a rock. What’s Idaho’s Best?”

Good question. The Idaho’s Best™ Awards aim to recognize the best businesses in the Gem State. The contest includes nine groups with around 170 total categories. We use a combination of 5-star reviews, online ratings, and community votes to determine the winners of each respective category. You can read more about how the contest works right here.

Nominations take place online from October 19, 2020 through October 30, 2020. The top ten nominations in each category will progress to the voting round.

The voting period is Nov. 30 – Dec. 18, 2020. Anyone with a mobile phone and an Idaho residence can vote.

The Idaho’s Best™ finalists for each category will be announced after the voting round. The winners will then be announced at the Idaho’s Best Awards Banquet in January.

Take a look at what you need to know for 2021.

 

Idaho’s Best™ is an awards contest that is owned and operated by Inbound Systems.

Choosing Categories for Idaho’s Best

We’ve only got a few more days until the nominations for the 2020 Idaho’s Best Awards are closed! So far, things are looking great, with nominations up 165% over last year’s awards. Just remember, the last day to nominate your favorite businesses and attractions for Idaho’s Best is September 13th, 2019.

We truly believe in our goal of recognizing the best businesses and organizations in our Idaho communities. But how do you identify the “best”? By what criteria does one measure? Is the best business the one with the most revenue, number of locations, or the best customer service?

There are many criteria that could be used to address this question. We decided the best metric to determine who is the best in Idaho is to ask the people that live here. While your personal reasons for thinking one particular business is the best might be different than someone else, you can both still nominate and vote for your favorite business.

We leave the “why” to you!

How do we decide on what categories to include?

The Idaho’s Best Awards wants to compare apples to apples, the same as any of your potential customers. As of this writing, we have 165 various categories nested within nine different groups. Most categories are very specific to an industry, such as “Best Plumber”. Some categories are more broad, like “Best Contractor”.

There is no feedback we receive that causes more debate than determining which categories to include. So how do we make those decisions?

Step #1: Make a Suggestion

Many of our changes begin as suggestions from those within their industries. Perhaps a user wants to nominate their brother’s auto towing company, only to find out that there wasn’t a category that fits them. They might then contact us to make their suggestion to include towing as a new category.

Step #2: Evaluate the Category Suggestion

We don’t mean to exclude anyone, so our first step is to evaluate the suggested category and see if there is a reason why it didn’t already exist. Perhaps it’s a specialized niche that’s already covered by an existing category, such as an attorney that specializes in DUI defense. They fit right within the “Criminal Defense Law Firm” and “Best Law Firm” categories. Other reasons a category might not already exist for various specialties are a lack of competition, an inability to evaluate reviews sufficiently, it creates confusion, or even a reason as simple as we overlooked it.

Yep, sometimes we make mistakes because aren’t experts in every industry. We’re happy to fix them if we can, we just ask for your help and your patience to do so.

Step #3: Is the Category Competitive?

I’ve personally enjoyed throwing axes and knives for over 20 years, so I’d be thrilled to include a niche category specifically for such a thing. But while there are a few places of business in Idaho that offer axe throwing activities and instruction, there are simply not enough to justify axe throwing as its own category (for now).

Our general rule of thumb is that there needs to be at least 10-20 quality competitors to be considered. When we say “quality”, each nominee should specialize in this area and would need to have their own Google My Business page, Facebook page, and website.

Step #4: Discussion and Vote

When we determine that a new category suggestion is 1) distinct from other categories and 2) has a sufficient number of qualified competitors, then the change is discussed and voted on by a panel of 3-5 judges. We try to be as fair as possible, and sometimes these debates have become heated because we want to offer the best experience possible.

If a majority of the panel approve the new category, it can then be added as its own entity under the appropriate group.

Do you know a category that would be great to include for Idaho’s Best? Let us know by emailing us at [email protected] or using our contact form.

Nominations Now Open!

 

And we’re off!

Nominations for Idaho’s Best are now open! Here are a few important things to remember for this year’s contest:

  • Anyone with a valid Idaho address can nominate an eligible organization/place for any Idaho’s Best™ category.
  • For our 2020 contest, the nomination period is from September 3-13.
  • Nominations are subject to approval by Inbound Systems to ensure the category is relevant to the nominee.
  • Organizations/places that have the top nomination counts within a category (maximum 10 nominees) will advance to Stage 2.
  • IMPORTANT: Once your company has been nominated, be sure to claim it!

BoTV Nominations Are In!

 

The nomination period for the 2019 Best of Treasure Valley awards is over, and the response was incredible!

The community showed their support for their favorite businesses with a tsunami of nominations…We were blown away as they came in, thousands and thousands of them!

But it’s not over yet!

Nominations are just the beginning. The companies with the most nominations in each subcategory will move on to the voting round, where the community can choose the cream of the crop.

We will publish nominations when voting begins on October 1st. Voting will take place throughout the entire month, ending October 31st. Voting is done online on this website. Anyone with a valid email address and a Treasure Valley zip code can vote for their favorite companies. To retain the most reliable results, participants are restricted to one vote per category.

Remember, the BoTV is Unique

The Best of Treasure Valley contest is different because it’s not just about the votes. The community has been recommending their favorite businesses all year by leaving reviews on Google, Facebook, and Yelp.

That’s why the Best of Treasure Valley factors in online reviews from the previous 12 calendar months, up to October 31, 2018. Your overall rating and the number of 5-star reviews your business has earned on Google, Yelp, and Facebook are factored in with the number of votes received during the contest.

5-star Reviews x Average Rating + Votes = BoTV Score

The higher your rating and the more 5-star reviews you have, the better your chances of winning. That means that even if you didn’t get the most votes, you could still win by having a great online reputation. Alternatively, a business that doesn’t have as many reviews as they’d like still has a great chance of winning if they receive a lot of votes during the contest.

How do I know if my company was nominated?

If your business received enough support, we’ll be notifying you shortly via letter by mail about your nomination. The letter will include instructions for claiming your nomination, details about the contest, and resources to help you pick up more votes. You’ll even have an opportunity to download our free guide “Winning the Best of Treasure Valley”.

If you think you were likely one of the top-ten nominees in your subcategory, you can get a head start by contacting us to provide your business details and point of contact for the contest.

$500 Amazon Giveaway

Now that the nominations are in, we’ll find out the five winners of our $100 in Amazon gift cards. Winners will be announced and published on this website by 9/30/18.
GIVEAWAY DETAILS: By entering this giveaway, entrants agree to these terms. Companies nominated by entrants are subject to BoTV approval to ensure the category is relevant to the company. Limited to one entry and one winner’s prize per person. To be eligible to win, entrants must live within Idaho’s Ada or Canyon Counties and be at least 18 years old. Acceptance of a prize for this giveaway constitutes your approval to use your name, photo, and city for promoting BoTV and announcing the winners on our website. A minimum of five unique and valid entrants are required, otherwise, the giveaway will be cancelled with no prizes awarded. Employees and family members of employees of Inbound Systems, Best of Treasure Valley, and RevenueJump are not eligible to win. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited.