Run your town's Best Of awards.
Your readers vote for the best pizza, the best plumber, the best hair salon. You publish the winners under your own masthead. And every business on that ballot becomes a conversation you have a reason to start.
White-label · Verified voting · Your brand, start to finish
An audience is permission. It isn't an introduction.
Being the person your town trusts makes you legitimate the moment somebody looks you up. It doesn't make you known to the forty business owners who never will.
Somebody still has to start the conversation. And "hi, I run a newsletter, do you want to advertise" lands in the same pile as the guy selling website redesigns. You already know that. It's why you haven't sent it.
The way in isn't a better pitch. It's showing up having already done something for them.
That's what a ballot is.
The second you put a business on it, you have a reason to call them that isn't a pitch. It's news about them.
Forty warm calls
Every business on the ballot gets its own link to claim its listing. That link is the call. You're not selling — you're telling them they're up for Best Pizza.
They promote you
Most owners tell their own customers to go vote. Their audience arrives on your ballot, on your brand, and joins your list. They market your newsletter for free.
Then you have something to sell
A presenting sponsor. A category sponsor. A winners page that runs all year. You're not selling ad space any more — you're selling a place in a thing the town cares about.
How it works
From first setup to published winners.
Set up your contest
Name it, set your voting dates, drop in your logo and colours. Every page your readers see is yours — our name isn't on it.
Build the ballot
Paste in your categories and businesses, forty at a time. Or open nominations first and let readers tell you who belongs — which is also how you find the businesses you didn't know existed.
Make the calls
Send each business its claim link. They fix their own listing, add a photo, and get a share link that credits them for every voter they send you.
Your town votes
One pick per category on a phone, about a minute end to end. Every ballot is confirmed by email, so the results hold up. Readers choose whether to join your list.
Publish the winners
A winners page that stays up all year and gets found in search. Every winner gets an award kit in your brand — a window cling, social graphics, a badge for their site.
What you get that a form and a spreadsheet won't give you.
Award kits for every winner
Window cling, Instagram square, story graphic, web banner — generated in your brand. Their window advertises your newsletter for a year.
Who sent you the voters
"Cedar Street Cafe sent 214 people to the ballot." That's the number you open next year's sponsorship call with.
The list, and the permission
Every voter chooses whether to hear from you, in plain language. Export it whenever you like — it's yours, not ours.
Results that hold up
Every ballot is confirmed by email and one vote per category is enforced by the database. When you print a winner, it means something.
Made for print too
A print-ready QR for the paper, the poster, the counter card. Local media isn't only online and neither is this.
Sponsorship built in
Presenting, category, and winners-page placements — the three things you can actually sell, with the revenue tracked.
Running more than one town?
Accolade is multi-town from the ground up.
Every contest, every business list and every voter is kept separate by publication — so an agency can run Best Of in six towns from one login, and no two of them can ever see each other's data. That isn't a setting we added. It's how it's built.
What you get
One contest that lands pays for the year. Most publishers sell the presenting sponsorship before voting even opens.
Foundation
One town, one contest a year.
- 1 contest
- 12 categories
- 150 businesses
- Claim links & share links
- Verified voting
- Award kits for winners
- 3 sponsor placements
Priced once we've seen yours
Accolade is set up and run for you, month to month. What it costs turns on how many categories your ballot runs and whether it lives on your own domain — so we quote it once, on a call, against your actual situation.
Talk to Blue Star about Accolade
Tell us a little about your business and a person replies from hello@bluestarlogic.com — usually within one business day.
Forty conversations you couldn't have had yesterday.
And you didn't have to sell anything to get a single one of them.