Best of the Valley: How Voting Works & How to Win

A SurveyMonkey link, not a contest platform. That's the first thing to know

Most readers'-choice polls in this database run on Second Street, WooBox, or a purpose-built contest widget. The Idaho Mountain Express doesn't. Best of the Valley routes voters from mtexpress.com/site/best_of_the_valley.html straight into a SurveyMonkey form, the same tool a company might use for a customer-satisfaction survey.

That choice shapes everything downstream. A SurveyMonkey questionnaire scrolls through sections in order; it doesn't offer a search bar or a category grid the way a dedicated ballot would. A supporter who wants to vote for one bakery still pages through whichever of the six sections that category lives in.

Seventeen years is long enough that some Ketchum and Sun Valley shop windows carry a Best of the Valley sticker from more than one prior cycle. That tenure is worth naming directly to customers, since it separates this ballot from a brand-new poll a voter has never heard of. See the Idaho contest hub for how this compares to the state's other readers'-choice and prep-sports polls.

Six sections, 140 categories, and no search box

A voter arriving cold at the SurveyMonkey link has to find the right section before finding the right category. Six sections covering roughly 140 slots is a lot of scrolling for someone who only cares about one nomination, and that friction is exactly what a campaign message needs to solve.

Tell supporters the section, not just the category

"Vote for us in Best of the Valley" leaves a supporter guessing which of six sections to open. A message that names both, the section label and the specific category inside it, saves real time on a multi-page form and meaningfully raises the odds someone finishes the survey instead of abandoning it halfway through.

For the mechanics of turning that kind of direct ask into a completed vote, see getting votes for an online contest. A restaurant weighing whether to run this alongside another Idaho program can also check restaurant vote campaign planning for timing customer asks across more than one ballot in the same season.

February comes fast. Plan from winter, not spring

A February close means the entire campaign window sits inside the coldest, shortest-daylight stretch of the Wood River Valley calendar, right when foot traffic in Ketchum and Sun Valley shifts toward ski-season visitors rather than the local regulars a nomination usually depends on.

A business that also nominates for the Best of Magic Valley Readers' Choice ballot in Twin Falls needs to keep the two straight. That poll runs on Second Street with a different close date and a different, much larger southern-Idaho footprint; the two share no ballot, no platform, and no results page. North-central Idaho runs its own separate version too, the Best of the LC Valley program out of Lewiston, with yet another platform and timeline. Three Idaho readers'-choice ballots, three separate systems, and confusing one for another wastes a campaign's whole February window.

Sun Valley, Ketchum, and Hailey aren't the same customer base

The Express runs Best of the Valley across the whole Wood River Valley, which means a Ketchum gallery and a Hailey hardware store can land in wildly different categories while still competing on the same ballot as neighbors on paper.

A Sun Valley resort business pitching mostly to seasonal guests has a different reminder problem than a Hailey hardware store pitching to people who live there year-round; the second group is easier to reach through a school newsletter or a community Facebook group than a resort's guest email list ever could be. Scale matters too. A single-location Bellevue shop and a multi-property Sun Valley operator aren't working from the same reminder budget, and the package tiers below reflect that range rather than assuming every entrant needs the same push.

What the Express doesn't publish, and why the wording matters

No public vote-cap policy and no historical winners archive exist for this specific ballot beyond what the Idaho Mountain Express prints after each cycle closes. That's not a missing detail in this guide, it's simply what the organizer chooses to make public.

Checking a competitor's claim? Confirm the exact year and category from the paper's own published result, not from a sticker in a storefront window that could be years old, since seventeen cycles of Best of the Valley stickers have piled up around Ketchum and Sun Valley by now. Promoting a nomination of your own? "Best of the Valley 2026, Best Coffee Shop" holds up once the Express confirms it in print; a faded window decal with no date on it does not. Before results run, "nominated" is the accurate word, not "winner." See award-style vote campaigns for the broader mechanics of any readers'-choice push, and how online contest votes work for the underlying platform concepts this SurveyMonkey ballot builds on.