Best of the 207: How Voting Works & How to Win

Best of the 207 versus Maine's other business polls

Maine runs at least four public-vote business award programs at once, and Best of the 207 is the only one tied to a TV station. NewsCenter Maine (WCSH/WLBZ, a Tegna affiliate) operates it under the "207" lifestyle brand at bestofthe207.com, a domain separate from the station's news site. "207" is not a year or a category count. It's Maine's single statewide area code, which is the whole branding joke: one number covers the whole state, so does this ballot.

The practical difference isn't prestige, it's mechanics. Best of the 207 runs nominations October 1-22, then a finalist voting round October 29-November 12, then sits on the result until February 25 of the following year. Roughly 4,000 businesses rallied fan support in the 2023 cycle, among the larger totals of any Maine best-of program on record. A business chasing visibility fast should know this one makes you wait.

The nomination-to-ballot gap most entrants don't plan for

Nominations open first. From October 1 to October 22, anyone can put a business forward in one of nine category groups: Eat & Drink, Health & Beauty, Home & Garden, Marine, Motors, Services, Shopping, Stay & Play, Things To Do. Then nothing happens publicly for about a week. NewsCenter Maine narrows each category internally, and only the top nominees resurface on the finalist ballot when voting opens October 29.

That silent week catches first-timers off guard. A business that spent its whole nomination push assuming it would automatically appear on the vote is wrong, and won't find out until finalists post. Marine is worth calling out on its own: it's a full category group, not a Motors subcategory, which only makes sense once you remember how much of the state's economy runs on boats.

Fifteen weeks of silence is long enough that most businesses have moved on to other marketing by the time results land. Calendar the February date now, or the win goes unclaimed in your own promotion.

Making the statewide ballot work for one Maine city at a time

Best of the 207 is statewide on paper. In practice, votes come from people who already know the business, and that means city by city. Portland's Eat & Drink and Stay & Play crowd doesn't vote the same way Presque Isle's Marine and Motors customers do, and pretending otherwise wastes the two-week window.

None of these ten cities is a separate contest division. They're the real geography behind one statewide ballot, and matching the message to the city usually beats a single "vote for us" graphic sent everywhere at once.

Running a campaign that survives NewsCenter Maine's scrutiny

A broadcast-brand ballot carries more reputational weight than an anonymous online poll, and NewsCenter Maine's rules for the active cycle at bestofthe207.com come first, ahead of any vendor's advice, including ours. The categories most likely to draw a skeptical eye: Health & Beauty and anything medical, where exaggerated claims backfire fast; and any category where a business tries to skip straight to voting without surviving the nomination round.

What actually works: customer email lists that name the exact category and the correct stage (nominate, not vote, before October 22), in-store QR codes checked after every ballot update, and staff who mention it once without pressuring anyone. Skip the scripted-vote shortcuts. A statewide broadcast brand has more to lose from a spam complaint than a small blog poll would.

One honest limit: nobody, including a paid promotion service, can guarantee a Best of the 207 win. The organizer's internal narrowing process, competitor turnout, and category size all sit outside anyone's control. What promotion can do is put the ballot link in front of customers who'd otherwise forget it exists during a two-week window packed with other local asks. For sourcing real supporters instead of automated traffic, see real voter outreach, and for the underlying category this contest belongs to, see people's-choice business award votes.

What to do with a Best of the 207 result once it's real

Nothing before February 25. That's the rule this page keeps coming back to, because the fifteen-week gap between vote close and result is the single most-missed detail among Maine businesses running this campaign. Old plaques, screenshots, and reseller "verified winner" badges circulating online prove nothing about a current cycle.

Once NewsCenter Maine publishes, precise copy beats broad copy every time: "Best of the 207 winner, [exact category], [year]" holds up; "Maine's best" with no category attached doesn't. Before that date, "nominated" or "finalist" is the honest and accurate word.

See the Maine contest hub for the state's other public-vote programs, including the Maine High School Athlete of the Week poll running on a very different weekly cycle, and the Best of New Jersey and Best of Brooklyn programs for how other states structure the same readers-choice format. For the broader mechanics behind any paid vote campaign, start at buying online votes or the guide to winning online voting contests.