For 13 years straight, Pitt-Greensburg won the title of the “Quest for the Best” University category of Westmoreland County, as voted by readers of the Tribune-Review. Then Seton Hill took the honors last year.

Pitt-Greensburg officials want the free marketing back.

The Quest for the Best is a paper ballot that is sent out once a year in multiple of the Tribune Review-owned newspapers. The ballots rate just about everything right down to the best cash-for-gold, hearing aid and chicken wing places.

Susan Isola, director of media relations at Pitt-Greensburg, and campus President Sharon Smith put their heads together and came up with 10 reasons why Pitt-Greensburg should win the honor, and then they got the word out. Targeting the faculty, staff and advisory board with e-mail was the best bet to gain the highest amount of voters, Isola said.

“One of the things I thought was, ‘how could we reinforce the staff and faculty to be included in the top-10 list’ as well as trying to generate additional voting in hopes of winning back the title,” Isola said. “And I wanted to experiment with e-mail and Twitter.”

Although there is no tangible reward for winning any of the categories, Isola felt that it was more important to use the competition as a source of “low-cost, no cost” marketing.

“Our biggest asset in this competition is that it puts Pitt-Greensburg in front of an audience-essentially puts our name out there,” Isola said.

To Isola, this contest was more of a “top-of-the-mind” competition not so much a popularity contest. Promoting the university and having its name fresh in the minds of people in the region was the goal.

“Since this is my first year working at Pitt-Greensburg, I wanted to have a very targeted audience to e-mail the list to and see what the reaction was — whether people would appreciate it and see some value in it,” she said. “I realize that it was a process, and for students who struggle with jobs already, I didn’t want to ask them firstly to buy the paper, then an envelope and a postage stamp. Toward the end, we even started saving the ballots and giving them out to the faculty that was interested.”

Submissions for Quest for the Best had to be postmarked by Sept. 16 and the winners of the competition will be announced in the Quest for the Best guide on Sunday, Nov. 1.