Okay, okay…the cat’s out of the bag. We put on a few extra pounds this month…or should I say, a few extra pages! This is thanks to our amazing partnership with the Greater Omaha Chamber. As you’ve surely already noticed, this month we’ve partnered with the Chamber to help them announce their Business Excellence Award winners, along with recognizing many companies that are celebrating a milestone anniversary. Many of these organizations took this opportunity to run beautiful advertisements in the special section to amplify their messages of gratitude to their teams, customers, and community supporters. I encourage everyone to familiarize yourself with each award winner and milestone recipient, as these are the businesses and nonprofits that are shaping the Omaha community.
It means a lot to me and my team to have this opportunity to celebrate these inspiring organizations in the magazine. We’ve had the chance to work with some of them already as advertising clients. For others, this is their first time running an ad with Strictly Business! I’ve been overseeing the magazine for almost 28 years and it’s still just as exciting to me when a new business decides to partner with us. I have enough confidence in my staff and the marketing power of Strictly Business that I won’t be surprised to see many of these businesses in the magazine again. That is my hope, at least! It’s an honor to share the stories and achievements of as many reputable companies in Omaha as possible.
Another exciting part of the magazine this month is the Employing Omaha feature. We launched this feature last May, and we knew it would be tough because of COVID. We even considered holding off but decided to go through with it knowing that some industries were experiencing an even higher demand because of the pandemic. We had a few companies participate in the May 2020 feature and fewer participate in the November feature, which made sense considering the world seemed to be getting scarier and scarier around that time. Fortunately, we rounded the bend and saw a far more positive response to this year’s Employing Omaha feature. I’m proud to say that we had a considerably higher amount of companies partner with us this year to showcase their company’s culture and employment opportunities—a handful of them have never been in Strictly Business before! Of course, this is great for the magazine, but what outshines it all is the fact that businesses are hiring again. This is a sign that businesses are starting to thrive again, and nothing makes me happier than that.
Again, I’d like to thank the Greater Omaha Chamber for their partnership. If your organization is interested in partnering with us in any way, don’t hesitate to reach out. I’d love to talk to you about what that could look like! In addition, a big welcome and thank you to the many first-time advertisers this month—in the Chamber’s Business Excellence Awards spread, the Employing Omaha feature, and some that have just signed on for a new campaign! It’s a pleasure to open up the magazine and see your names and faces.
Next month, we’re planning on trimming back down to our summer bod, but thank you for witnessing history with us as Strictly Business Omaha’s page count hits an all-time high. There’s a lot of good stuff in here, so I’ll leave you to it. Don’t forget to support the businesses you see in Strictly Business!