Find Away
With a continuing increase in students at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, who hail from Missouri and north Texas, Experience Fayetteville really wanted to hit demographic groups from these areas. Sells Agency created video spots and digital display ads that appealed to specific categories of travelers (empty nesters, young adventure seekers, LGBTQ consumers, etc.). This content was deployed to several specific markets: Dallas/Fort Worth, Tulsa and Springfield, Mo. More refined efforts in targeted marketing began with new digital marketing technologies combined with creative messages speaking specifically to the key demographic groups.
As a results of the targeted digital marketing, traffic to the landing page increased 269% year-over-year. Overall website traffic also increased by 31%, despite the digital media budget being essentially unchanged from the previous year. Online requests of the Fayetteville Visitor's Guide grew by 55% in the first year.
In terms of economic impact, HMR tax collections reached the highest levels in Fayetteville's history, surpassing all previous records. Fayetteville also had the highest tourism tax collection increase of all Arkansas cities that collected at least $1 million in tourism taxes.