Discover Bella Vista
Marketing Report 2025
We are focusing on four key campaign messages in 2025.
All of our messaging leverages Bella Vista key assets without need for exaggeration: natural beauty, well-appointed accommodations, authentic local restaurants, robust trail system, located within close proximity to business and cultural destinations in Northwest Arkansas.
Best Place to Stay in Northwest Arkansas
Best Place to Train in Northwest Arkansas
Bella Vista. Where the big Kids Play.
Getting Away is Closer than You Think
And delivered those messages with four key tools.
Paid Advertising
Print and digital ad campaigns sharing our key messages with our core target audience.
Influence Marketing
Partnering with trusted market influencers to share our stories.
Content Marketing
Building and reinforcing our messages with engaging stories.
Events & Brand Activations
Partnering with trusted brands to leverage our partnerships with influencers.
Best Place to Stay
We've positioned Bella Vista's lack of chain hotels as an advantage, knowing our short term rental overnight experience is superior in every way.
This year, we've partnered with local NWA media house Intercut Productions to create the first of two spots in our new lodging ad series.
We developed a wide variety of digital, print, video, merchandising, and brand activation content for 2025.
Here are a few of our favorites.
Visitor's Guide for public arts.
Our microsite names are easier to remember than URLs with long file paths. For example, bellavistaarts.com is easier to remember than discoverbellavistaar.com/about/arts. The same is true for our bellavistaeats.com and bellavistastories.com. Click here to visit bellavistaarts.com.
Prototype for restaurant profiles.
For 2025, we plan to make video profiles like this one for all restaurants that would like to participate.
Printed folding pocket trail map.
Illustrated by hand by local artist Ryan Ringle. Available at local bike shops.
BRAndED MERCHANDISE
Style meets message
For 2025, we launched new hat and t-shirt designs created by local artists and produced in-house whenever possible. Event sales were strong though setting up effective distribution through local channels is still a work in progress.
Visitor's Guide for Little Sugar MTB race participants.
With such a large investment of energy and resources in the Little Sugar MTB race, we wanted to make sure that race participants knew, without doubt, that the majority of the race takes place in Bella Vista and help them get the most our of their experience. Click here to visit littlesugarmtb.com.
Influential creative partners with shared values. Meet the team.
Finding an influencer with genuine reach and active followers that you can afford is only part of the equation. It is also critical that they are creative, authentic, and share your values when it comes to message and quality. We are grateful for this Dream Team.
ERIC PORTER
A family adventure with incredible reach.
About
Eric Porter is a pro mountain biker and adventure content creator with a strong passionate following that reflects our core target market.
Concept
Years ago, Eric did a very popular video riding with his kids on Bentonville. We thought we'd bring back to Bella Vista as "Big Kids".
Content
Viewers get an intimate look behind the scenes of a famous family celebrating the process of growing up. And having a great time doing it.
Results
Over 200K views, 200+ comments, and a total watch time of 21,000 hours. Yes... 21,000. See stats below.
The above video contains highlights. For the full video click here.
RICH DREW
Hospitality taken to a whole new level.
About
Rich Drew is a former pro enduro racer, local celeb, and founder of The Ride Series MTB training program.
Concept
Little Sugar MTB is the most technically challenging race of the Life Time Grand Prix Series. We decided to help people train for it.
Content
We released five video racers guides covering lodging, bike set-up, technique, mindset, and a day-of-race vlog.
Results
With 18K views in three months, our series beat Life Times video partnership with Garmin by 2x. We expect those numbers to keep growing in 2025.
The above video contains highlights from the introduction to the race vlog. It contains messaging supporting our position of Bella Vista as the best place to train in the US. See below for the full length videos in the series.
JESS HANNA
Travel does not have to be a serious business.
About
Jess Hanna is a travel influencer with a talent communicating complex ideas with humor and easily connecting with the heart and minds of the locals.
Concept
Travel content has a tendency to get too serious and forget that the idea is to relax an have fun. Working with Jess helped us put a smile on the face of Bella Vista.
Content
We are producing a series of shorts with Jess including travel guide content and interviews with visitors and locals.
Results
This one instagram post has already secured 3283 likes and 132 comments from her fans from all over the country.
Bentonville Bike Fest 2025
For Bentonville Bike Fest 2025, we sponsored the Volunteer Village as a way to say thank you to the hundreds of volunteers our events rely on to succeed year after year. The Village had food, drink, a private chill zone, and we created branded disco bike lights to ensure the positive vibe continued well after the show.
Arkansas Enduro Series - Bella Vista
Last year, we partnered with the Ozark Foundation to bring the Arkansas Enduro Series back to Bella Vista after a three-year hiatus. Bella Vista had more registrations and volunteers than any other race in the series.
Life Time Grand Prix Series - Little Sugar MTB
For 2025, we again sponsored the Little Sugar MTB race and expo. With over 1,000 racers from 159 countries, including top pro and Olympic teams, Little Sugar MTB proved again that, with the right partners, a world-class event could be built from scratch right in our own backyard.
Leaving nothing to chance, we opted to partner with pro MTB coach and adventure influencer Rich Drew to help folks from around the world race and get the most out of their stay in Bella Vista. The result was a five-episode Bella Vista race guide that saw more viewership than a Garmin sponsored training series for Life Times gravel races.
Frequently asked questions
A few questions and answers about why we do things the way we do.
Why is biking such a focus?
Bike trails and golf courses are the only amenities in Bella Vista open to the public. As our golf courses are already running at near capacity, biking has the most growth potential as an attractor of revenue from tourism.
Why is video such a focus?
In the competitive world of outdoor travel marketing, Bella Vista’s competitive advantage is not immediately obvious. Our mountains are short and our streams are small. Our lakes are closed to the public. It takes more than just a pretty picture or a social post to stand up next to Vail, Whistler, or even Bentonville. It takes deeper dives into stories that show our towns heart and tenacity. Video is the perfect medium for that.
Why are events such a focus?
Working with accomplished event organizers on marquee events provides a number benefits to a lesser known small town: 1. Working with well known brands provides credibility. 2. Event sponsorships provide access to larger communications channels. 3. Successful events provide press we could not afford otherwise. 4. Being a good production and communications partner with reputable brands, helps up make real connections with other reputable brands.
Why work with influencers?
For many of the same reasons listed above, plus a level of longterm trust that comes from longterm partnerships with real human beings. The influencers we work with genuinely love their followers and genuinely love coming to Bella Vista. That combination gives us the most direct and authentic access to potential visitors with a very high potential lifetime customer value. All without a sales pitch or hustle. Just sharing real experience with people who might dig them too.
That's it for now.
We’ll update this content at the end of the year in our 2025 Marketing Recap.
