Siloam Springs finishes 4th in running for $500,000 makeover, spot on Hulu TV show

Siloam Springs was second to last in a contest for a $500,000 downtown makeover and a spot in the third season of Hulu TV show, Small Business Revolution — Main Street. On Tuesday (Feb. 27), Deluxe Corp. announced Alton, Ill., as the winner after receiving the most votes in a voting contest.

On Feb. 13, Deluxe named Siloam Springs as one of  five finalists that could win the $500,000 and be featured on the show. Between Feb. 13 and Feb. 20, people could visit the Small Business Revolution website and vote for their favorite city daily. The city with the highest number of votes was deemed the winner.

A total of 550,000 votes were cast for the five cities hoping to be featured on the third season of the show, said Cameron Potts, vice president of public relations for Deluxe. The company hasn’t released vote totals for each city as it doesn’t want to embarrass cities that lag behind, he said. Finalists for the second season of the show received almost 1 million votes.

The top four cities receiving the most votes for the third season were within 50,000 votes of each other, Potts said. The city in fifth place, Martinez, Calif., was a “little bit behind.” Other cities in the contest included Amesbury, Mass., and Bastrop, Texas.

Kelsey Howard, executive director for downtown organization Main Street Siloam Springs, said the city was consistently fourth throughout the voting contest. Main Street Siloam Springs, along with the city and Siloam Springs Chamber of Commerce, encouraged supporters to vote for Siloam Springs, and Howard said she was overwhelmed by the number of people who rallied for Siloam Springs.

Main Street has been operating business as usual in many ways throughout the process, which she said brought the organization in touch with many others. The organization has collaborated with the city and chamber on updating a branding strategy for how it presents itself as a tourist destination, and the city’s involvement in the Small Business Revolution contest has provided insight into this work.

“It has really put tourism at the forefront of our priorities for the year,” said Howard, adding she expects to release more information on the branding strategy in the next few months.

Also, Main Street is collaborating with the city to improve pedestrian safety, add public art, seating and rain gardens to downtown along Broadway Street, between University and Main streets. The city plans to complete the $488,683 project in mid-April. Howard said those who attend Girls Night Out on March 8 will have the opportunity to see the progress, as hundreds of women are expected to come downtown for the event.

This past fall, Main Street Siloam Springs applied to be on the Hulu TV show, and since then, the city has remained in the running for the show as Deluxe narrowed down the cities after receiving thousands of nominations from those wanting to be on it. Deluxe visited 10 cities, including Siloam Springs, before it narrowed down the list of nominations to five.

Businesses in the winning city will have the opportunity to apply to receive a portion of the $500,000 and work with a team of Deluxe small business marketing professionals, including Amanda Brinkman, the company’s chief brand and communications officer. Brinkman announced the winner in a video posted to the Small Business Revolution’s social media site.

“In one week the Small Business Revolution campaign garnered more than 164 million social media impressions, which is amazing,” Brinkman said. “I’m not sure what the definition of a viral campaign is, but I’m pretty sure this was it.” Along with Brinkman, TV personality Ty Pennington will join the Deluxe team in the winning city and serve as the celebrity spokesman for the show, which will air in fall 2018.

While Siloam Springs didn’t win the spot to be featured on the show, Deluxe will offer a free marketing seminar on April 25 at Simmons Great Hall at John Brown University. The seminar is open to any business in the region, but space is limited based on venue capacity.

Also, Deluxe will continue to feature stories on its social media sites from the cities it visited. Likewise, Main Street Siloam Springs will continue to share stories on social media of those who live and work in downtown Siloam Springs via the hashtag, #IAmDowntownSiloamSprings, Howard said.

In 2015, Deluxe, which makes checks and offers business products and marketing services, started the Small Business Revolution by telling stories of 100 small business throughout the United States.