When you suppose balancing your content material calendar and your Monday conferences is an excessive amount of, think about if you happen to additionally needed to think about superstition, literal witch trials, and being a magical mecca for tens of millions.
But it surely’s not all black cats and broomsticks. At this time’s grasp oversees year-round tourism advertising for one of many US’s oldest and most history-rich cities — and in addition one of many largest Halloween locations on this planet.
Ashley Choose
Govt director, Destination Salem
- Enjoyable reality: Ashley lives on the identical avenue as the long-lasting Ropes Mansion (aka Allison’s home in Hocus Pocus) and provides away 1,500 items of sweet each Halloween!
- Declare to fame: Earlier than Vacation spot Salem, she bootstrapped an ecommerce present store referred to as At all times Matches to $10m in annual gross sales.
Lesson 1: No person’s offended by “Bear in mind us?”
As issues begin to look spoOoOoky in search engine optimization and social advertising, Ashley Choose is discovering scary good success with owned media.
“Which doesn’t really feel horny in 2025, however it’s,” Choose says. (Be aware to self: Horny Advertising and marketing Channel costume?) “Algorithms change, however emails allow us to inform our tales and hook up with our individuals.”
The important thing, she says, is discovering the correct mindset. “It’s not a tough promote pitch. It’s simply, ‘Hello! Bear in mind us?’”
As an instance her level, think about being on the e-mail listing for an area arcade. In case your inbox is consistently stuffed with advertisements, you’re gonna ship them straight to spam hell. But when they simply ship a little bit hey and possibly some free tokens…
“If it’s on a day if you don’t wish to go to an arcade, you simply received’t go to an arcade. However you’re not prone to be offended by a ‘Hello! Bear in mind us?’ marketing campaign.”
“After which, sooner or later, it’s a Tuesday and also you’re bored and also you get an electronic mail from the arcade, so that you go in. However that may’t occur if you happen to’re not emailing them.”
To search out that mindset, Choose recommends imagining you’re sending the message to a buddy.
“What would the accompanying textual content be if I screenshot this and despatched it to one among my pals? It might be very bizarre in the event that they acquired a textual content from Ashley that stated ‘THIS JUST IN!’ However my pals aren’t going to dam me if I say ‘Wouldn’t this be enjoyable?’”
Lesson 2: Advertising and marketing is eradicating boundaries.
What would you do if you happen to had been anticipating over 1 million guests, however solely had 3,000 parking spots out there?
Personally, I’d curl right into a ball and cry. However Choose had a greater concept: Persuade them to take the practice. So she scooped up a dozen of Salem’s many colourful avenue performers and whipped up a marketing campaign round using Salem’s public transportation.
“In each aspect of selling, there’s all the time a chance to take away boundaries. We’re answering enterprise and customer support challenges.”
Analyzing the issues that exist alongside your buyer journey is a good way to encourage helpful advertising content material and enhance your metrics.
“When you’ve gotten tens of millions of eyeballs, any small barrier to conversion might be the lack of 1000’s of orders. A extremely small instance: a pamphlet that’s been distributed to motor coaches for years, that was meant to be a trifold, that acquired uploaded as a PDF. Who needs to learn an upside-down PDF?”
When you’re undecided what haunts your viewers, I guess your Gross sales and CS groups have a clue. And also you’ll be their new greatest buddy if you happen to ask them.
Lesson 3: Let your viewers inform you who they’re.
“Once I labored in ecommerce, we targeted on personas like ‘The Bestie,’ or ‘The Fowl Lover,’ or ‘The Sweary Good friend.’ These hyper-specific profiles made our advertising really feel such as you had been speaking to 1 particular person at a time.’”
Now, particular personas as an idea will not be new, however Vacation spot Salem raises it to an artform. Confronted with the problem of a really broad viewers with very numerous pursuits, Choose and her group wanted a solution to in a short time discuss to many various individuals.
So that they magicked up a ’90s Cosmo-style quiz that types you into personas like Cultural Connoisseur or Epicurean Explorer.
“Our greatest group, for instance, is what we name ‘Muggles In search of Magic.’ They’re not a part of fashionable witch tradition, nor are they historical past buffs, however they’re searching for tarot, aura images, and spell outlets.”
The quiz then gives viewers customized ideas and the prospect to create a customized itinerary. But it surely additionally doubles as a knowledge assortment software, which permits Choose to higher perceive who’s visiting Salem and why.
“It’s about beginning with the broadest umbrella, after which pointing them to the locations which can be greatest for them.”
And, if you happen to’re burning with curiosity, I’m an Atlas Obscura Fanatic.
Lingering Questions
At this time’s Query
Each chief should justify advertising and model funding with laborious numbers. How do you functionally bridge the hole between artistic, intangible model worth and tangible monetary outcomes, and the way do you justify that model funding to key stakeholders? — Katie Miserany, Chief Communications Officer and SVP of Advertising and marketing, SurveyMonkey
At this time’s Reply
Choose says: In vacation spot advertising, our work sits between numbers and creativeness. We’re right here to drive financial worth for residents and small companies, so we measure every little thing: visitation, spending, seasonality, excise tax.
However the way in which we get there may be by making a little bit of fantasy. Folks don’t go to due to knowledge; they go to as a result of they’ve been pulled right into a story about a spot. Our artistic work builds that story, and when it really works, you’ll be able to see it within the numbers that observe.
Subsequent Week’s Query
Choose asks: What’s one thing your group does purely out of affection for the person — not metrics, not development, simply because it feels proper?
