If you think balancing your content calendar and your Monday meetings is too much, imagine also having to take into account superstitions, literal witch trials, and being a magical mecca for millions.
But it’s not all black cats and brooms. Today’s master leads year-round tourism marketing for one of the oldest and most historic cities in the USA – and also for one of the largest Halloween destinations in the world.
Ashley Judge
Managing Director, Destination Salem
- Interesting fact: Ashley lives on the same street as the famous Ropes Mansion (also known as Allison’s house in Hocus pocus) and given away 1,500 pieces of candy every Halloween!
- Claim to Fame: Before Destination Salem, she grew an e-commerce gift store called Always Fits to $10 million in annual sales.
Lesson 1: “Do you remember us?” no one is offended.
While things are starting to look spoOoOok in the SEO and social marketing space, Ashley Judge is doing shockingly well with owned media.
“This doesn’t feel sexy in 2025, but it is,” says Judge. (Note to self: Sexy Marketing Channel costume?) “Algorithms change, but email allows us to tell our stories and connect with our people.”
The key, she says, is finding the right attitude. “It is not a hard selling point. It just says, “Hello! Do you remember us?'”
To illustrate your point, imagine you’re on the email list at a local arcade. If your inbox is constantly full of advertisements, they will send you straight to spam hell. But if they just send a little hello and maybe some free tokens…
“If it’s a day when you don’t want to go to an arcade, you just won’t go to an arcade. But a “Hello!” probably won’t offend you. Do you remember us?’ Campaign.”
“And then one day, it’s a Tuesday and you’re bored and you get an email from the arcade, so you go in. But that can’t happen if you don’t email them.”
To figure out this mindset, Judge recommends imagining that you’re sending the message to a friend.
“What would the accompanying text look like if I took a screenshot and sent it to one of my friends? It would be very strange if they received a text from Ashley saying “THIS JUST IN!” would get. But my friends won’t block me if I say, ‘Wouldn’t that be funny?'”
Lesson 2: Marketing removes barriers.
What would you do if you expected over 1 million visitors but only had 3,000 parking spaces available?
Personally, I would curl up and cry. But Judge had a better idea: convince her to take the train. So she grabbed a dozen of Salem’s many colorful street artists and launched a campaign around riding Salem’s public transit.
“In every aspect of marketing, there is always an opportunity to remove obstacles. We answer business and customer service challenges.”
Analyzing the problems that arise along your customer journey is a great way to inspire useful marketing content and improve your metrics.
“When you have millions of eyeballs, every small obstacle to conversion can mean the loss of thousands of orders. A really small example: a brochure that has been distributed to coaches for years, intended as a trinity and uploaded as a PDF. Who wants to read an upside down PDF?”
If you’re not sure what your audience is following, I bet your sales and CS teams have a clue. And you’ll be her new best friend if you ask her.
Lesson 3: Let your audience tell you who they are.
“When I worked in e-commerce, we focused on people like The Bestie or The Bird Lover or The Sweary Friend.” These hyper-specific profiles made our marketing feel like we were talking to one person at a time.’”
The concept of specific personas may not be new, but Destination Salem elevates it to an art form. Faced with the challenge of a very broad audience with very diverse interests, Judge and her team needed a way to speak to many different people very quickly.
So they came up with one 90s CosmoQuiz style This sorts you into people like cultural connoisseur or epicurean explorer.
“For example, our largest group are those we call ‘Muggles Seeking Magic’.” They are neither part of modern witch culture nor history buffs, but they are looking for tarot, aura photos and magic shops.”
The quiz then offers viewers personalized suggestions and the opportunity to create a customized itinerary. But it also serves as a data collection tool, allowing Judge to better understand who visits Salem and why.
“It’s about starting with the widest roof and then pointing them to the places that are best for them.”
And if you’re burning with curiosity, I’m an Atlas Obscura enthusiast.
Lingering questions
Today’s question
Every leader needs to justify marketing and brand investments with hard numbers. How do you functionally bridge the gap between creative, intangible brand value and tangible financial results, and how do you justify this brand investment to key stakeholders? — Katie Miserany, Chief Communications Officer and SVP of Marketing, SurveyMonkey
Today’s answer
Judge says: In destination marketing, our work moves between numbers and imagination. We’re here to increase economic value for residents and small businesses, so we measure everything: visits, spending, seasonality, excise taxes.
But we get there by creating a bit of imagination. People don’t come to us for the dates; They visit because they have been drawn into a story about a place. Our creative work builds this story, and when it works, you can see it in the numbers below.
Next week’s question
Judge asks: What does your team do out of pure love for the user – not metrics, not growth, just because it feels right?
