If you think it’s too much to balance your content calendar and Monday meetings, consider whether you also need to be a mecca for superstitions, literal witchcraft trials, and magic for millions.
But it’s not all black cats and broomsticks. Today’s master oversees year-round tourism marketing for one of America’s oldest and most historically rich cities.
Ashley Judge
Executive Director, Manzil Saleem
- Fun Fact: The Ashleys live on the same street as the famous Russo Mansion (aka Alison’s house). Hocus Pocus) and gives 1,500 pieces of candy Every Halloween!
- Claim to Fame: Before Manzil Maqsood Saleem, he bootstrapped an e-commerce gift shop named Always with $10 million in annual sales.
Lesson 1: “Remember Us?” No one is offended?
As things start to look spooooky in SEO and social marketing, Ashley Judge is having awfully good success with owned media.
“Which doesn’t feel sexy in 2025, but it is,” says Judge. (Note to self: sexy marketing channel outfit?) “Algorithms change, but emails let us tell our stories and connect with our people.”
The key, she says, is finding the right mindset. “It is No A hard sell pitch. It’s just, ‘Hey! Do we remember? “
To illustrate this point, imagine joining the email list for a local arcade. If your inbox is constantly full of ads, you’re about to send them straight to spam hell. But if they just send a little hello and maybe some free tokens…
“If it’s a day you don’t want to go to an arcade, you just don’t go to an arcade. But you’re unlikely to be offended by the ‘Hi! Do we remember? ‘ campaign.“
“And then, one day, it’s Tuesday and you’re bored and you get an email from the arcade, so you go in. But if you’re not emailing them, that might not happen.”
To explore this mindset, Judge recommends imagining you’re texting a friend.
“If I took this screenshot and sent it to a friend, what would be the text with it? It would be so weird if they got a text from Ashley saying ‘It’s in now!’ But my friends aren’t going to block me if I say, ‘Wouldn’t that be fun?’
Lesson 2: Marketing is breaking down barriers.
What would you do if you were expecting over 1 million visitors, but only 3,000 parking spaces were available?
Personally, I would curl up in a ball and cry. But the judge had a better idea: convince them to take the train. So he scouted a dozen of Salem’s colorful street performers and built a campaign around riding Salem’s public transportation.
“In every aspect of marketing, there is always an opportunity to overcome obstacles. We are responding to business and customer service challenges.“
Photo credit: Jessica
Analyzing the problems with your customer journey is a great way to inspire useful marketing content and boost your metrics.
“When you have millions of eyeballs, a small hitch in conversion can mean the loss of thousands of orders. A really small example: a leaflet that has been distributed to motor coaches for years, meant to be a small one, uploaded as a PDF. Who wants to read reverse PDF?
If you’re not sure what makes your audience tick, I bet your sales and CS teams have a clue. And if you ask them out, you’ll be their new best friend.
Lesson 3: Tell your audience who they are.
“When I worked in e-commerce, we focused on personas like ‘The Beastie,’ or ‘The Bird Lover,’ or ‘The Kind of Friend.’ These very specific profiles made our marketing feel like you were talking to one person at a time.’
Now, specific personalities as a concept may not be new, but Destination Salem elevates it to an artform. Faced with the challenge of a very broad audience with very diverse interests, Judge and his team needed a way to speak to many different people very quickly.
So they did magic The ’90s CosmoA style quiz that sorts you into personas like a cultural connoisseur or an epicurean explorer.
“For example, our largest group is what we call ‘Muggles in pursuit of magic.’ They’re not part of modern wizarding culture, nor are they history buffs, but they’re looking for tarot, aura images and spell shops.
The quiz then offers viewers personalized suggestions and the opportunity to create a custom itinerary. But it also doubles as a data-gathering tool, allowing Judge to better understand who is visiting Salem and why.
“It’s about starting with a broader umbrella, and then pointing them to the places that are best for them.”
And, if you’re burning with curiosity, I’m a fan of Atlas Ozbakura.
Lingering questions
Today’s question
Every leader must justify marketing and brand investments with hard numbers. How do you bridge the gap between creative, intangible brand value and tangible financial results, and how do you justify that brand investment to key stakeholders? – Katie Mesrani, Chief Communications Officer and SVP of Marketing, Survey Mansi
Today’s answer
Judge says: In destination marketing, our work sits between numbers and imagination. We’re here to drive economic value for residents and small businesses, so we measure everything: visits, spending, seasonality, excise taxes.
But the way we get there is by creating a little fantasy. People don’t go because of statistics. They visit because they are drawn into a story about a place. Our creative work builds that story, and when it works, you can see it in the numbers that follow.
Next week’s question
The judge asks: What is your team doing purely out of love for the user – not metrics, not growth, just because it feels right?
