Visit Galena: Amplifying the quiet season with Galena Country

The setup

Charmed by Galena: Turning off-peak into prime time

Goat hiking, spoon carving, and wine tastings. You’ll find them all about three hours northwest of Chicago in Galena Country, a picturesque grouping of 11 small towns. Despite boasting a rich history, unique offerings, and distinctive character, the area faced challenges in awareness and perception.

When Galena Country approached Envisionit, they also faced a common pain in the world of destination marketing—boosting visitation during their off-peak months of February to May. Positioned as a quaint escape in Illinois, their goal was clear: increase off-season visitation while capturing the attention of key markets, specifically Chicago.

With the goal of becoming the “second-best leisure destination in Illinois” and one of the best small-town experiences in the U.S., Galena Country needed a fresh creative and media strategy.

The solution

A charming solution: Captivating Chicago

Envisionit crafted a strategic out-of-home (OOH) advertising campaign that leveraged Galena’s unique charm. By integrating witty standalone copy with QR code engagement, they focused on maximizing visibility and interaction in key high-traffic areas. The campaign utilized Chicago’s bustling transportation hubs to charm potential visitors during their routine commutes.

An aging visitor demographic and severe dips in off-season visitation called for a shift to capture new opportunities.

Based on the insight that the experiences available in Galena are best suited for kid-free travelers, we honed in on an approach that would resonate with both city dwellers seeking an escape, and parents longing for a grown-up getaway, a change from the usual hectic family trip.

The “Welcome to Charming” campaign serves as both an invitation and proclamation, declaring that the perfect escape is just a short drive away. “Charming” perfectly captures every offering in Galena Country, from shopping on the chain-free Main Street to taking antique tractor rides on a farm in nearby Elizabeth, IL. “Charming” is also flexible, ownable, relevant in every season, and embodies a feeling that its audience craves.

The strategy

Winning the audience one view at a time with strategically-placed charm

The strategic approach involved a two-wave campaign rollout, allowing for real-time optimizations based on initial feedback. Wave 1 focused on eye-catching text-only ads, achieving notable engagement. Wave 2 incorporated compelling visuals of Galena’s attractions, further enhancing public interest. This iterative approach ensured the campaign’s effectiveness and adaptability, engaging both local commuters and out-of-town visitors.

Our research and insights demonstrated that while other destinations in the region focused primarily on family travel, Galena had a more elevated offering—best suited for couples, friend getaways, and overnight/day trips.

As a drive-market only destination, Galena Country also wanted to find unique ways to expand their reach into key secondary markets.

Campaign objectives:

Expand awareness of Galena Country’s offerings
Boost off-season / repeat visitation
Drive growth in new markets and attract a younger audience

Conquest geo-targeting:
Recognizing that Galena isn’t competing with other Midwest leisure destinations like Lake Geneva, Wisconsin Dells, and Door County on “family product”, we chose a different approach. Instead of direct competition, we capitalized on the presence of parents at those destinations by geo-targeting waterparks and family attractions. Our aim was to offer a “vacation” in Galena as a way to recover from their hectic family trips.

Our strategic approach was deeply rooted in research, insights and analytics:

By conducting a competitive analysis we were able to map the white space for Galena in terms of their product offering and messaging.
Organic search research and social listening helped us align our creative and content to the interests of potential visitors to ensure we were effectively reaching and engaging with them.
Trends in media platforms informed our placements, for example we prioritized TikTok given its strong reach especially with a younger audience and leveraged interactive video as a visual way to inspire travel and drive content discovery.
Historical performance allowed us to take a data-driven approach for selecting markets, establishing baselines and setting growth goals.

We made a big splash in Chicago with our “Not Charming” meta campaign.

Galena is undoubtedly charming. However, many everyday environments and experiences, such as riding the subway or waiting for luggage, are far from it. By contrasting these “not charming” physical environments with the allure of Galena Country, we utilized a touch of mystery and contrast to spark interest.

This campaign focused on key locations within the Chicago metro area, including subway stations, train car takeovers, and airport baggage claims, using QR codes to guide curious audiences to dedicated landing pages. In its second phase, the campaign capitalizes on other “not charming” topics, such as tax season, to create further juxtaposition while expanding our reach into key secondary markets.In just a few months, the program has already demonstrated high engagement rates, with over 800 QR code scans, 1,500 landing page views, and an average session duration of 1 minute, 37 seconds.

The results

Engaging and expanding Galena’s reach—that’s charming

Expand awareness of Galena Country’s offerings

>90M paid media impressions garnered
87% of active users to site were new users
CTR’s well above industry benchmarks across paid channels
38% increase in website sessions, 52% increase in engaged sessions; 11% increase in engagement rate

Drive growth with new audiences and markets

3,500 paid TikTok followers gained; >25,000 paid TikTok engagements
Strong interest in our interactive digital units: 32.59 seconds average time on site (benchmark 19.3); 11.44% interaction rate (benchmark 1.0%); 3.04% CTR (benchmark 0.5%)
High engagement with Thrillist content article: 6,750+ unique readers; ~60 hours spend on article; ~10,000 clicks to website
47% of paid media impressions within new markets
25% of sessions generated from secondary markets

Boost off-season / repeat visitation

>7,000 newsletter sign-ups or guide downloads
7% YoY increase in short-term rental revenue
3x growth in demand nights vs key competitor
~14:1 ROI for paid media efforts focused on economic impact
52% of measured visitor spend came from primary target market

We are very pleased with the work that Envisionit delivers. Their creativity, attention to detail, and collaborative approach are exceptional. They craft engaging campaigns that capture the essence of our brand, and their data-driven decision-making helps optimize our efforts for maximum impact.

Kirsten Bell Strategic Marketing Director, Galena Country

90M+

Paid media impressions

25,000+

TikTok engagements

87%

of active site users were new

Key Takeaways

Wit Wins: The campaign’s success demonstrates that clever, contextually relevant copy can significantly boost engagement in OOH advertising.
Visual Impact: While text-only ads performed well, the addition of visuals dramatically increased engagement time, highlighting the power of imagery in destination marketing.
Strategic Placement: By targeting high-traffic areas like public transportation and airports, the campaign effectively reached both local commuters and potential out-of-town visitors.