Digital Campaign

Create a digital campaign to convince tourists to visit the middle of Nebraska in what is traditionally the second coldest month of the year. Kearney Visitors Bureau helps visitors to Kearney, Nebraska, find events, restaurants, lodging, and things to do. While over 600,000 Sandhill Cranes migrate along the Platte River near Kearney each year, outside of extreme birders, most of the states surrounding Nebraska, hardly took notice. Kearney decided they needed to change in 2018 and made a big push to attract out-of-state residents to come to Nebraska, starting in the middle of February.

We were tasked to create awareness of the crane migration to non-avid birders and make it attractive to drive at least four hours, spend the night in Kearney, and wake up around 5 a.m. to see these birds in person. Kearney’s goal was to receive 100 birding brochure requests and increase their lodging tax by 2% compared to 2017.

We ran Facebook and Instagram ads to feature articles in the Smithsonian, National Geographic, and Wall Street Journal. We retargeted people who read the articles to Sandhill Cranes videos on Facebook and Instagram, to guest blogger’s posts on the Kearney Visitors Bureau website, and more details and testimonials. We were able to control eight points of contact through Facebook and Instagram, giving our targets a plethora of education and influencing their decision to book a trip.

Video on Visit Kearney Youtube channel.

Video on the Nebraska Tourism Youtube channel.

During this four-month promotion, the Kearney Visitors Bureau received over 291 brochure requests – nearly tripling our goal. Buffalo County, of which Kearney is the county seat, saw a lodging tax increase of over 10% during this period — five times our goal. It was the most significant increase in lodging tax revenue the area had seen in over a decade.

The 2018 Kearney Birding Campaign won a Prism Award for Paid Social Media – Small Business at the 2019 Lincoln AMA Prism Awards.