airbnb differentiation strategy

In summary, the invitation for new hosts is carefully crafted and personalised to give the best possible experience for a new host. If they were a service business, they would target [city name] + [service A] and then [city name] + [service B] and so on.. Given that most of their pitch to consumers is to experience a location like a local, it seems like a very simple and logical step to offer paid activities provided by local hosts. Users are engaged and enticed to keep following up friends who havent joined the platform. This makes sense when you refer to data that was shared by the company towards the end of 2018, where they predicted which Australian locations would be the top 10 trending destinations for 2019 (based on internal data for bookings made in 2017 vs. 2018). When we scroll down the page, we see the instructions for the process. Dont go to Paris, dont tour Paris, and dont do Paris. Directly beneath the fold youll find 3 simple options to help navigate to what youre looking for if you would rather narrow it down before starting your search. The booking form stands out the most, and with good reason its the quickest way for them to get information about what the user is looking for, in order to personalise their experience. We know customer-advocacy is a big part of their success with referrals, but how does Airbnb nurture a community that can get users to not only invite friends to the platform via sharing referral links, but also help existing users and in turn new users via a dedicated community forum? Key Differences. What has Airbnb done well? By creating a hyper-local section of the community pages, Airbnb have reduced the clutter on the main section, while also building a community within the community. But as a marketer, you never want to discount the impact of SEO and keywords. They famously did things that didnt scale and then growth hacked solutions so that they did. Lacking a strong organic search strategy and missing fundamental CRO elements: Airbnb is not activity driving organic traffic to the stories nor converting any readers which may land here. So how do Airbnb ensure that hosts are comfortable enough to rent out their property, and continue to do so? Ita a classic website feature that not enough businesses make the most of in my opinion. Its the chance to meet the locals, experience the markets, and find the non-touristy places. The blog doesnt follow a set template for articles and there are several broad categories such as Wanderlust and Hospitality. Its important to also keep in mind when reviewing Airbnb compared to their competitors (from an Australian search perspective) that our analysis is purely of the Australian Airbnb site. And not every Airbnb experience Ive heard about is an overwhelmingly positive one. Airbnb's new . As we can see, there are community discussions categorised into Top, Recent & Unanswered. If they were, its probably not the best look for Airbnb. And while many businesses have been created that rent out properties on Airbnb, there are still a significant number of properties where the host still lives there. Once you press the link, you get to this screen. Airbnb was born. Alongside their image-based content, Airbnb do share some video posts. This format allows you to take up as much real estate as possible on a persons Feed. Certainly not at the expense of anything else that was already there. Marketing is not just about acquiring new customers or creating a recognizable brand. By creating evergreen content including short articles, in-depth guides and explainer videos, which speak to all stages of the funnel, the blog would have a clear value and focus. Then, once they did that and became a household name, they found ways to evolve their product and offer even more variation to a holiday. "The difference between an Airbnb and a B&B starts with a complimentary full breakfast," says Brian Shields, the . The report also comprises discussions of Airbnb marketing strategy, ecosystem and addresses issues of corporate social responsibility. To understand how Airbnb referrals work, we will be diving into the core areas of Design Experience, Psychology & Measurement/Testing of building a refer-a-friend system that grows awareness and drives more bookings and sales. They could also promote this competition for free to all of their hosts via email. The company produced an event in Seoul, Korea, that celebrated beautifying Airbnb spaces with terrariums. Airbnb stock has jumped . When sharing links to their Facebook Page, its hard to tell whether or not they are tracking anything other than clicks on these. Ive seen/heard of some properties that havent been kept very well, are lacking basic holiday features, or dont look very good. Integrated low-cost differentiation - competing by using both low cost and differentiation. This is a part of the site I really like and also find quite interesting. The bane of most customer supports existence is the simple to answer questions, and if people dont take a lot of interest in reading FAQs then having other users answer those questions is a double win. The plan provides an analysis and evaluation of Airbnb by reviewing the company's strategic management, profitability and market competitiveness. In addition, I found it interesting to see the similarities in style between this section of the Airbnb website and popular travel site TripAdvisor. Ideally, each of these three elements should be optimized for differentiation. Or are they simply testing based on my previous app behaviour? Once a user completes a booking, Airbnb use the confirmation email to increase the value of this customer or transaction in two ways: Referrals are typically one of the most reliable sources of new customers. Retarget products to people who have visited your website or app. They also seem to have this automated, as they share many of the exact same photos and captions on Twitter posts as they do on Facebook. The summary section is helpful, though it surprises me that it cant be used as an option when filtering search results. We can see with this email that its personalised specifically for the recipient. Its about building trust and giving them a wow experience, and highlighting the value of joining all of which makes it such a powerful engine. Lets firstly take a look at the layout of the Refer Hosts Page. By offering more information and support, they will attract, convert and retain more home and experience hosts on their platform. This will help spur users once they get a couple of referrals to keep getting more users signed up if they want more credit. This move will enable professional hospitality companieslike small, independent boutique hotelsto have a place on the platform. In fact, when they do charge, they actually review and suggest which pictures you go with for maximum impact. Plus, the more they read/talk about it, the more theyre thinking about it, which should lead to less churn. But that doesnt mean I would use it at all costs. For example, when they share an image separately instead of using the Link Preview option, I see this as counterproductive to the objective at hand, which is to drive people to a website, and Link Previews have been created by Facebook to provide Page owners with the easiest, most conversion-focused way of doing this. It was the underlying message behind Airbnb's marketing campaign Don't Go There . Personally, I dont email my friends often, especially at scale, so having these two options makes it feel easy just to share via these channels where I talk to my friends all the time. Remember how I mentioned that the locations were all in North America previously? But the following examples illustrate not only how they market their services, but represent a conscious expression of who they are. In the case of Airbnb, the host side is receiving a subsidy. The fact that your friend or recipient receives credit when signing up (in this case $76), it doesnt feel as if the user is taking advantage of the situation or the recipient feeling used. This can be invaluable content for someone who doesnt know much about their destination, especially when Airbnbs premise is that they want you to live like a local. Yes theyre easy to use, but it actually seems a bit lazy. Check!). From Afhrefs top pages function, we can see that a small amount of monthly traffic is coming from branded organic keyword rankings with content built out to answer branded queries. We are committed to helping people belong no matter where they are in the world and strongly believe that everyone should have the right to marry the person they love. For certain links that they share, I think this strategy works quite well. After I decide to learn more, I come to this landing page specifically personalised to me and, more impressively, my location. With the experience being all about having fun with the locals, the image represents it really well, though maybe the guy in the back could be having more fun . As we can see on the community portal page, the community centre is broken down into 3 core pillars: The primary focus for this content pillar is helping those who are hosts or potential hosts to connect with other hosts, share stories, ask for advice, and get updates from the Airbnb team. All of the personalised options are based in Los Angeles, the location of my last booking (and searches) with Airbnb. It doesnt tell me anything about me or why Id enjoy it, its just a factual statement. And think about it for a second would you share referrals like this via email? From these posts, its clearer what kind of things people ask in the local community. I believe their inclusion of the Superhost is to give the post added credibility, as Superhosts have an average user rating of 4.8 or more out of 5. Its a great way to incentivise. The short answer is yes, but heres why. To add to this, they can also follow the user around on a range of different placements News Feed on mobile & desktop, Instagram, Audience Network so Id say having Automatic Placements set for this campaign would be a must to ensure they are everywhere that their audiences are. This shows me that Airbnb have done very well to control the amount of posts that dont ask the same question. Airbnb understands that most travellers care about location. As Chloe explained in our review of Xeros marketing strategy, its important to run an SEO keyword gap analysis to know: This traction is reflected in the keyword gap analysis report when comparing the terms Booking.com and Wotif.com are ranking on page 1 of Google for, which Airbnb are not. Today, on any given night, 200,000 travelers are staying in private rooms around the world thanks to arrangements made through Airbnb's online platform. Its between them, Netflix and Amazon really, isnt it? Having this content ensures retention by keeping hosts engaged with other users of the platform. Thank you for amazing post, Your email address will not be published. What is also interesting as an observation is the amount of posts that date back almost 2 years ago. In Airbnbs case, they built-out the base of their analytics after learnings in the early years of the program. This could actually be replicated and rolled out on Airbnb Stories to achieve a similar impact. A request for more information can be made by contacting the host. Next, lets take a look at the experiences. (A) Cost leadership - When the competitive advantage of . If you want a growth strategy that leads the way in your industry, find out how Webprofits can help you transform your digital marketing. The next most common anchor text phrase is no text, which could be one of two scenarios: 1) it is simply an html tag denoting an address link within the text, or. Competitor spend, for example terms like home stayz tasmania and homeaway melbourne, appears to be very small less than 1% or 2% from my calculations. I expect theyre on Twitter simply as a way of ensuring they still have visibility on a channel where someof their customers are (even if its not in big numbers). These audiences can be great for honing in on your audience targeting later down the track. A successful referral process is a simple one, so summing it up in 3 small sections makes it easy for the user to understand, which entices them to go through it. CEO Brian Chesky has pledged to hold an IPO for the 10-year-old company before 2020 when some employee stock grants expire. Great read! Its no secret that most travellers appreciate a good story. Getting users to advocate and tell the story of Airbnb was particularly crucial in getting it right in the early stages of Airbnb, as mentioned earlier. This type of strategy will always have an expiry date. Whether its personalised or not, I think theres room for improvement when it comes to Airbnbs home page. But that wont be enough, theyll need a comprehensive backlink strategy to appear authoritative and rank for the relevant keywords. Meanwhile, the hosts are all rated 4.8 or above. In addition, they offer more information about becoming a host. I think this is a clear missed opportunity for them to better engage with their audiences in a more personalised way. The fact that Airbnb have this content at all is a testament to their commitment of giving their users the feeling of living somewhere rather than visiting it. What is Airbnb generic strategy? Its clear what Airbnb want the users attention to focus on. Lets take a look at Melbourne, for example. Theyve used a custom link shortener for a number of years now (http://abnb.co) which usually provides you with the option to track who is clicking on the link, but thats it. This is an interesting observation as I havent as of yet successfully referred a host, so this is possibly a strategy to help me take an action. For such a competitive space, Airbnb is considered one of the more competitive players. Their methods are not unique to them, and with a bit of strategy you too can reap the benefits of their successes. High level of technology integration into various business processes. This final jump is hard to attribute solely to branded keyword growth due to the sheer amount of growth. Do you remember these designs? In order to normalize the behavior of staying strangers's homes and to host unknowned people, Airbnb put efforts in conveying the content of truthful experience to the public through their storytelling platforms (Midenhall, 2015). A platform business model can be defined as a business model that focuses on helping to facilitate interactions across a large number of participants[2] In case of Airbnb, participants are host who offer their properties or organize experiences for guests and travellers who use their services. To successfully pull this off, some differentiation strategy education needs to take place. The examples weve highlighted here show how Airbnb convey their values in order to resonate with an audience who also have strong values that inform their purchasing decisions. However, theres not much to be gleaned from it for most businesses to be able to action, so well leave the home page review there for now. The only assumption we have is that its more effective in terms of conversions for Airbnb. Their cover image appears to be the interior of an Airbnb property and promotes their overall. By listing the properties of ordinary people, they set themselves apart by offering a different experience to travellers. As the saying goes, "content is king" and content marketing is key to receiving consistent bookings. Top Contributors are consistent inside the 3 core content pillar pages, which we will go into detail further below. *Numbers are accurate at the time of writing. These business strategies, based on Airbnb marketing mix, help the brand succeed in the market. My favourite example is how they leveraged Craigslist to drive traffic and listings on their own site. This option currently isnt available on mobile. Ive done a fair bit of travelling in my time and I absolutely HATE it when people say theyve done a certain location. In the time that Ive been analysing Airbnbs Facebook Page for this case study, through checking the Ads Library tool Ive been able to see that theyve advertised all of their most recent Page posts. Idea to save money for your next trip: use Airbnb. You could argue as to why Airbnb havent made referring hosts even more prominent on the page due to the importance of making sure demand doesnt outweigh supply. . However, we do see the option of being given other ways to share once we press the Share button next to Copy. So, what better way to advertise the product than those who have experienced the platform? Design is in our DNA and it's embedded in everything . Airbnb first launched their referral features in 2011, and below is the original look and feel. The prime generic strategies applied by Airbnb is the mixture of differentiation and cost. thx! Besides the basic cost savings, the most inviting factor of Airbnb, there are many reasons why Airbnb is better than a hotel: Airbnbs often come with a kitchen so besides saving money . In all seriousness, when the emails are in and ready to send, Im now motivated as a user to easily share this with my friends or anyone whom I want to receive an invitation to join. So, based on the same principles as inviting guests, what does the recipient receive this time if theyre invited to become a host? They began offering their customers ways to specifically experience life as a local, as well as sleep like one. Ive looked at Sydney. Airbnb were looking for those who wanted to be a traveller, not a tourist, and for this audience there is one fundamental ingredient: authenticity. For the people who havent decided where specifically in a city they want to stay, Airbnb provide some more information about the location of the property. Speaking of stories, they use Instagram Stories really well. Cynics will say it comes down to price, and in a lot of instances theyre right. Im being highly pedantic but with the level of personalisation they go to elsewhere on the site (which Ill come to soon), Im holding them to a higher standard. This is clever by Airbnb. Airbnbs timeline is varied in terms of post content and types. This is an example of one of Airbnbs Superhost-themed posts. When we start a business or a new brand, it is essential to aim for a long-term payoff for all our efforts and investments A sustainable ROI. Based on Airbnbs amount of branded anchor text, they are in the safe zone, but should be conscious of the percentage skew when progressing with their backlick strategy in the future. Airbnb are using Instagram mainly to promote their listings, Superhosts & Experiences. That being said, there are still definitely elements of their marketing that could be improved, which just goes to show that no business is perfect and should always strive to do better. The three generic business strategies suggested by Michael Porter are : Cost Leadership strategy ( lower costs/broad target market), Differentiation strategy (product differentiation/broad target market) and Focus business strategies (lower cost or differentiation/narrow target market ). Users are now really motivated to send invites because they know the recipient gets amazing value. On the right, I can see the credit I currently have, and what I need to do in order to get more. The Airbnb business model is a multisided platform that connects travelers with hosts from all corners of the planet. Why would a traveller rather use Airbnb than Hotels.com, Expedia, Trivago, or the myriad of other websites available? Precisely speaking, the success of Airbnb leans on the variety of suppliers ranging from small rooms to A-listed buildings ( Airbnb, n.d.). 51% of the hosts practice multichannel distribution. Airbnb uses differentiation strategy by making a new business model and providing the service which differentiates them from competitors. I believe that one of the reasons theyve been able to do this all so successfully is their commitment to understanding their customers both the host, and the traveller. Its certainly now motivated me to help refer a host. You can imagine that it would be strange to see these posts in the Explore tips & tricks section. As previously stated, Airbnb understand the importance of maintaining a healthy supply of properties. If you like to travel, you've certainly heard of or used Airbnb's . So what happens when you share via Facebook or Whatsapp? Period. Build something of value for your customers that isnt easy to replicate Jason Fried, Founder of 37 Signals. This company is known for making changes to how it runs to benefit the business in the future. Prepare for your exams. I now know what to get mum for her 52nd birthday . 539,000 backlinks from approx. Someone without an account/not even a host can make a post. Sell Documents . How cool is that? This marketing case study on Airbnb focuses on explaining the 4Ps of the marketing mix, the marketing strategy it undertakes to market itself and its digital presence. So for example, if they are a travel site, they would target all the destinations they service and also add landing pages for [destination sub name] + [activity name] and sometimes even go beyond that.

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