Targeting the consideration phase of the customer journey, the stories leave readers daydreaming about how their life could be changed from their next Airbnb. This is a great way to achieve higher ad rank by ensuring great alignment between your ad copy, landing page experience and most importantly, the users search query. This is an awesome reception. Any posts shared to the Page by Facebook users are usually answered within a matter of hours, and they also do a great job of replying to feedback in the comments section on their posts. Its not as easy as you think. Although the event was not quite as successful as they hoped, the company did gain a valuable insight. Ill bring them up next to each other so its easier to see. Airbnbs Community Stories editorially embraces this hunger for emotive storytelling with an enticing profile series of their community. So how do Airbnb ensure that hosts are comfortable enough to rent out their property, and continue to do so? Every day, Hosts offer unique stays and experiences that make it possible for guests to connect with . Read on to discover the essential elements of an Airbnb . For Airbnb, its been about continuous discovery, testing and optimising of what is known as one of the worlds famous & very effective referral engines. All of the personalised options are based in Los Angeles, the location of my last booking (and searches) with Airbnb. Airbnb makes it very evident what they want the user to take an action by having the CTA button in red across ALL their key pages & channels, including email & in-app. I can see Airbnb has also switched on the Page option Prompt people to send messages this automatically opens a Messenger chat window when a user visits the Page on desktop. 2) Strategic resources Their core competencies is providing unique travel experience, it's bringing people together and providing a space for rent in an apartment rather than a simple hotel. The pending view is definitely a smart feature to include. The button stands out in red with a white background, and the CTA search explains very clearly whats going to happen when I click on it. I think one great way of doing this is by sharing content that is unique and not the same content that youve previously shared on your Facebook Page or Instagram feed. Either way, the content is highly relevant to the search term and the location which certainly cant hurt. SERPSTAT recommends the following amount of anchor text percentages not be exceeded for best link results without incurring a Google penalty for spammy link tactics. For the example of byron bay accommodation, Brendan found that Airbnb are bidding to be in either position 1 or position 2 of ads for related search terms, both branded and generic, and are receiving an estimated 2,326 visits per month to their ad. However, I think it addresses & resonates with what other hosts may or potentially do experience in their respective locations which gives value to the reader. Our Airbnb 2022 predictions: The "Live Anywhere" theme has crept up into Airbnb's announcements since 2020. Certainly not at the expense of anything else that was already there. Airbnb Experiences are activities designed and led by inspiring locals. Simple and straight to the point, and only one action is required. Externally, we would presume any traffic is driven through organic search, email traffic, and through social promotion. This period of updates was named the Maccabee Update by Search Engine Roundtables Barry Schwartz, and according to industry experts was focused around User Experience and impactful keyword permutations. Again, as a normal user it really is, but as marketers or anyone working in technology, we can appreciate there is a lot more work that goes behind the scenes. Having these two large social channels Facebook Messenger & Whatsapp helps users easily share the link with their friends, and also gives them the ability to share their personalised link through group messaging & more. Forget the tourist menu pedalling another overpriced pizza margherita, wouldnt you rather taste nonnas homemade pecorino stuffed ravioli while her son Francesco tells you comedic tales about growing up in Sardinia? Netflix has exclusive content, Airbnb has exclusive homes, and Cameo offers access to a su In a previous role at a start-up it was very common to hear the question How do Airbnb do it? when looking at implementing a website change or a new tactic. When compared with Booking.com, its evident who the backlink winner is: Booking.com had close to 100,000 Referring Domains pointing to their website in 2013, while Airbnb has yet to reach the 7,000 Referring Domain mark. 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. In December 2017, Australia passed legislation to recognize same sex marriage, following a survey in which more than 60% of respondents voiced support for it. When you share the direct link, you get this landing page. So what happens next? To make a booking, you generally need to take the following steps: Open the Airbnb website. Every home is verified through in-person quality inspection to ensure quality and design. To give you some context, I booked an Airbnb a few months ago for a trip to L.A, so it makes sense that it appears as the first tile. Whats worked to their advantage is the creativity they have shown in getting users to engage with their stories and to keep clicking through. In addition, even if the content was promoted to an audience in order to drive traffic from a social or email platform (which I presume is the primary source of traffic currently), the lack of CRO elements on the pages means theres no further action encouraged to be taken, such as moving users from consideration to a sale. Airbnb recognise some travel credit associated with my account and insert this into the email to remind me. The next best-performing page is Melbourne, Australia with 1.9% of the total traffic, and 479 ranked keywords. What Airbnb have done well is how easy they make it to Invite Friends or Invite Hosts via Desktop & Mobile application. Why would the user want to send this in the first place? In fact, back in 2011 they even paid for hosts to have professional photographs taken of their properties. Email Marketing: How do Airbnb use email to communicate with prospective and existing customers to drive new and repeat usage of the platform? As I go down the page, I see what the hot discussion topics are at the time in the worldwide community. An important UX feature that is part of these pages is that anyone can Start a Conversation. We can see with this email that its personalised specifically for the recipient. While booking monthly stays on Airbnb has been possible . For the most part, Airbnb use a hero image that message-matches the location the user is interested in visiting: However, this is not the case for all location landing pages. Offline: What activity do they do outside of digital to drive growth? As the pages are predominantly image-based, they are missing out on opportunities to rank on page #1 and drive traffic for more location-based keywords. This is why the historical number of backlinks is shown as 2,650,000. Not all businesses are lucky enough to have a recognisable logo that they can use as their Page profile picture but, as a globally-renowned brand, Airbnb have that privilege. there is limited differentiation found among the companies' core business models. Whether your focus is B2B or B2C, tackling this trend by placing emphasis on creating a more seamless and personalised offering will be a vehicle for growing sales and boosting margins. SEO: How do Airbnb ensure they appear in relevant search results to drive organic traffic to the site? The number of views the property has had recently is a ploy at making it seem scarce, and therefore more desirable. Differentiation Strategy Unique features that increase value of goods and services Consumers are willing to pay a higher price. These business strategies, based on Airbnb marketing mix, help the brand succeed in the market. Within days, Airbnb introduced a Host Guarantee that every property would be insured up to USD$50,000 for any damage incurred by guests. The rest of it is then up to the host to make sure they have a profile that people feel they can connect to so that they want to stay there. It is also worth noting that paid search is capturing one website visitor for every two visitors captured from organic search in my experience, this is fairly typical of late-stage high growth companies that operate larger websites. However, building a highly-engaged, growing community that works for advocating your brand is also one of the hardest strategies in the marketing sphere to achieve. Recommendations could also be based on the style of home, studio apartment versus family friendly options, or what amenities are associated with my previous bookings, for example, am I always booking places that have wifi or a pool. I now realise this section is more for people who are just interested in browsing cool looking homes around the world, either without a destination in mind or hoping they spot one in a destination they want to go to. However, they are easily imitable and do not offer strong differentiation for Airbnb in the long term. There is an inconsistent breadcrumb structure implemented on the Airbnb website, which could also be impacting the websites organic performance. While there is a plethora of content-based information present on the Airbnb website, as well as on external subdomains owned by Airbnb, Im going to focus on the key 4 areas I identified as providing the greatest value to their online strategy, and offer insights you can apply to your own campaigns. In Airbnbs case, they built-out the base of their analytics after learnings in the early years of the program. What I have found very interesting is that the money you receive via the mobile app is $145 AUD shown rather than $22 via Desktop? This may explain why Airbnb saw a huge bump not necessarily because they arent actioning the above strategies (because they are) but rather that in comparison to their competitors like Booking.com and Wotif.com the amount of pages they have are significantly less. Not only did they understand what their customers wanted, they created the desire in the first place! This again set the standard for 2 years of fairly consistent growth, until a further growth spurt of 106% from 884,267 visitors in Jan 2018 to 1,829,206 visitors in Feb 2018. Airbnb is far more than a platform to find inexpensive hotel accommodations. Nothing quite catches the eye and so Im not 100% sure what the obvious step is to do next. 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. Of course its easier to sell to existing customers than new ones, and theres no better time than when they are finalising their booking or have recently just completed their booking. Airbnb isnt a place where you book hotels (even though you can). Airbnb has a high rate of innovation which is the leading reason for how their services have adopted the differentiation strategy. It was the underlying message behind Airbnb's marketing campaign Don't Go There . Users can then explore top answers that may result in high engagement for various reasons (e.g. To sign up as a host compared to being a guest, theres a lot more involved in terms of trying to convert them. However, to some extent it has also used cost leadership. Now, it makes sense why some threads seem large with the amount of comments. Coca-Cola, for example, currently enjoys a profit margin of approximately 33 . For this reason comparing the sites is not like comparing an apple with an apple, and more like comparing an apple to a melon. Theres definitely a lot here we can learn from Airbnb. Theres a thirst for it; local lifestyles, customs and culture, transformative moments. This might help though: this is slightly contradictory, as they do sometimes share the @ username of the Instagram account for the property (if the owner has one). If it is, I like the strategy. This action takes them beyond the scope of a simple accommodation booking tour, however does not quite match the integrations available through main competitors Booking.com or Wotif.com, who offer the following different features: Booking.com also has arrangements with a number of other services to assist the user with making this a one-stop shop, such as partnering with restaurant reservation services. Clicking the show all link at the bottom takes me to a new page that explains that these are actually the top rated homes around the world. A great example is their multi-national Share a Coke campaign, in which they printed out cans and bottles with the 250 most popular names in each country. The pricing strategy used by professionals. 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. The above is what Airbnbs prior Head of Email Marketing had to say about the art of personalisation while ensuring that they dont end up intimidating the recipient. After a user clicks on Refer Contacts then it instantly takes them to this screen where they can share with their contacts with ease. Airbnb has turned me into a huge advocate by just connecting with my preferred way to travel. Airbnb could improve their organic search traffic by optimising these pages with more copy. In 2018, a Sensis social media report found that 19% of Australian social media users accessed Twitter this was compared to the 91% who had used Facebook. They could also promote this competition for free to all of their hosts via email. Ultimately, over time this has helped Airbnb. Sure, they can nurture better and convert more customers, but they needed a way to keep growing their revenue that isnt reliant on just one product. I love free money! One thing that is noticeable however is how low the engagement on this section is compared to the previous one. By reaching out beyond the LGBTQI+ community, Airbnb helped to create a dialogue that showed that Australians supported marriage equality by a wide margin. Now lets look at some examples of how Airbnb is using Instagram to promote their different offerings. We instantly see the value of sharing and when a host successfully joins, Earn $22 for every new host you refer. 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. The way you invite friends to the platform is on purpose very similar to how other platforms work. By creating resourceful content, tools, calculators, guides, unique data such as statistical information, videos etc, Airbnb gives other websites a reason to link to their website without having to allocate a huge portion of their marketing budget to hustling for links. As we predicted, it has now become a core pillar of Airbnb's strategy. By offering a guarantee on insurance they took away the biggest fear that their hosts (and potential hosts) have, ensuring that they feel comfortable renting out their property. 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. In a study conducted by KPMG, they found that alongside integrity from brands, personalisation is of key importance to Australian consumers when it comes to customer experience (CX). Trap 6 - Equating Market-Creating Strategies with Differentiation. Yes, hosts are charged 3%, but as Airbnb states on their website, this fee is to cover the cost o. Can earn up to $3,401 this month. In summary, the invitation for new hosts is carefully crafted and personalised to give the best possible experience for a new host. The focus is on the outstanding property and the equally beautiful backdrop. Launched in 2017, the award-winning campaign encouraged people to wear a black matte metal ring with a centimeter gap in the middle, and the words Until We All Belong inscribed on the underside. Ultimately, the main takeaway I have in terms of how Airbnbs messaging compares to competitors like Stayz and HomeAway is that Airbnb appears to be placing moreemphasis on pricing as a point of difference and more focus on their USPs in ad headlines, like 24/7 Customer Service and Free Cancellation Up To 48 Hrs or more emotional messaging like Dont Go There. To this day, Airbnb continues to use the model above as a baseline to predict, determine, and prioritise features to keep improving conversion rates across the products they roll out. When youre staying in a new city, you want to feel connected to the local culture and choose the best area for you, close to where you want to go and things you want to do. Both are discoverable in the footer of their main site: Blog and Airbnb Citizen. Always thinking ahead, Chloe is interested in transformational changes to businesses and how relevant content and targeted messaging can catalyse high-level goals. Having all of the negative posts in their own section keeps them out of the minds of users who have been having a good experience. Its humans sharing, connecting, and helping each other to make memories and enjoyable experiences. The vision statement of a company goes hand in hand with the mission statement. In New York, the term "hotel" includes hotels, motels . It was just visible above the fold, but it didnt need to be completely visible. Theres no form with dates or number of guests like there was previously, so theres an extra step no matter what. In this case, Airbnb vision statement is all about leaving a memorable reputation at a global level. In website talk, the breadcrumb structure of a website does the same thing it allows Googles spiders to find their way back to the most important page, whether that be the homepage, the category page of the product being viewed (eCommerce), or another primary page. The use of the word unique is what I find particularly interesting they could have gone with a number of different adjectives that could be used to describe a home. Its a clear design, and the use of their primary colour stands out against the white background. To achieve this, theyve either used Dynamic Keyword Insertion or have closely tailored ad groups that have strong alignment between keywords and ads. Winner, winner, chicken dinner! Airbnb created a new type of traveller through their product in 2006, and since then have developed that persona further and grown the market. This needs to be done in the right way though, as it still needs to come across as authentic. Airbnb was born in 2007 when two Hosts welcomed three guests to their San Francisco home, and has since grown to over 4 million Hosts who have welcomed more than 1 billion guest arrivals in almost every country across the globe. Since then, theyve evolved multiple times; continuously improving their website and user interface, adding new features, creating new products, expanding to new markets, and trying a range of different tactics to drive the growth of their business. Thanks for this! Ive seen/heard of some properties that havent been kept very well, are lacking basic holiday features, or dont look very good. To successfully pull this off, some differentiation strategy education needs to take place. You can see another variation of this email here. Lets break this down a little more. The majority of keywords ranking on page 1 for the Airbnb website are branded, with smaller volume locations ranking for generic [location] accommodation terms. Its often looked at by businesses and startups (usually ones that claim to be The Airbnb of), and with good reason. In particular, note the header and sub header. This special feature that Airbnb have included has the ability to import contacts via Gmail, Yahoo or Outlook with ease (Ive done this before and its great!). Web. Cultivating community and maintaining trust among stakeholders is one of the solid bases of Airbnb competitive advantage. Visual content is the holy grail of authenticity and shows the extent that brands should be willing to go when selling to their audience. But there are plenty of properties on Airbnb that are more expensive than hotels and still get booked out, so what else is there? Luckily they have an extensive content catalogue which they can use to drive these backlinks but need to be more aggressive in promoting it, and perhaps create additional resources that are more backlink-friendly to really succeed in organic search. Ill be looking at specifics here and sharing how they use personalisation to deliver the best experience. In fact, it is the eventual outcome of the strategies of the mission statement, which corresponds to the future achievements the business wants to be associated with. This is strategic corporate giving at its best. 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. When looking at their frequency of posting, I think theyve taken the right approach. Innovation is at the core of how we operate at Webprofits, always looking for a smarter + better way of helping our clients drive record-breaking growth through digital marketing. Heres a summary of each: A well-rounded and entrepreneurial individual with more than 10 years experience in working with and launching startups, Tam is skilled at managing multiple products simultaneously. One thing I did notice in my research is that many of the listings they share in posts do not feature people (see Feed example above) theres lots of empty chairs, empty beds, and generally untouched settings. Signing up can take a bit of time. Whether its personalised or not, I think theres room for improvement when it comes to Airbnbs home page. Meanwhile, the hosts are all rated 4.8 or above. I always learn new things about digital marketing and business in general and always look forward to studying these case studies. Prepare for your exams. While its important to speak from an authoritative angle through blog content, mixing it up with Q&A styled posts shows that community members are heavily involved in the conversation, illuminating Airbnbs core growth strategies around encouraging consumer advocacy. In addition, I found it interesting to see the similarities in style between this section of the Airbnb website and popular travel site TripAdvisor. 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airbnb differentiation strategy