airbnb differentiation strategy

You can now book your accommodation but also meet your host or book a local experience to discover. I cant imagine youd find much, if any, content on the Australian Twitter account which hasnt been shared to Facebook or Instagram already, but thats ok, as with only 10.8k Followers on Twitter and 19% of Aussies using it, I dont think Airbnb need to worry about creating unique content for this channel. The summary section is helpful, though it surprises me that it cant be used as an option when filtering search results. Trap 6 - Equating Market-Creating Strategies with Differentiation. Airbnbs timeline is varied in terms of post content and types. Above all, they are looking for a property (or experience) that suits them unique. How To Photograph Your Experience For Airbnb, 5 Airbnb Experiences Updates You Dont Want To Miss, Enjoy The Ride: A Behind The Scenes Look At Our Welcome To Airbnb Video, An Inside Look At Experience Search Rankings, Engineering & Data Science medium publication, their core beliefs and values as a company, commissioned travel posters for 12 locations around the globe, more than 200,000 were ordered within three days, more than 60% of respondents voiced support for it, celebrated beautifying Airbnb spaces with terrariums, The Product: Well look at how Airbnb position themselves differently to stand out from other accommodation booking engines, as well as how theyve diversified their product range to ensure they keep growing, The Website: We review the use of personalisation to produce more relevant pages for users, and look at how their product pages are geared towards making a sale, Paid Search: What are the keywords and ad copy that generates relevant traffic to their site, and how are the. If your business strength is that you have properties and people want properties, then thats what you should focus on. So why is Airbnb bidding on accommodation terms at all then? Who doesnt want more money for their holiday or accommodation, right? Theres even an image of the host to prove its a real person behind it all. Remember the days when the home page was a scrolling image with a big search bar? At Webprofits when weve split-tested using an image with a link in the copy versus a Link Preview, on average, the Link Preview prevails. Building upon this trust, Airbnb is one of the rare sharing economy companies that . Similarly to their video content, the posts which link back to their websites are often shared across their Global Facebook Pages, rather than being specific to that location. Looks pretty unique, wouldnt you say? Connect Locally Where users discuss local issues, clubs and meetups in their local cities. Its a very similar UI to the desktop platform which is done by design. Maximum rate each night: Under this . I think theres a lot of brands that could take a leaf out of Airbnbs book when it comes to community management. Building a community is one of the most powerful assets a company or brand can build. Overall, its a great channel if users or potential users are looking for extra information. Retarget products to people who have visited your website or app. 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. Jason began his career at Webprofits as an intern and six years later he is now one of our leading social media specialists, managing a number of our long-standing Australian Fluid clients. Listings make up a big chunk of Airbnbs Instagram content, and are clearly meant to evoke a sense of wanderlust in all those who stumble upon them. As you would expect for a site like Airbnb, the majority of their backlinks have been achieved through travel-related content, such as articles on a certain destination, links from travel-related companies, and links in media and forums. They utilise imagery well (especially with user generated content), and share articles regularly, but could be doing more on video given how much Facebook prioritises it in their algorithm. Some of the effective pricing strategies are: Maximum full rate strategy: Businesses follow competitors' pricing strategies. Users are now really motivated to send invites because they know the recipient gets amazing value. Each persona is spoken to in a way that focuses on the values & motivations for what will entice them to use the platform. We did note from our research that the keywords the Neighbourhoods section are appearing in top positions for are all relatively low volume searches, and not high volume opportunities that would assist Airbnb with greater growth. What is also interesting as an observation is the amount of posts that date back almost 2 years ago. Required fields are marked *. The homes are well designed, well maintained, and well equipped. The key things they provide: These all help put a user at ease and reduce friction when booking. For some locations, such as Phi Phi Islands, Airbnb are directing people to minimal navigation, shorter-form landing pages: From the landing page URL report, any URLs that contain /a/ are indicative of their shorter-form location landing pages, while /s/ is indicative of location website pages and Airbnb are actively using a combination of both for high-interest locations. Smart play Airbnb. You could argue, why does this matter to me? So how does the email import functionality work? It took me a moment to realise it, but that structure isnt a watch tower (maybe Ive been watching too much Game of Thrones), its a home. Airbnb business level strategies. When it comes down to an Airbnb vs. hotel, most people opt for an Airbnb because it's cheaper. 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. Airbnb have also gone down this route, creating an @AirbnbHelp account which is their go-to account for all customer service related issues. The stories, tips, and tricks all help to reinforce the positive feelings that hosts get as part of being part of the Airbnb community. Having this on the page again highlights to users that not only can you get credit by inviting your friends to use the platform to stay for accommodation, but also invite friends to host people to stay at their places. According to SimilarWeb, approximately 12% of Airbnb.com.aus total website traffic is via paid search. Technology has become a major differentiator in the 21st century and businesses that have leveraged the power of technology have grown faster than the others. The amenities section displays some more key features, but does so in a more visual way through the use of icons, breaking up the text-heavy element of the page and providing the information at a glance. . Airbnb has removed the search bar in the header and there arent any buttons or links to guide users to take another step. The more people you can share it with and sign up, the more travel credit. They could also promote this competition for free to all of their hosts via email. It keeps it consistent for the user to know where key pages are. How cool is that? So what happens when you share via Facebook or Whatsapp? But that doesnt mean I would use it at all costs. This feature makes it easy and thoroughly enjoyable for the user. 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. Developing content that will receive backlinks without your internal marketing team having to do any work should be the goal of every website but organic presence and your brand can have a huge impact on this, as people will not find your amazing content unless you are either performing well for relevant search terms organically, or someone is already on your website due to your brand presence and finds the content because you promote it on relevant, high traffic service pages. The part about the airbnb community is excellent! Author -Boil The Ocean. They either rent out a spare room or their entire property when they go away. Airbnb created a whole new kind of vacation just by providing spaces other than hotels to stay. 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. Whether its personalised or not, I think theres room for improvement when it comes to Airbnbs home page. Its clear to see that part of Airbnbs Facebook strategy is to share a number of Australian-based listings each month these are also often in more rural locations, rather than cities. And using the concept of ' Sharing Econom y', they created a newfound supply of income for the hosts. The Airbnb homepage is currently receiving 57.82% of all traffic to the website, with it ranking for 3,929 keywords. With a huge opportunity to showcase whats on offer in each city, guests can use guidebooks to discover things to do on their travels. You often see this feature on many blogs around the web, but what many blogs dont get right is keeping a focus on tags and keeping the amount recent conversations limited. If they were, its probably not the best look for Airbnb. From an organic search perspective, there are two primary competitors of Airbnb: The Competitive Positioning Map above is a data visualisation based on Airbnb and its competitors organic traffic, as well as the number of keywords that they rank for in Googles top 20 organic search results. Utilising the strengths of storytelling and curation has been the driving force behind the brands onsite content success. What this tells us is that a data-driven approach forms part of their content strategy. Last year, Forbes estimated the business to be worth $31bn (23bn). It means I dont have to copy & paste emails (although you have that option) and the bulk of the work is done. . The image is great, it looks like a well designed, high quality home, but the header and description leaves a lot to be desired. 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). Also worth noting the low intent call-to-action. Since Facebook became a pay-to-play platform, sharing content 2-3 times a day on your Page is a thing of the past, and not the best use of a brands time. After finding success in doing this manually, they created a script that would automatically email all new listings on Craigslist and notify them about Airbnb. 2.1B CULTURAL EXPERIENCE. As a travel company, cultural celebration is at the heart of Airbnbs business model. The campaign was subsequently rolled out in 80 countries, and managed to generate an incredible global impact. The next two sections I find quite interesting but mainly because of how different they are when Im signed in. Airbnb have kept the mechanics simple when it comes to referrals. By doing this, Airbnb are one again fostering a stronger sense of community between the hosts, but they are also saving themselves a lot of internal resources. 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. Not only that, but its a bit boring. Top Contributors are consistent inside the 3 core content pillar pages, which we will go into detail further below. 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. The content gives instant value that there is content for hosts wanting extra support through toolkits or webinars which help with their hosting experience. Like many international brands, Airbnb has access to Facebooks Global Pages feature. Airbnb focuses on providing a human experience with personalized touches. By offering more information and support, they will attract, convert and retain more home and experience hosts on their platform. Marketing Strategy of Airbnb analyses the brand with the marketing mix framework which covers the 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion). 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. Hi! If its not already clear, Airbnb are using an extensive library of headlines, and this is because most of their ads are tailored specifically to travel destinations. It also fits well with Brendans findings on branded keyword targeting vs generic location targeting, as Airbnb is not showing higher in the organic results for generic terms and thats where theyre putting the majority of their advertising budget on Google (73%). 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. Idea to save money for your next trip: use Airbnb. Plus, the more they read/talk about it, the more theyre thinking about it, which should lead to less churn. Like you go out to an unknown place, where food options are limited. How do you execute a good referral strategy into your business so that customers start doing the work for you? A selection of homes verified for quality and designed might well be a good description of Airbnb Plus, but its not exactly enticing. You want them to equally be motivated to take action by accepting the invitation by joining and have the same experience (thats the only way you get the money ;). (For the sake of this review Ill be looking at a mid-range property in Bondi Beach, Sydney.). These work off rules which you set within the software, leaving you time to focus on the more important things. As I look down, I see the option of Import from: Gmail, Yahoo or Outlook. 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. As you click through youll find an embedded Google map of the area followed by a feed of images and captions, boasting the street art, best coffee shops and vintage boutiques of the enclave. a common problem or situation about hosting). Isnt that why you travel in the first place so you have a wild tale to regale to your friends back home in our local pub, a cold lager in hand? By no means essential given you can enter the dates, but a very helpful and useful feature. So why was it perceived as being so different to the booking engines that were already around at the time, and are still huge today. Airbnb. The site structure of these pages is strong due to the way each category acts as a directory page to the other listings, giving greater value to the site and also helping the pages rank for high volume search terms. Webprofits. Best of all, this section of the site is linked to from the footer of the Airbnb website, from the Host section of the site, and the Things To Do areas, allowing for much easier navigation than the other onsite content areas. The search box is a deeplink that takes me directly to the associated search results for Santa Monica 9-12th April. Instagram Stories offer brands a great opportunity to get creative, but the trick is keeping your audience engaged enough to keep clicking through, rather than swiping to the next Story in their feed. In fact, last year they turned over more than $1b in a single quarter and their most recent stock sale values them at USD $35 billion! Community discussion forums/discussion portals, Tips can be shared easily from host to host, Featured posts which read like blog posts with relevant hosting content, Gamification of system top contributors get points for every comment they give + like they get small leaderboard of contributors, The Airbnb admins dont post often nor reply to other peoples posts regularly an opportunity to get more discussions trending. Lets take a look at Melbourne, for example. Book a real home in [Location] for less than a hotel room . Of course, you can edit the template message yourself, but this does make it easy for the user to share. Airbnb are able to match up the user session with your email address based on your browser cookie, and they then trigger an email sequence that aims to get you back into your search and ultimately book your next stay. For example, in a separate browser abandonment series of emails that was triggered by me looking at Los Angeles accommodation, Airbnb reference in the subject line and hero section of the email that people travelling to Los Angeles typically book their accommodation at least 2 months prior: Airbnb astutely sent me this email 2 months and 13 days prior to the travel dates I specified as part of my search. But theres a great selection here in terms of price range. Usually, this strategy is followed when businesses are in a more demanding state. And yet, this subsection of the site is currently an underutilised opportunity by Airbnb. 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. This poster promoting a classic image of Miami was created by graphic designer Alex Asfour, as part of Airbnbs travel poster campaign. 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. Differentiation. Airbnb should review and update their Title Tags and Meta Descriptions to fit the length parameters provided by Google . Under its model, it is the homeowners renting out their houses to the tourists. Really love this level of analysis . . Any ideas, any theories? This shows me that Airbnb have done very well to control the amount of posts that dont ask the same question. I visited Japan last year, a place where Airbnbs are quite hard to come by. Its revenues can grow to $8.5 Billions an year by 2020. was a discussion of the generic and intensive strategies used by Air BnB to build a competitive advantage and grow its market share. This trust isnt so much between the user and Airbnb, its trust amongst hosts and guests. What Should I Do If My Guests Arrive Late? 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. Airbnb are doing a great job on this in many ways (they ranked 47 out of 50 in the same study), but I firmly believe that a brands social channels should also be used to enhance their customers experience. Its now that we see the other options of sharing referral via different channels such as messenger and email. Building on this approach, I would also be looking to remarket to anyone that opened the email via Facebook, Display, or Gmail ads with additional information or incentives for them to register as a host. Part of Airbnbs success is due to their holistic marketing approach, one that embraces offline marketing strategies just as much as digital. Coca-Cola, for example, currently enjoys a profit margin of approximately 33 . To save on time, there are other elements of this page which certainly helps with the decision-making process to take the next step. There is an inconsistent breadcrumb structure implemented on the Airbnb website, which could also be impacting the websites organic performance. However, as this Title Tag is longer than the 60 characters allowed for by Google on Desktop search, what is actually seen by the user can be seen below: This results in a less than optimal user experience, which could be impacting their click-through and their rankings. A primary difference between the hotel industry and Airbnb is the presence of taxes and regulations on short-term rentals. They created an upsell opportunity by providing a higher tier property that had been manually vetted to ensure the highest possible quality. Airbnb's differentiation strategy effectively resolves problems within the market and all parties are satisfied. For these people in particular, letting strangers into their home can be a scary concept. Every day, Hosts offer unique stays and experiences that make it possible for guests to connect with . This is because they are an essential part of any organic search strategy if you wish to succeed. Airbnb also make a point of their key USPs, which include: 24/7 customer service, global housing requirements compliance, and all star hosts. While Airbnb is estimated to be capturing close to 12% of their total website traffic through paid search channels, as detailed by Brendan, SEMrush estimates the total traffic they receive to be in the region of 1.5 million visits per month. Airbnb of course. With a creative flair and an eye for detail, he is data driven, analytical and thrives on turning insights into initiatives. Download Free PDF. Airbnb fees and room pricing. The main goal of implementing a differentiation strategy is to increase competitive advantage. Businesses under Airbnb follow different types of pricing strategies to attract their consumers. Airbnb is far more than a platform to find inexpensive hotel accommodations. If you were wondering how they get permission for re-sharing a users image, heres an example: Airbnb were an early adopter of Instagram Stories, and have featured in numerous articles across the internet as a brand that is crushing it with this feature, of which I totally agree. Not many businesses go above and beyond in this way. 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. Airbnb uses differentiation strategy by making a new business model and providing the service which differentiates them from competitors. On average, Airbnb post every 3-4 days on Facebook, in comparison to Instagram where they post almost daily. It could have been something that ruined the companys reputation and destroyed their business, but they reacted strongly and turned it into a strength. Among . 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. Mimic Airbnb's strategy by: Marketing your Airbnb as an experience, not just a building So what can we learn from Airbnbs referral program? Visual content is the holy grail of authenticity and shows the extent that brands should be willing to go when selling to their audience. Value of joining i.e. So how do Airbnb ensure that hosts are comfortable enough to rent out their property, and continue to do so? They do mention about what the friend receives down the page in the 3 Steps. These 300-400 word stories are poignant snapshots of how an Airbnb users life has been impacted by using Airbnb while travelling and immerses potential travellers in the spirit of adventure, curiosity and connection. In its simplest form, Airbnb is an accommodation booking engine. Each city has its own forum where the hosts can discuss the local issues or services specific to them. Having built and scaled a startup to millions in revenue per year, Dan truly understands the crux to marketing and growth success understanding the motives and characteristics of customers inside and out. In addition, for existing hosts, its more likely going to help retain hosts. Although they are sharing some video content, Ive noticed that this is usually content which isnt localisedand, when switching regions on the Facebook Page, you can see that theyre sharing much of the same video content across different countries. In terms of call to actions, Airbnbs most frequently used call-to-action in headlines is Search and Book Now. The best way for Airbnb to improve their backlink profile ties into the recommendation given for keyword ranking improvements: develop a more aggressive content marketing strategy. No matter how far you scroll down the page, the booking form is always visible. The ability to achieve new users through lower CPAs was a mouthwatering prospect, and could result in strong growth. Being the experienced brand with strong foothold, the company uses differentiation as a tool to reduce the pressure by other brands. If they were to use polished/professional imagery, I dont think it would have the same natural feel, so Im confident this strategy works well for them on both Facebook & Instagram. The image instantly grabs your attention. 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. . They assist Googles algorithm with determining your sites authority, credibility and relevance. As a user on the site, I instantly see what the top articles and discussions are for the month and which the community cares about. Now, its not something often spoken to by content marketers (as basically there are no guarantees on the amount of traffic you could potentially receive through a backlink to your site) but this reason is not to be discounted as the more referral traffic you receive through a backlink, the more value Google places on the link, and the better your results for that page. 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). According to the data from SEMRush, 73% of approximate ad spend goes to search terms containing accommodation. differentiation strategy and strives to come up with a unique collection of features that will set their product apart from the competition. Its certainly now motivated me to help refer a host. Now that Im signed in I get some options that are well suited to me (saved, trips and messages) as well as a prompt to become a host something thats beneficial to them. Moreover, the company aims to keep guests and hosts safe via a wide range of measures such as risk scoring, background checks, 24/7 global assistance, secure payments and account protection. Airbnb are running a big operation on paid search. So, based on the same principles as inviting guests, what does the recipient receive this time if theyre invited to become a host? But as a marketer, you never want to discount the impact of SEO and keywords. Instead, they provide the mobile-friendly option of SMS (and, of course, Facebook and Whatsapp) to make it a seamless experience. The company produced an event in Seoul, Korea, that celebrated beautifying Airbnb spaces with terrariums. It could be said that best practice on Facebook for sharing links is using the Link Preview option, rather than sharing links in the post copy with a separate image. As we know, the concept of Airbnb was completely new for audiences who had never used them before, and common questions around about safety & trust were prevalent from audiences considering using the platform. The post copy that accompanies the image often introduces the host/s on a personal level Make yourself at home at Patrick and Elizabeths historic homestead. B/c it has to be sooo much harder to track users potentially on many different domain names. Download this case study as a PDF and read it whenever you're ready. Live there. Theres a thirst for it; local lifestyles, customs and culture, transformative moments. For Airbnb, it underlines everything they do and has transformed their site from a marketplace to a travel platform which engages users and hosts. Word-of-Mouth recommendations convert 3-5x higher compared to other channels. The Airbnb business model is a multisided platform that connects travelers with hosts from all corners of the planet. Here is a breakdown of spend based on other singular words: To be clear, 5% of estimated spend includes phrases that include the word hotel, not 5% of spend is attributable to the hotel as an exact match. Storytelling is the bedrock of a quality content marketing strategy, and Airbnb has understood this from the beginning. Web. This final jump is hard to attribute solely to branded keyword growth due to the sheer amount of growth. And a primary reason for this huge discrepancy is due to the type of accommodation each platform offers. Its beautifully minimalistic and I know who its from. When looking at the types of posts they share to the Page, this is a mixture of imagery & video. Their referral strategy is so easy that even my grandma has used it before with referrals from her friends. Airbnb are very active on Instagram they share content to their Feed as well as to their Instagram Stories. When we scroll down the page, we see the instructions for the process. Zooming out, Airbnb have shared that, not surprisingly, their email content is tailored based on information they have about the user. Thats way more than a roof, 4 walls, and a bed. 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.
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