airbnb differentiation strategy

Key Differences. They took their customers worst fears and went above and beyond to put them to rest. The service continuously improves paying precise attention to hosts, photos, and . After a user clicks on Refer Contacts then it instantly takes them to this screen where they can share with their contacts with ease. Even if this is not done on purpose, I think this is clever, as it allows the user to imagine themselves there. In the next section, Suggested for You, this is content that specifically addresses the needs of hosts. 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. 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. What Airbnb offer isnt a cheap place to sleep when youre on holiday, its the opportunity to experience your destination as a local would. The design of the tags and recent conversations looks clean and minimalistic. Airbnb has created the perfect solution for renters and providers worldwide. The homes around the world section showcases some fairly unique looking properties, perhaps to portray the variety of different homes around the world. 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. Novak, Jasminko, and Schwabe, Gerhard. Airbnb first launched their referral features in 2011, and below is the original look and feel. The images are small and hard to make out, and so not that intriguing. Maximum rate each night: Under this . , Interesting read! When sharing links to their Facebook Page, its hard to tell whether or not they are tracking anything other than clicks on these. As a travel company, cultural celebration is at the heart of Airbnbs business model. Like this product? Given the saturation of online paid media & costs to acquire new customers, Airbnb identified that building an engine to create more word-of-mouth from those who had experienced Airbnb was crucial to finding a solution. Both Optus and Telstra use it for support and to answer any questions their customers may have Telstras bio states, Were here 247 to provide customer support and answer any Telstra questions you might have. Each city has its own forum where the hosts can discuss the local issues or services specific to them. 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. In the case of differentiation, a key advantage is that effective differentiation creates an ability to obtain premium prices from customers ("Executing a Differentiation Strategy" [Image missing in original] ). With this guarantee, Airbnb have assured hosts that should the absolute worst happen, they will be covered by the company that enabled the transaction. This experience illustrated to the company the importance of beautifying their host spaces, but also how important it is to incorporate local insights into their offline, experiential events. The difference here is a lot easier to spot. 2.1B CULTURAL EXPERIENCE. And then if a user keeps scrolling, we see one more block section which is about Host referrals. Their local twitter pages arent very impressive and it seems theyre more like an afterthought rather than a planned out strategy. 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. With that being said, I do like their UGC strategy and think theyve done a good job of leveraging this for content, rather than using professionally shot and polished imagery, which would not suit the platform. When it comes to the homepage, we are instantly presented with plenty of content we can view. Its a beautiful image and has a lot of visual impact, It evokes an emotion happiness, humor, nostalgia, etc, It tells a captivating story (image and/or caption). Every single business with an online presence needs to have some form of social proof listed on its site, and most would aspire to do it as well as Airbnb. The majority of their image posts feature an Airbnb listing, utilising user-generated content (UGC) which gives the brand a very authentic and relatable feel. differentiation, hybrid and Blue Ocean. The search box is a deeplink that takes me directly to the associated search results for Santa Monica 9-12th April. 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 . Its their hosts which are their key customers; if their hosts succeed then they succeed. . Here are a few more key takeaways from their browser abandonment sequence. Airbnb have built a hugely successful business off the back of understanding what their customers want/need, and then providing products that match them. This makes sense as hotel keywords are more expensive/competitive than general accommodation terms, and not all people searching for hotels may be interested in a typical Airbnb hosting arrangement. From these posts, its clearer what kind of things people ask in the local community. Some people appreciate the luxury of staying in a hotel, knowing youll receive a professional service, including a properly maintained room. If youre going to need to pay to get your content out there to audiences, using the quality over quantity approach is best. Its not as easy as you think. Tools such as Buffer and Hootsuite make this very easy for businesses to do. So what can we learn from Airbnbs referral program? On top of that, they are globally recognised brand they could easily get away with just a .com + language switch based on your IP. Instead, its focused on sharing a custom link. Not only did they revolutionise the travel industry, theyre one of the first startup unicorns to emerge in the mid-2000s and are emulated on every level from their business model and their map and search results, to their referral engines, and generally their outlook and approach to everything they do. Level 28 161 Castlereagh Street Sydney NSW 2000, Level 10 1 George Street Singapore 049145, 730 Arizona Avenue Santa Monica California 90401 USA, 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. Even when they dont go exactly as planned. Working with renowned local artists, they commissioned travel posters for 12 locations around the globe Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Detroit, Havana, London, Paris, Florence, Nairobi, Cape Town, Tokyo, and Seoul. 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). It seems as though that previous history doesnt seem to influence the options Im presented with. The Airbnb homepage is currently receiving 57.82% of all traffic to the website, with it ranking for 3,929 keywords. Once Im on their site and browsing, the call-to-action shifts to making a booking. 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, 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. So how do Airbnb ensure that hosts are comfortable enough to rent out their property, and continue to do so? 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. I visited Japan last year, a place where Airbnbs are quite hard to come by. I get directed to a page where a modal instantly pops-up. Each of the pages do have 2 consistent UX features like the homepage, including: Highlighting top contributors serves to show the wider community that numerous community members will help with answering any questions or queries that come their way. These posts mostly feature UGC, which gives them a really authentic feel and allows them to easily blend into a users Instagram feed, which I feel is something key for brands to master on this channel. It usually best to do this when someone has committed to making a purchase, but it doesnt hurt to get them thinking about it at this stage of the process and see what activities are available. 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. Beyond the hero section, the rest of the page is slim, but tailored to the user based on their destination of interest: Airbnb feature highly-rated homes that have upcoming availability and homes that have recently been booked. One of the crucial components of Airbnbs email marketing strategy is their browser abandonment sequence. 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. Explore Tips & Tricks All about new ways hosts can take their game to the next level. What I have noticed on this page is that average user engagement is quite high. The creative entrepreneurial innovation allows people to travel and stay at different hosts connecting them in advance. Many of the ads they use feature video, which is positive, but they dont feature real Australians talking about their experiences with being an Airbnb host. One thing that is noticeable however is how low the engagement on this section is compared to the previous one. Needless to say, Im not impressed so far. Without these critical qualities, Airbnb Table strategy is most likely to be muddled, undifferentiated, and hard to communicate with a relatively high cost structure. Theres often value in understating things, but this isnt one of those moments. So let's start by understanding more about Airbnb in the coming sections. First, youll need to select your destination. For Airbnb, addressing any common questions or concerns up front and being transparent ensures they give potential hosts confidence if theyre considering being on the platform. When it comes to keywords, Airbnb is limited only by the locations in which they have a presence. Lennie is the founder of a start-up business that allows homeowners to rent out their properties like hotels. 7. For example, if I start a conversation and ask a question, it will come up with the links of similar questions which have been asked before. Remember how I mentioned that the locations were all in North America previously? Many global brands are still trying to work out ways to build & integrate successful community marketing initiatives as part of their overall marketing strategy. Airbnb Inc. Report contains a full analysis of Airbnb business strategy. Lets take a look at the non-personalised version of the home page first. How did I determine this? 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. They could benefit from using their Instagram to tell more stories, as these are a great way to connect with people. As weve spoken before about the layout of the page, lets explore the content and what we can learn from them. The blog doesnt follow a set template for articles and there are several broad categories such as Wanderlust and Hospitality. Booking.com offers commercial accommodation to users, such as hotels, resorts etc, which means the link opportunities are much greater. HONYs strategy is sharing the stories of real people and goes a step further than relying on the image to do the work, its all in the caption. It was an opportunity for Airbnb to show support not just for those within the LGBTQI+ community, but for anyone to make their support for a brother, sister, parent, friend or loved one known, said Chesky. Originally in the first couple of years, they didnt believe referrals were working until they went back to do a further analysis only to find out that referrals were helping to contribute to more sales and users. Its a very similar UI to the desktop platform which is done by design. Superhosts must also satisfy other criteria in order to qualify for this status, including maintaining at least a 90% response rate and receiving five-star reviews 80% of the time. Its an opportunity for anyone to share their hobbies, skills, or expertise without needing an extra room.. Their marketing is a reflection of what they believe in, their core beliefs and values as a company. The majority of keywords ranking on page 1 for the Airbnb website are branded, with smaller volume locations ranking for generic [location] accommodation terms. An important UX feature that is part of these pages is that anyone can Start a Conversation. This is an example of how AirBnB's Insights team uses data to address current user experience challenges on the platform. 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. They created an upsell opportunity by providing a higher tier property that had been manually vetted to ensure the highest possible quality. This type of messaging perfectly ties back to their brand ethos of belonging and community we dont need to know who Patrick & Elizabeth are, we just need to know were invited to stay at their home. Where it gets interesting is to see how the home page differs when Im signed in. Image source: Getty Images. A request for more information can be made by contacting the host. Many disgruntled customers use the comments section as a way to complain; this is seen across numerous industries, but Airbnb is clearly trying to show that they are a brand focused on customer service and experience, as they try and reply to most of these types of comments. But theres a great selection here in terms of price range. Whether its personalised or not, I think theres room for improvement when it comes to Airbnbs home page. Of note, since February 2018 the growth trajectory has not been consistent, and there have been fairly significant dips in the monthly estimated traffic. 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. 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. Until We All Belong that was the sentiment behind Airbnbs campaign to highlight marriage inequality in Australia. When looking deeper into the Anchor text that is being used for the links back to the Airbnb website, its interesting to note that 29% is the brand name, which will be contributing to the rankings for brand-related keywords. But there are plenty of properties on Airbnb that are more expensive than hotels and still get booked out, so what else is there? Why would Airbnb have this content pillar specifically? It sure was a long time ago. 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. For Airbnb, its been about continuous discovery, testing and optimising of what is known as one of the worlds famous & very effective referral engines. Moreover, Airbnb is exploring machine learning algorithms and AI to build a deeper understanding of images, improve reviews using natural language processing (NLP) and support more advanced search using NLP. Whats clear to me is how much value they put on understanding their users, both guests and hosts, and building a strategy that speaks to them directly. Airbnbs timeline is varied in terms of post content and types. In an article in the Engineering & Data Science medium publication, Jason Bosinoff at Airbnb explained how they Kept Score for tracking the analytics of referrals. For each core section of the community section stated above, each has different page layouts focused on the goals of the user, keeping core desired actions in mind. As mentioned earlier in the article, the supply of properties and experiences is essential for Airbnbs success, and so its important that hosts are able to navigate where they need to quickly. "Designing for reintermediation . 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. Incentive I instantly see the value that I will receive if I take an action by accepting the invitation. Their cover image appears to be the interior of an Airbnb property and promotes their overall. 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 that I will receive if I take an action by accepting the invitation perhaps to portray the variety different. Photos, and so not that intriguing rent out their properties like hotels their referral features in 2011 and. 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