Airbnb Marketing Strategy: 10 Lessons How to Become a World Leader

Airbnb offers housing in more than 100 thousand cities and 191 countries of the world. Since its foundation in August 2008 and until May 2019, more than 180 million people have found housing through the Airbnb website. He almost immediately was able to take a leading position in the market of tourist services.

Airbnb is well ahead of the competition when it comes to combining available with unique.

Airbnb’s growth has been rapid, and this is largely due to its unconventional inspirational and innovative marketing strategies. This is not the result of luxuriant marketing budgets, but the result of hard work, in-depth analysis of the market and ingenuity (creativity).

10 instructive Airbnb marketing strategies

When it comes to marketing, Airbnb has lots to teach us!

Brand Partnership

Airbnb has shown us countless times that partnerships can cause serious impact and a lot of noise. Airbnb’s successful partnership includes KLM Airlines, the UK bookstores chain Waterstones, and even the French government. Very impressive!

The essence of the partnership is to find a unique offer for customers of both brands. Value proposition that you can provide only in conjunction with a partnering brand.

For example, with KLM the contest was created in which the winners could spend a free night in luxury “Aircraft apartment”. With the French government, it was a night in the Parisian catacombs on Halloween, which helped raise the reputation of a less valuable French tourist destination.

Influencers and social stars

For any event that you hold, or product launch, do not forget to invite as many social authorities as possible. Invite journalists, bloggers, YouTube stars and Instagram stars to your events, and you will be very surprised by the result.

In 2015, Airbnb organized a “floating house” advertising gimmick on the River Thames in London, where various related events were also held, including #FloatingHouseParty, where participants were encouraged to live stream, take photos and splash the night all over social media.

The result was insane! In the UK alone, it was over 340 publications that provoked more than 70 thousand page views, 10 thousand new users and more than 200 million social reactions!

Airbnb also uses celebrity stays as ads. This strategy began in 2015 when Mariah Carey posted her famous photo on Instagram.

Since then, Airbnb has established partnerships with many celebrities, taking responsibility for their stay in exchange for the social media love.

Risky actions

Many brands enjoy a little friendly banter on Twitter, but PR failures are a great opportunity to get on public display. But sometimes things go wrong, for example, at a time when a guy locked in a bookstore was trending.

Read rest of the article by Vladimir Khomichenko