Do you use direct marketing for your Airbnb?

Answered!
Ben551
Level 10
Wellington, New Zealand

Do you use direct marketing for your Airbnb?

marketing-768x431.jpg

 

Greetings~

 

I wanted to share a little about my own recent marketing experiments and see what other hosts might be doing...

 

I expect that those experienced hosts, who are happily on Page 1 of the Airbnb and AllTheRooms search results, won't need to work so hard at it.  But those of us who are just starting out in a competitive market may need to... work a bit harder?   So far I've been experimenting with Twitter, Facebook and even printed media to see what method of marketing is the most effective for the least amount of money. 

 

Facebook:

Results of Facebook were interesting.  I launched 3 campaigns covering China, UK, Australia and USA all with targetted interests that match what my listing offers.  Interestingly, I have found that folks in China are the most "click happy" when it comes to Facebook (men in particular), whereas the UK, Australia and USA seem to view the the advert then pass on by without clicking.  So if your target market is in those regions, FB doesn't seem to be that cost effective.

 

Twitter:

I have yet to measure the results of Twitter, but I am seeing something very, very strange in regards to Twitter vs. Airbnb SEO.  I have known for a while now that Airbnb SEO was sensitive to the amount of social media mentions people make that include your listing reference.  However, what I didn't know is that it almost completely ignores Facebook and (in contrast) Airbnb SEO almost breaks when you tweet about your listing.  I mean in a good way.  Our listing climbed 6 pages in a single day after one tweet lol.  You should see our rankings graph.  All the days before hand look like "stairs" slowly, but surely climbing upwards as we work on our listing... improve pricing... etc.  Then it shoots up like a Rocket the day we started tweeting.  It then tapers off, whcih indicates that it doesn't have a lasting impact and likely means momentum needs to be maintained.

 

So get tweeting people!  Stop what you are doing, right now, and send a tweet about your listing.

 

Brochures

Lastly, printed media. We printed some of these brochure card things. 

Brochure 1.jpgBrochure 2.jpg

 

They cost around $0.18 each to print and are a nice thick recycled paper (of course).  We put some of these at the local tourism centre, our favourite restaurants and cafes, and at the Airport.  We have even put some into the Airbnb itself for people to take with them as a reminder of their stay.

 

Suprisingly, our local restaurants and cafes were thrilled at the idea of putting some of these on their counter!  This is because in exchange we took a copy of their menu and put it inside our Airbnb in our guest welcome book, along with our recommendation.  Apparently it worked so well, restaurants have given us free dinners to thank us of over $150 so far!  Our guests are now eating there regularly, for dinner and when they want a cooked breakfast (since we only provide cold continental).  So I have to say, partnering with local restaurants and cafes has been the smartest thing we have done so far.  I can highly recommend it! 

 

As for the other uses of the brochure, we have received 5 bookings (total) that have mentioned the brochure directly.  I personally wish Airbnb would have a "how did you hear about us" question they asked guests to fill in, as they make each booking... so we could track the success of our own direct marketing better... but dreams are free 🙂

 

 

So I'm keen to hear comments from other hosts as to their experiences with direct marketing. Do you use it?  How much per annum do you spend on it?  What channels have worked best for you?

 

~ Ben

Top Answer
Suzanne302
Level 10
Wilmington, NC

Interesting ideas! However I am booked so much that I actually have to block days to give myself a break, so I doubt I'd venture out to anything that actually cost money. And no, that does not mean my rates are too low, I make exactly what I aim for.

 

I think marketing for a whole house might be different as I see since the price point might be higher and also the demographics might be different. Paid and aggressive marketing for those makes sense. For me, though, I'm simply a unique and cheaper alternative for those looking for a hotel room so I already have a wider base of potential customers.

 

From the beginning I have partnered with local restaurants and other businesses in the area, simply as an extra perk for my guests.. Some of the restaurants give me discount/free appetizer/etc. cards that I leave in the room for my guests. By far the most popular were free sandwich cards from a local quick service eatery. Cost me nothing but gives the guest extra value.

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34 Replies 34

@Ben551Thanks for the info!  I have set up twitter account.  I followed you also. Very good information.  thank you

Kris76
Level 3
London, United Kingdom

Hi Ben, thanks for the note!

 

I don't use direct marketing as between Airbnb and Booking.com I think they have got this all sown up and it's hard to compete with their SEO firepower. On the local recommendation piece I actually use an app called GuestHug which allows me to upload my own hotspots in a beskope app which is then shared with guests. This I find improves the experience for my guests and keeps my reviews looking good!

Yadira22
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

Hello @Ben551 

Hope you are well and this is so interesting. 

We have never invested in marketing- oddly enough and we have a decent booking rate. Where would you initially begin if you wanted to trial this out?!

Many thanks,

Yadira 🙂

Ben551
Level 10
Wellington, New Zealand

Hi @Yadira22 I’m glad you found this interesting. I think if I was starting, I’d do the Twitter steps first. I posted some detailed, step by step instructions to Huma in my response above, in case helpful.

Linda1213
Level 6
Vero Beach, FL

@Ben551 Ben that is great info ( especially the twitter... who knew) i started an instagram account  when i started the airbnb. More for fun ( cuz i like taking pics) and i do have a blackboard in the Casita that suggests guests load pics to #coconutcasitaverobeach. Have seen a few.  Slowly growing followers. Very slowly. 

 

I seriously dont know how anyone finds our listing.... it seems to be WAY buried ( granted.... we just started). How do you ACCURATELY find it’s ranking? When *I* look it is right up front. When i have someone else look on their computer or phone ( like a prospective client would) it is buried so many pages back it seems near impossible that i would get ANY bookings ( and i have been at 97 percent the past few months).  

 

Any insight into that??

LBR
Ben551
Level 10
Wellington, New Zealand

Hi @Linda1213 - that sounds like you have things well underway for Instagram. Interestingly, even if you advertise on Facebook the main channels are instagram and the mobile news feed. 

 

Oh oh to see your true rankings you can do it in a couple of ways:

  1. Open a private browser window (incognito) and search in your area, without logging in to Airbnb. You can search without dates to get your overall city ranking, then again with some of your available dates to see where you place.
  2. I use RankBreeze (a paid service) to track my listing rankings continually. I won’t use it forever, but for a few months at least as I get started and work on my rankings.

 

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Ben551 

 

Thanks for the instructions RE Twitter. I am definitely going to try that.

 

I would set up separate pages for Twitter, IB and FB for my listings as well as posting from my own accounts. I'm also quite active on Pinterest, so that's another avenue. However, I was wondering if it's possible to post individual photos from the Airbnb site, to achieve that regular feed, as you mentioned. I think it would probably be easy for Pinterest if there is a button for that on the listing too, but not sure about the others.

 

Of course, I could simply post the pictures straight from my device, but as they were taken by Airbnb photographers, I am not sure of the copyright issues. I'm technically not supposed to use them outside of the listing, but I would think that using them to promote the listing would be okay?

Ben551
Level 10
Wellington, New Zealand

@Huma0 That’s a very good question about use of photography! I wonder if it’s worth asking CS that question. I was considering making a landing page, since Airbnb promote and encourage you to embed you site link into other websites.... so it’s possible they won’t mind photos being used. 

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Ben551 

 

From what I have gathered so far, they seem fine with using links, but individual photos is another matter. I am not sure how clued up the average CS person would be as the Airbnb photography is handled by a specific team in San Francisco, but I suppose there's no harm in asking.

Mark116
Level 10
Jersey City, NJ

@Ben551  As a person who came of age before social media, I am oddly comforted that your best results came from the old fashioned 20th century brochure.  LOL. 

Ben551
Level 10
Wellington, New Zealand

@Mark116  Hahaha! Yes it’s reassuring isn’t it!! 🙂

Inna22
Level 10
Chicago, IL

@Ben551 you just got bother Twitter follower:)

Ben551
Level 10
Wellington, New Zealand

Oh yay!! @Inna22  

Suzanne302
Level 10
Wilmington, NC

Interesting ideas! However I am booked so much that I actually have to block days to give myself a break, so I doubt I'd venture out to anything that actually cost money. And no, that does not mean my rates are too low, I make exactly what I aim for.

 

I think marketing for a whole house might be different as I see since the price point might be higher and also the demographics might be different. Paid and aggressive marketing for those makes sense. For me, though, I'm simply a unique and cheaper alternative for those looking for a hotel room so I already have a wider base of potential customers.

 

From the beginning I have partnered with local restaurants and other businesses in the area, simply as an extra perk for my guests.. Some of the restaurants give me discount/free appetizer/etc. cards that I leave in the room for my guests. By far the most popular were free sandwich cards from a local quick service eatery. Cost me nothing but gives the guest extra value.

Ben551
Level 10
Wellington, New Zealand

Sounds perfectly sensible @Suzanne302 and I agree, I think the difference in price point and size of property has an effect.

 

That’s awesome that your local restaurants are supporting you!! I think this is great. I know I hadn’t expected this to work so well. It’s not even the free food, I actually just really like knowing we’ve done something to help our local village community.