Marketing entry strategy

First move-The first strategy they used was to rent out the airbeds in their
apartment by quickly setting up a website to advertise their offer along with
breakfast!

Online PR campaigns for Conferences and events-For the first year of its
existence, they focused more on the conferences and events than those who
listed their property on perpetuity basis.
But for conferences and events to get limelight, they started doing online PR
campaigns targeting the 2008 South by Southwest conference and festival in
Austin, Texas.
With no budget to advertise, they decided to get coverage from various blogs.
They started targeting small blogs and when they started getting attention
through small blogs, they shifted to larger blogs to reach the target audience as
soon as possible!
This led to 40 people listing their spaces for south by south west

When chesky became a renter-Chesky also became one of the renters and
wanted to experience the whole thing from a customer’s perspective and
decided to make a change on the pay front by charging the renters upfront
instead of after rendering the services to make things less awkward!

Promotional cereal campaign- o’s for Barack Obama and Cap’n McCains for
John McCain -They also decided to promote the business by creating
promotional cereals that featured two different box designs Obama o’s for
Barack Obama and Cap’n McCains for John McCain during presidential
elections and planned to give these boxes to hosts to serve them to renters. It
didn’t work out as they planned to so they traded with one of the companies
who’d make cardboard cereal boxes for them and in return they’ll the
company some royalties. They earned much needed revenue by selling the
cereal boxes and also attracted the attention of Paul Graham from Y
combinator which became one of the important pivots for fledging the
company!

Hiring professional photographers- In order to distinguish themselves from

other websites, they started hiring professional photographers who’d click
pictures of the property which helped in increasing the customer base of
Airbnb as well as hosts.
Creating network through friends and families-The founders often stayed at
Airbnb properties, have lunch dinner and throw parties. This encouraged hosts
to bring friends and family to the party which also helped in networking and
build a trust amongst hosts and the customers.

Posting customer and host experiences on social media-They also started

putting customer user as well as host experience videos on their social media
which helped in gaining trust as well as helped in creating a community as well
and hosted reunion events. This became an annual event and was one of the
driving forces behind the Airbnb success.

Customer support services- The founders also gained insights into the likes
and dislikes of Hosts and customers and also guaranteed $50,000 liability and
24/7 customer support. Even when they grew, they never stopped taking
feedbacks.

Reaching out to local businesses- They also reached out to local businesses
and startup such as Vayable to help them serve the customers which also
made a significance impact and helped in their promotions.

Constant revision and improvement-Their constant revision and improvement

also helped in increasing the efficiency of the website and helped in locating
the desired hotel faster!

Creative campaign involving community- Exposing imitator websites

(detectives@airbnb.com) - Airbnb started a creative campaign where the
website offered a flagging feature to mark questionable behavior on message
threads and helped in notifying the company if any solicited activity from
another website which helped in creating a customer loyalty and made
customers feel like they were a part of Airbnb.