Marketing Strategy of Booking.com

This report presents about the marketing strategy of Booking.com and the various marketing tools and techniques that are used to capture the target audience of the company. It promotes its services mostly through digital and e-commerce marketing channels like search engine optimization, customized website, social media applications and internet ads in order to capitalize and attract potential customers belonging to generation Z.

Marketing report and
strategy for Booking
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report presents about the marketing strategy of Booking.com and the various marketing
tools and techniques that are used to capture the target audience of the company. It promotes its
services mostly through digital and e-commerce marketing channels like search engine
optimization, customized website, social media applications and internet ads in order to
capitalize and attract potential customers belonging to generation Z. Besides, it has been
discussed about effective marketing communication strategy that can be used by company in
future to target generation Z.
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Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................4
PART 1............................................................................................................................................4
PART 2............................................................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13
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INTRODUCTION
Marketing communication tools are used to promote the products and services of the
company to attract the consumers to influence their purchasing decision. They shall generate
awareness of the brand and positively publicize it in the minds of the people. The project report
shall be highlighting the various marketing communication tools that are used by booking.com as
part of their marketing strategy. It shall also reflect the strengths and weaknesses that such tools
pose on the company and its performance.
MAIN BODY
PART 1
Background of Booking.com
Booking.com is a Dutch online travel booking company which was established in 1996
and is headquartered in Amsterdam. It is one of the leading digital travel and tourism company
which offers the services of lodging the bookings and reservations prior to travelling (About
Booking.com, 2021). The company ensures that its customers should have a seamless experience
during the travel and make their journey easy and convenient. It has been offering the
accommodation, car rental and ticketing services to its customers via online channels. The
company caters to the various customers across different countries and offers them quality
services to meet their needs and expectations.
Marketing communication tools
Booking.com conducts aggressive marketing of its services through various communication
tools that helps in generating brand awareness and positioning in the market. It is an online brand
and so mostly uses the various digitalized channels in order to implement its marketing strategy
to capture the target market. Some majorly used marketing tools are:-
Paid advertisements- Booking.com is one of the highest spenders in terms of doing paid form of
advertisements through various social media applications like the Facebook, You Tube,
Instagram, Twitter etc. It is also indulged in TV advertisements, website banner ads which helps
in driving the attention of customer at large (Borges-Tiago and et.al., 2021).
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Strategic partnerships and collaborations- Another major marketing tool for the company is by
forming partnership or collaboration with the companies it is associated with and thereby get
recognized among the target lot of customers. It has also organized a sponsorship deal with
UEFA.
Performance marketing- This is one of the essential tools that is used by the company in
marketing their services. The company has highly qualified marketing staff possessing
specialized knowledge regarding the current trends and newly emerging technology (Díaz and
Rodríguez, 2018).
Search engine optimization- With the multinational staff they conduct the paid adverts in the
multiple languages and also by selecting the appropriate key words they drive the organic traffic
towards the company’s website (The Business Model of Booking. Com, 2020).
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Optimization of company website- The website of the company is designed in a manner that it
can be accessible to the crowd easily and conveniently. It provides multiple language servers,
instant confirmations, secure bookings, 24/7 service and at the minimal possible charges. The
website of the company presents all the relevant details and the required content that shall drive
the attention of its target customers.
Mobile emphasis- The marketing of the brand has been even better since it has started working
on the mobile applications. This proves to be efficient for the company, its customers and the
trade partners with whom it operates. The mobile application that the company has designed
helps it stay connected with the old and new customers and also helps it in knowing the
experience with the company in the form of feedbacks. The feedbacks are considered and
accordingly improvised in the company (Labanauskaitė, Fiore and Stašys, 2020).
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Special offers- In order to meet the cut-throat competition in the market the company the
company offers huge discounts, rewards, gifts to the consumer in order to attract them towards
the brand. Some of the promotional packages are also designed by them on special occasions or
events, so that the buying behavior of the customer can be affected.
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Pay per click- Booking.com has been heavily investing in the pay per click advertisements by
Google ads. This promotional tool helps them widen their customer reach and ultimately helps
them to boost their revenues and profitability. Since these channels are cost effective for the
company, it prefers marketing its products and services via these digitalized sources.
Content marketing- This is aggressively done by the company by regularly posting the content
in the form of articles on the websites depicting the range of choices that are provided to the
customers. Apart from that they are indulged in creative messaging and grievance redressal
system by solving the queries of the guests (Obinwanne and Ukabuilu, 2019).
Strengths and weaknesses of marketing communication tools
The marketing strategy that is used by the Booking.com has drawn some strengths and
certain weaknesses for the company with the use of different digitalized marketing tools.
Strengths: -
 Being a multinational company the various e-commerce channels help them in wider
reach of the potential market belonging to the generation Z in the several countries of
operation. The generation Z is the newest generation which is highly tech savvy and
through e-commerce channels they can be easily captured by the marketers.
 The promotional activities undertaken by the use of digital channels is relatively cheaper
as compared to the traditional tools of marketing. The generation Z shall compare the
costs and go for the cheapest source which will be beneficial for the company.
 It helps the company in providing personalized services to the customers as per their
needs and expectations (Krizanova and et.al., 2019). This shall boost the loyalty and
long-term growth of the company. The varied needs of this Z generations shall be
fulfilled which will boost their level of satisfaction and spread positive word of mouth.
 Conversion rates are high as the visitors over the website can soon be converted to
customers with the help of optimized website of the company.
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Weaknesses: -
 The major disadvantage that is posed with the use of digital channels of marketing are
that they lead to security and privacy issues in the data handling of the generation Z
customers as well as the company. Strategy leaks, hacking the system, unauthorized
usage and cyber crimes are some of the demerits that are caused to the company.
 Apart from that another issue is related to negative publicity through false comments,
feedbacks, reviews, opinions in order to defame the company against the competitors.
The officials of the company are unable to understand that which suggestions are real and
which of them are fake (Šķiltere and Bormane, 2018). In today's generation Z it is quite
common to check the reviews post which the purchasing decision is made.
 All the customers of the company are not equitably skilled and talented to book the
services online or select the most appropriate from the wide range available.
PART 2
It is necessary for Booking. Com to develop an effective marketing communication
strategy so that they are able to attract Generation Z. Marketing communications strategy is the
strategy used by a company or individual to reach their target market through various types of
communication. It includes message (what is to be said), the medium (where it is to be said), and
the target (to whom your message is reaching) (Agustina and Panuju 2020). The strategy provide
a framework on what action and tactics are to be taken to build effective relationship with
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customers. Besides that, it includes what are message to be delivered, social media platform to be
used, etc. Generally, there are 6 steps which is followed to develop strategy. Similarly, Booking.
Com can develop a communication strategy for future to target audience Generation Z which is
defined as below
Identify target market- This is first step in which Booking. Com need to find out who is their
target market. This is because it enable in reaching target audience in effective way. For that they
can use various criteria that is used to define target market such as industry, income, location,
etc. it is necessary to find target audience to understand their behaviour, needs, etc. besides,
segregation of population is done accordingly. Furthermore, new products is developed as well
by identifying their needs. However, the company have targeted audience of age. They can be
youngsters who want to go on trips and tours (Amin and Priansah 2019). Thus, Booking. Com
can provide them services to book hotels, etc.
Identify target customers- The stage where target customer are identified on basis of their
needs and wants. So, entire customer persona can be prepared in which behaviour, attributes, etc.
of customer is mentioned in it. Then, they are properly understand and on basis of it target
audience is found. Hence, in Booking. Com can target customer are youngster of age 15-23 years
generation Z. As youngster are fond of travelling on small trips, tours, etc. Therefore, it can be
easy to target them and provide services.
Identify unique selling proposition- In this step the unique selling proposition can be defined.
This enable in differentiating product or service from competitors. Also, it helps in showing of
unique message about company service. Thus, here, USP is that company can offer generation Z
to book hotels online at discount and providing some free services as well. The services offered
can be of high quality. The company can give one year free membership to student who have
booked more than 10 times from company services (Blakeman 2018).
Determine marketing communication mix- this is stage where company identify what is their
marketing mix. Here, it includes that what type of promotion and advertising can be done. This
means that events, sponsorship, personal, selling, content marketing, etc. can be used or not.
There is need to find out marketing mix so that it becomes easy to attract people. It is a part of
communication strategy. Likewise, here Booking. Com can use online advertising from
Facebook, Instagram, You tube, etc. to promote and advertise services. This strategy is used as it
is low cost and it attract a lot of generation Z people easily.
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Match messaging with channels used- It is crucial stage in which the company need to select
various marketing channels for promotion or communicating with target audience. It helps in
aligning product or service message with customers. Thus, it requires proper mapping of
channels that is appropriate (CHAMIDAH, N., GUNTORO and SULASTRI 2020). So, here
Booking. Com can use various marketing channels such as SEO, PPC, e mail marketing, etc. in
order to attract audience. Along with it, social media sites can be used as well for it such as
Instagram, You tube, Facebook, etc. to reach out generation Z and attract them. The content
marketed is different on different marketing channels.
Set goals and measure – This is last step in which goals are set and then it is measured. This is
done to find out whether marketing communication strategy is successful or not. Therefore,
Booking. Com can also set certain goals in it to measure outcomes of strategy which is as
follows:
 Revenue and blog traffic- In this revenue is calculated and measured. Besides that, the
blog traffic is used as well to measure success. In this it can be evaluated how much
percentage traffic is generated on blog by generation Z.
 Social media reach- Another KPI used to measure success of strategy. Here, the reach of
social media is evaluated (Foster, Saputra and Grabowska 2020). In this signs ups, click
through, sharing on sites, etc. are measured. Therefore, with that social media reach can
be identified of generation Z
 Social media engagement- The KPI measure various components like number of clicks,
comments, direct messages, etc. that is received by students. Then, the data is analysed
and compared with set goals.
Execution- As name shows it is last stage in which marketing communication strategy can be
executed. Also, there is proper monitoring done by which it becomes easy to ensure that strategy
is on proper track (Rėklaitis and Pilelienė 2019). In Booking. Com strategy can be executed by
marketing department.
CONCLUSION
It can be summarized from the above project that marketing is an essential function of
management which helps in the promotion of the brand and draws the attention of the various
potential customers of the company. These days the digital channels of marketing are highly
used by the global companies to generate the awareness for its brand and also facilitate
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convenience and ease for its customer. Also, every business it is important to do marketing so
that they can attract more people. Besides, there are different communication and marketing
tools used. It helps in promoting services in wide range. There are various communication tools
such as Facebook, twitter etc. used by organisation. The Booking. Com have targeted youngster
of age 15-23 old. For that they will use tools such as Instagram, twitter, etc. to promote services.
The metrics used are blog traffic, social media reach, engagement, etc.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Agustina, C. and Panuju, R., 2020. Integrated marketing communication strategy of innovation
product kaptan and petrocas Pt petrokimia gresik. Soetomo Communication and
Humanities, 1(2).
Amin, M. and Priansah, P., 2019. Marketing Communication Strategy To Improve Tourism
Potential. Budapest International Research and Critics Institute-Journal (BIRCI-
Journal), 2(4), pp.160-66.
Blakeman, R., 2018. Integrated marketing communication: creative strategy from idea to
implementation. Rowman & Littlefield.
Borges-Tiago, M. T. and et.al., 2021. Differences between TripAdvisor and Booking. com in
branding co-creation. Journal of Business Research. 123. pp.380-388.
CHAMIDAH, N., GUNTORO, B. and SULASTRI, E., 2020. Marketing communication and
synergy of Pentahelix strategy on satisfaction and sustainable tourism. The Journal of
Asian Finance, Economics, and Business, 7(3), pp.177-190.
Díaz, M. R. and Rodríguez, T. F. E., 2018. Determining the reliability and validity of online
reputation databases for lodging: Booking. com, TripAdvisor, and Holiday Check.
Journal of Vacation Marketing. 24(3). pp.261-274.
Foster, B., Saputra, J. and Grabowska, M., 2020. Communication strategy planning in
influencing the intention to visit: an implication to marketing management. Polish
Journal of Management Studies, 22.
Krizanova, A. and et.al., 2019. The effectiveness of marketing communication and importance of
its evaluation in an online environment. Sustainability. 11(24). p.7016.
Labanauskaitė, D., Fiore, M. and Stašys, R., 2020. Use of E-marketing tools as communication
management in the tourism industry. Tourism Management Perspectives. 34. p.100652.
Rėklaitis, K. and Pilelienė, L., 2019. Principle differences between B2B and B2C marketing
communication processes. Management of Organizations: Systematic Research, 81(1),
pp.73-86.
Šķiltere, D. and Bormane, S., 2018. Integrated marketing communication as a business
management tool in the context of sustainable development. Open Economics. 1(1).
pp.115-123.
Obinwanne, C. and Ukabuilu, E., 2019. Utilization of Integrated Marketing Communication
Tools for Brand Recognition and Sales in Hotels. Journal of Hotel Management and
Tourism Research. 4. pp.29-38.
Online
About Booking.com. 2021. [Online] Available through: <
https://www.booking.com/content/about.en-gb.html?aid=356980;label=gog235jc-
1DCBQoggJCBWFib3V0SDNYA2hsiAEBmAEJuAEXyAEM2AED6AEBiAIBqAIDu
ALrpJKCBsACAdICJDhmYTZmZTRiLTdlZWMtNGVhMS1hNjVlLWU1NWNlYTQ
2NGU3N9gCBOACAQ;sid=5fcd77c46c1f926b0f8f5962da5acb27;keep_landing=1& >
The Business Model of Booking. Com. 2020. [Online] Available through: <
https://lightblack.eu/the-business-model-of-booking-com/>
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