Elevator Pitch

Product name: Headout

Elevator pitch:

Hi! I am Sumana, Growth Manager at Headout.

Headout is a travel marketplace designed to make every trip unforgettable. We connect you with handpicked experiences, verified destinations, and last-minute booking options, ensuring a hassle-free journey from start to finish. Whether you’re a solo traveler or planning a luxurious family escape, we tailor each experience to your preferences and budget.

Our focus is to enhance your journey by providing high-quality experiences that let you fully immerse in your travels—without the worry of logistics.

Company url:

https://www.headout.com/

Understanding product

About Headout

• Founded: 2014 by Varun Khona, Suren Sultania, and Vikramjit Singh.
• Headquarters: New York, USA.
• Funding: Raised ovr $60 million, including a recent $30 million Series B round to expand its offerings to 500 cities
• Core Offerings: Headout aggregates third-party activities, tours, and tickets for tourists and locals, focusing on last-minute bookings and curated experiences.
• Market Presence: Has already served over 20 million travellers across 81 destinations and operates in major cities like New York, Las Vegas, London, and Dubai.

SWOT Analysis

Core value proposition:

Headout promises its customers the following things,

• curated high-quality experiences from across the globe in one place to make travel convenient
• caters to all kinds of tastes and interests
• best deals and superior customer experience

Understanding users

User feedback and acceptance of Headout:

Headout is popular among Indians as a platform where you can discover high-quality experiences in international locations. In short, India is an already established source-market.

Lets look at some indicators :

• Indian travellers have booked tickets through Headout at international destinations and are aware of the existence of this platform. Early adopters of the platform are satisfied with the overall experience of using Headout and even recommend it to their friends.

• India is the 4th largest country in terms of how much organic search traffic Headout gets from across the world. Also there are 40k organic traffic from India every day

• Not only that, if you look at search intent data, about 11% which is approx. 4.4k traffic is coming with ‘Transactional intent’ which is a Bottom-of-the-funnel search intent. Clearly, people who are about to buy/convert are also visiting Headout

• Also, out of 268k visitors in Sep, 44% directly visited the website which is a strong indicator of brand awareness

Some more observations regarding user feedback:

• the product is able to deliver on its promise (curated experiences for all, best deals, good customer experience)
• users are hitting ‘aha’ moments in their journey
• users are bragging about it

Let's look at some indicators:

User bragging about smooth user flow and would most likely recommend it to friends. In the above screenshot we can see that the user has hit his ‘aha’ moment while booking his experience through the platform.

User bragging about ease of use + good deals they got on Headout.

User’s issue resolved by Headout team showing their focus on customer support.

ICP Analysis:

Lets analyse the Ideal Customer profiles for Headout (there are 3 ICPs, please scroll the table to see all 3)

ICP prioritisation

• Adoption curve: This will be the lowest for young solo travelers who are least resistant to new technologies and are looking for unique adventures while traveling. For the other 2 ICPs, adoption curve is medium; however, being millenials who shop online and use social media, they have a tendency to quickly learn and adapt.
• Frequency of use/travel: More solo travelers and luxury family trippers are taking 2 or more international vacations in a year than family trippers who are on budget.
• Appetite to pay: Families who are taking vacations on a budget have less appetite to pay for multiple experiences in a vacation
• TAM: Families taking vacations on budget might not be taking vacations abroad every year. They prefer domestic destinations for yearly travels with international holidays once every couple of years.
• Distribution potential: All 3 ICPs being from metro and tier 1 cities and online shoppers who spend time on social media, there is very low resistance to reaching each of them.

Based on the above analysis, we will be targeting the following 2 ICPs during early scaling phase:

• Solo travelers with budget (ICP 1)
• Family-trippers who can afford luxury (ICP 3)

Positioning of Headout:

Based on our chosen ICPs’ preferences Headout needs to position itself as,

An online platform that helps you discover the best deals for authentic local experiences wherever you're traveling.

Understanding market

Broad Competitive Analysis

Thrillophilia

Core unique use cases:

1. Local Experience Focus - Specializes in offering unique local tours and adventure activities in India and abroad.
2. Customizable Packages - Allows users to create tailored travel itineraries that suit their specific interests and group sizes.

Thrillophilia vs Headout

GetYourGuide

Core unique use cases:

1. Diverse Global Offerings- Provides access to over 60,000 bookable activities worldwide, including exclusive experiences.
2. Personalization and Data Utilization- Leverages user data to offer personalized recommendations, enhancing the booking experience.

GetYourGuide vs Headout

Viator

Core unique use cases:

Curated Local Experiences- Connects travelers with unique, locally-led tours and activities that may not be widely advertised.

User Reviews and Ratings- Emphasizes customer feedback to help users make informed decisions based on previous experiences.

Viator vs Headout

Headout’s unique advantage over other platforms

UAE and Singapore is extremely popular among Indian nationals.

Headout attracts significant traffic using the following domains,

dubai-tickets.co

• monthly organic traffic is 16k. Gives direct competition to destination-targeted platforms such as Rayna Tours, Visit Dubai

singapore-tickets.co

• monthly organic traffic from India is 18k. Gives direct competition to marinabaysands.com, sentosa.com.sg

Market size:

On exploring the platform, following are some observations:

• Headout has curated experiences in 81 destinations
• Supply is low in India hence they are focusing on Indians traveling abroad. Currently the platform is not for domestic traveling in India
• Since the platform offers experiences (tickets, tours, adventures, sightseeing, food tours, nightlife etc), the purpose of anyone using the platform while traveling outside India would be: Leisure, Recreation and Holiday

Let's look at the calculation:

Serviceable Obtainable market by volume is 13mn.

Headout is in early scaling stage, hence looking to strategize on 3 things,

Channel framework:

1. Experiment with paid ads on Google -

I have built paid ads experiment keeping in mind audience behaviour of ICP 1 and ICP 3. Also, lead time is low, hence would get quick results which will help us tweak our strategies with respect to ad copy, creative, etc.

• ICP 1 prefers adventure and outdoor activities on their trips. Experimented with 2 ads based on this preference.
• ICP 3 looks for luxury and immersive experiences. Experimented with 2 ads relevant to this segment of the audience

2. Organic search -

It takes a long time (outreach campaigns for backlinks + constant optimization of own content) to establish domain authority and rank from 1 to 10 on SERP. Hence I am trying to get an early start to optimize for search.

• I have targeted keyword research only around those trending destinations where Indian nationals are traveling to according to tourism report
• keyword research for existing traffic, competitor traffic, google related search
• backlinks and content strategy

Also, CAC is low hence should definitely prioritise this channel.

3. Referral program -

Referral programs can fuel word-of-mouth for Headout in addition to the following things

• Social Proof: Potential customers are more likely to trust recommendations from friends and family.
• Cost-Effective: Referral programs can be a cost-effective way to acquire new customers.
• Goal-based reward: Implementing milestone rewards where customers earn greater incentives as they refer more people can encourage ongoing participation.

Currently Headout does not have a referral program. I have developed the same for mobile flow and website flow.

Trending countries to visit for leisure among Indians are,

UAE, THAILAND, SINGAPORE, MALAYSIA, INDONESIA.

(There are a couple of countries that have more Indian tourists but since has no supply of experiences there, we are only targeting countries that have destinations listed on Headout.)

Source: tourism.gov.in​

We shall direct our efforts to rank for keywords related to the above country/destination searches.

A. Keyword Research

Existing traffic

Low hanging fruits : Improving positions on keywords that are low volume and easy to rank for will build authority and help the lower pages rank better. Below are examples of low-hanging keywords and their positions.

I have tried to include bottom of the funnel intent keywords to drive conversion by ranking on those keywords.

Avoiding keywords that are positioned beyond 30 as it will take high effort to rank for them.

Containing word: Dubai

Position: 4 to 10

Keyword Difficulty: Easy/Possible

Intent : Transactional (bottom of the funnel intent)

List of keywords: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13WmAZC_aSB-ZPmBWN27JI8S-rLfophGapfK7jkk6WpI/edit?usp=sharing

Containing word: phuket

Intent: Transactional

List of keywords: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1s4XYl2ZOs990-juDWhM4U8TQmoDCW0_DT-PedDM_iwM/edit?usp=sharing

Similarly for,

Containing word: singapore, sentosa, bali

Lists of keywords:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15OFrycIwJcNzDtjTDOShep-ll5zMzGKzg0OVA_FqDQk/edit?gid=335657626#gid=335657626

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18_KPN52KY_K6tfOU05TT8I8B5wIwx9hDXlenTZGwjac/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13J3Xg6f7TAFvoJHSvRfSR23jC0c86vw-Iro3-pHXziQ/edit?usp=sharing

Missing keywords

Picking easy to rank on keywords that our competitors are ranking for, but Headout is not ranking on them yet.

Below is a list of keywords for which Headout has a Right To Win and competitors are ranking on them:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fDhja0Y3sGLLzSx9kgdOhk7TYGNlctvLRfuSYrF3Dtc/edit?usp=sharing

Google related search

Below is a list of keywords ideated Google related search.

Prioritising them on the basis of Volume, KD, Competition Density.

If we have to select the top 4 keywords from this list, selection would be 

B. Link Building

Headout’s authority score is lower than its competitors. We can target outreaching backlink prospects with high authority score. 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xp8OeYsSZa1Tao9G0-oAzeYIgwI9s-CUgtXPhkUcYuA/edit?gid=369427847#gid=369427847

This is a list of domains that we can outreach asking for a backlink. Filters used are,

• country
• Authority Score above 90
• domains that have NOT linked to Headout yet but have backlinks linked to competitor websites
• we should also look at number of backlinks the prospect has e.g nytimes 800m+ backlinks from 1.8m domains
• 
• Outreach for backlink prospects :

(Using the below message through Semrush’s Link Building Tool)

Hi there! I hope this message finds you well. I am Sumana, Growth Manager from Headout, a mobile-first marketplace dedicated to helping travellers discover and book unique experiences around the world. I admire the content on your website <xxxx> and believe that a collaboration could be mutually beneficial. We have high-quality resources and travel insights that would complement your audience's interests perfectly.

The URL to my website is www.headout.com Would you be open to discussing a potential backlink partnership? I’m confident this could enhance the value we both provide to our readers. Looking forward to your response!

• Selected a few high volume, relevant to the trending destinations keywords in the Link Building Tool
• Next, I selected 10 domains which have high Authority Score and moved them to ‘in progress’

• Customising each email based on who the prospect is and sending an outreach email

C. SEO Optimized Content

• I want to target keywords with search intent either ‘Commercial’ (browsers will make a purchase in the future and only researching now) OR ‘Transactional’(browsers ready to purchase).
• Example - keyword ‘burj khalifa ticket booking’ has a Transactional intent. For this keyword Semrush shared some recommendations. I also checked how my competitors are using the keyword in their domains and sub-domains.

• Used SEO writing assistant to compose an article for the keyword ‘burj khalifa ticket booking’ with a readability score of 8.6.

Link to the article: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1N2ApajbcrMpvH8vJgmwkdSrm6OBTdO6r8SxB2oP93lU/edit?tab=t.0

Channel not prioritised for this project.

Expected LTV, CAC of each ICP

LTV = Avg. Booking value X Frequency X #booking done through the platform/trip X Retention

In order to achieve a CAC:LTV ratio of at least 3 (i am taking a healthy number here based on industry standards), I calculated the CACs for each ICP.

In summary, we are going to explore both ICPs for paid ads keeping an eye on CACs while planning on ad spends.

Channel selection:

For the scope of this project, I am exploring the following 2 channels.

Other paid channels such as Facebook and Instagram can also be targeted but since Headout is in early scaling stage, I am experimening with 2 channels for now.

(please open toggles to read)

Channel not prioritised for this project.

Who will refer Headout to their friends :

1. Customers of Headout who want to earn more Headout credits for their next trip
2. Customers who are satisfied with the experience of booking with Headout.

[For the scope of this project I have detailed out the flow for scenario 1. Since I have not booked and paid for an experience with Headout yet, I am unable to share that flow.

However, the referral landing pages and messages would be the same for both scenarios. ]

How and where will they discover the referal program:

Mobile flow

Screen 1 : Welcome screen. You see this screen whenever you open the app.

Screen 2: When you click on Account, you goto Screen 2.

Suggestion is to add a new block ‘Referrals and Credits’ between ‘My Account’ and ‘Help’ blocks.

Click on the next button on the new block.

Screen 3: Giving some information on what the referral program is about. Clicking on ‘Share’ button, we goto Screen 4.

Screen 4: We get to choose the communication channel for sharing the referral.

Screen 5: Communication on whatsapp

Web flow

Screen 1:

On clicking on ‘Account’ button, the dropdown we see does not have the word ‘Referrals’.

My suggestion is to make it ‘Referrals and Credits’.

Screen 2:

Screen 3:

On clicking ‘Refer a friend and earn credits’ we get the below screens

On clicking ‘Headout Traveler Referal Program’ 

Referral tracking and incentive:

In the mobile flow, after clicking on ‘Referrals and Credits’ we get a next button.

On clicking on that button, we get the below screen 3.

Click on ‘Track your referrals’

Also, give incentive to make 30 successful referrals.