As the importance of quality sleep and overall well-being is becoming more of a priority for consumers, the mattress and bedding industry has seen significant growth. This has led to the the emergence of DTC sleep brands, which are creating fresh business models, and finding new acquisition channels to sell sleep essentials. These brands strive to offer innovative solutions aligned with the industry's evolution towards enhancing the sleep experience.
Just as customers invest in a good mattress and all things bed, it is also important to invest in a good email marketing campaign to make yourself visible in this growing industry.
Here are some key points to consider:
- Highlight your products’ health benefits
- Share practical guides: buying guides, how-to-clean guides, gift guides
- Give them reasons to switch to your products
- Showcase your limited editions
- Offer your bundles for more savings
1. Highlight your products’ health benefits
Health and sleep are correlated. You can’t achieve overall health and wellness without good and quality sleep.
Marketing experts have taken advantage of this fact in offering products and services related to beds and bedding. They often share content around topics on health problems in relation to lack of quality sleep — stress, anxiety, lower immune system, and loss of mental focus, to name a few.
Share valuable insights, add more value, and show genuine concern for the well-being of your subscribers like the examples below.
This email from Purple is a great example of clearly pointing out important components of health and how sleep affects them. Alongside promoting better sleep, they promote their product as a way to achieve wellness.
Best practices:
We’ve seen some best practices in this email from Purple’s New Year campaign.
First, they use a strong banner message “Invest in a Good Sleep Life” which connotes that good sleep is worth investing in.
The word “invest” in itself also has considerable weight when used to encourage positive action by the customers. It gives them the idea that taking advantage of the offer can reciprocate something good and worth their money.
Another strong point from the email is that they mention science-backed studies. This can halt objections and lead to further promotion of the concept they’re trying to instill in their audience.
Make 2023 the year of good sleep.
Let’s take another excellent example, this time from Eight Sleep.
As anxiety becomes a growing concern for health, Eight Sleep cleverly crafts a promotional type of email while sharing valuable insights with their subscribers, putting forward the health advantage of using their product.
Best practices:
Eight Sleep uses the attention-grabbing subject line “The #1 hack for anxiety →” with the main words #1 hack and anxiety in the spotlight.
The banner “Sleep: the fundamental cure for anxiety” answers the subject line directly. So in the first parts of the email, there’s a continuity of ideas which saves the readers’ time and promotes the concept right away.
In the latter part of the copy, they also mentioned the beneficial result of using their Pod based on a clinical study.
The #1 hack for anxiety →
2. Share practical guides
a. Buying Guides
Choosing what mattress to buy can be both exciting and difficult given the wide range of choices. The fact that people have different sleep patterns, routines, and health needs makes the selection process even more burdensome.
A buying guide is a source of relevant product information that customers can refer to.
It is helpful to incorporate a buying guide into your newsletters. Remember, you want to help your prospective customers make the right decision toward the goal they want to achieve when buying a certain product.
It’s best to keep your emails unbiased and informative so they will connect you with prospective buyers who are just right for the products you offer.
We’re taking this email from Leesa as an example.
Leesa guides their subscribers through the process of selecting the right mattress that fits their needs. By providing information on different mattresses, they empower their subscribers to make informed decisions.
Best practices:
It is a simple and straightforward approach that uses the classic “how-to” hook in the subject line while the CTA directs to product recommendations and promotes conversion.
How to buy a Leesa mattress online.
This email from Casper takes the buyer’s guide to the next level. Here, they showcase their range of products while sharing the dos and don’ts of a perfect bedtime.
Best practices:
It is a blend of promotional and informative content that readers will find interesting and practical. In each do and don’t, they’ve shown logical reasoning to push the product’s value forward, thus guiding the customer in purchasing the item for a better sleep experience.
Our guide to a better bedtime
b. How-to-Clean Guides
A mattress is a serious investment so we want to make sure it lasts. But it is also one of the items at home that’s most difficult to clean and maintain. This poses a great challenge to prospective buyers.
You can ease their worries by sending helpful content such as how-to-clean guides.
These types of email communication serve two purposes. You’re not just helping the consumers address their common concerns, but you’re also ensuring to prolong the lifespan and performance of the products so they meet (and even exceed) customer expectations.
Here’s how Purple provides more value to its readers.
Best practices:
Purple demonstrates its expertise in all things bed by sharing valuable tips for some of the most difficult problems on bedding such as whether or not pillows can be washed, cleaning big weighted blankets, and more.
Each topic they present here has a clear CTA that leads to a more comprehensive blog article, further displaying their expertise in this industry.
Our Favorite Bed-Cleaning Hacks
Leesa has almost the same approach to sharing cleaning hacks with their audience.
Best practices:
We love that the content is organized and divided into four main topics (mattresses, comforters, sheets, pillows) as these are cleaned differently. Each is presented on a thumbnail that leads to thorough readings about the particular subject.
Wake up refreshed with these bedroom cleaning hacks
c. Gift Guides
Since mattresses and beds are for people of all ages, they make an excellent gift! As a brand in this industry, why not take advantage of offering your products through a gift guide?
Casper and Buffy have taken a thoughtful approach to making the holiday season and any special occasion less stressful by promoting their products as the perfect gifts.
Best practices:
Both Casper and Buffy correlate their products to their benefits as if you’re also gifting coziness, better bedtime, and a good night’s sleep to a hard-to-shop-for someone.
With a few lines such as “You can’t go wrong with the gift of a better night's sleep” and “Better sleep is one thing they won’t regift”, they’ve given peace of mind to shoppers that they can never go wrong when they choose them as a gift.
Cozy gifts for any occasion.
The Gift You Can't Go Wrong With
3. Give them reasons to switch to your products
It is most likely that customers already have a bed and a mattress in place. It must have been their comfort zone for quite a while now. Therefore, it becomes more challenging for mattress and bed companies to encourage customers to switch to their products.
Some of the factors that drive customers to try out a new brand are the promise of better product and service quality, more reasonable prices, more innovative product design, consistency in customer care, etc.
Buffy, in this email, presents a compelling summary of 3 reasons why customers should make a switch.
Best practices:
They were able to tackle some of the most important aspects that customers are looking for in a mattress — the need and desire for comfort during sleep as backed by a user testimonial, the eco-friendliness, and the privilege to try out the product first without commitment.
This way, they’re being able to establish brand trust and confidence, the first step to engaging with their audience.
Your Bed Deserves Better
4. Showcase your limited editions
To avoid being stagnant, some brands create and promote new limited-edition items. It keeps people engaged and it evokes a sense of scarcity and exclusivity. Additionally, this marketing move makes the products more desirable to buy.
Limited editions can be seen across industries. It could be an entirely new product, or just a temporary design and/or packaging to celebrate a certain season or occasion, a brand collaboration, or a collector’s piece.
The New Linen Launch from Brooklinen is a smart tactic to achieve the above-mentioned goals.
Best practices:
Needless to say, it generates buzz and engagement in the audience due to the products’ tight availability. This email also provides valuable insights as to how their audience will embrace the introduction of new colors. It also builds excitement and invites creativity.
New Limited Edition Linen
5. Offer your bundles for more savings
On to the last topic, we will discuss prices and savings.
Of course, mattresses and beddings require a considerable amount of money from the customer. Therefore, it is especially important to position your brand as reasonable in terms of pricing. Otherwise, customers will look somewhere else.
Bundling items develops trust in buyers because you’re offering your items at a reduced price and it gives buyers convenience when shopping.
Brooklinen and Casper are among the brands that rely on bundling to promote not just their best-selling items but also their other accessory products.
Best practices:
Telling the customers how much (in actual $ figures) they can save through bundles gives them a clear impression of the savings. This is what Casper does, mentioning $1,250 in the subject line.
Both of them presented different ways to bundle up, thus making it more convenient to the audience. Customers can also benefit from the brands’ expertise in curating complementary products.
Our Best Sellers, For Less? Yes, Please!
Bundle and save over $1,250
If you’re looking for more valuable insights, you can check out our curation of the best marketing assets used by sleep brands.
Happy sheep counting!
