Keep spending on advertising, especially in these tough times
Mattress Retailing 101
David Perry, Bedding editor -- Furniture Today, July 11, 2008
HUNT VALLEY, Md. — Bedding retailers thinking about cutting back on their advertising in tough times should think again. History shows that's a losing strategy.
Advertising expert Jon Parks, executive vice president of Horich Parks Lebow Advertising, based here, made that point in a presentation at Furniture/Today's latest Bedding Conference in May. He presented an overview of the changing advertising climate and offered retailers insights on how to deal with those changes.
Whatever retailers do, Parks said, they shouldn't shortchange their advertising programs. Research shows that retailers who maintain or increase their advertising during recessions dramatically outperform retailers who cut their advertising, he said.
Retailers must be mindful of the dramatic changes sweeping the advertising industry, where spending on Internet advertising is on the upswing, while spending on spot TV and locals newspapers is on the decline, according to Parks. He notes that spot TV remains an important medium, and says the current slowdown offers an opportunity to negotiate better buys.
And he said this election season brings a special challenge for retailers who rely on television advertising: Politicians can preempt other advertisers, and they may gobble up more than their share of 30-second spots in the final month before the elections, when the challenge for other advertisers is the greatest. Retailers should consider buying 15-second TV spots and should also look to radio, circulars and online vehicles to get their ad messages out, he said.
Parks offered several examples of ways that retailers are changing conversations with their customers and standing out from their competitors.
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Sleepy's provides courtesy cloths to consumers, making them more comfortable about lying down on the beds and testing them out. A clean pillow will encourage the consumers to spend more time on the mattress, and that will lead to a greater chance of making the sale, Parks said.
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1800mattress.com has a multi-faceted sales strategy, relying on store visits, telephone calls and Internet shopping to make the sales process easy for consumers. Now some of its New York stores are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Parks added. “There is some genius running through Napoleon's veins,” he said, referring to Napoleon Barragan, the founder and CEO of 1800mattress.com.
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Mattress Firm literally rolls out a red carpet for its Red Carpet Delivery Service. “That says they have thought the process through,” Parks said. Those special touches make consumers feel they made the right purchasing decision, he said.
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Hastens has privacy screens around some of its beds. “This is an intimate purchase,” Parks noted, and it's important to make consumers comfortable when they try the beds. Hastens also has a dedicated area devoted to sleep accessories, he said.
Assessing trends in online marketing, Parks said that only an estimated 3% of sales are occurring online. And only 8% of consumers say they would consider buying a mattress online, he added. But, he continued, 60% of consumers have used the Internet to do product research. So retailers need to leverage their strengths — the “bricks” of their stores — with the clicks that consumers will be making online to learn more about mattresses, Parks noted.
He also urged retailers to begin blogging. “Someone will be blogging on mattresses,” he said. “It should be you."
