When was the last time you learned about news from reading an actual newspaper? If you’re like the majority of Americans, you look primarily online or even to social media for your news sources. Consumers today are sophisticated and have access to information literally at their fingertips that they can consume within seconds. Today’s consumer also has a short attention span, about seven seconds for the average adult, and they’re not as brand loyal as their parents. This makes marketing to them a bit of a challenge unless your brand is quite literally, everywhere! Multi-channel marketing is known for being so effective with today’s consumers because it’s all about engaging with them through a combination of indirect and direct marketing channels. By providing content consumers are interested in via the medium they prefer to receive it, marketers can enable consumers to take actions (such as buying a product or service). At it’s core, multi-channel marketing gives consumers more power by providing different options.
Enter Casper Mattress, a brand I likely would have never heard about if it weren’t for their excellent multi-channel marketing strategy. I always catch myself being a “sucker” for these, and my journey with Casper is definitely not the first time I’ve gotten hooked. Every morning, I listen to various NPR podcasts on my phone, so I hear a lot of the same advertisements. One that peaked my curiosity is Casper that makes “the most awarded mattress of the decade.” Not only did I hear about it on my podcast, but I saw it advertised in my Facebook feed. Then, when I did a quick Google search of them, I immediately saw that it has a 4.5 star rating out of 4,594 reviews, wow! When my brother recently moved to Indianapolis and was in need of a new mattress, what brand do you think was my recommendation?
None of this is by coincidence. The agency, Red Antler helped to launch Casper as the first ecommerce brand of mattress. Immediately, they had a huge hurdle to get past- convincing consumers that you don’t need to lie down in a mattress before you buy it. They tackled this by making real Casper reviews readily accessible, and a fantastic 100 day testing period. It’s no secret that the review economy is huge, and that consumers trust reviews now more than ever before. Including links to their reviews in all of their marketing channels was important to their success as a company trying to “change the way people shop for mattresses.”
Casper knows how to reach you. They know their target audience and exactly where they should be engaging with them. Take me, for example, listening to my podcasts on behavioral economics (yes, I’m nerdy) and receiving targeted advertisements referring me to their website. They also have scored TV spots, and have a Facebook page that knows exactly how to hook their audience with most recent posts stating “come for the Instagram, stay for the nap” and “your dad doesn’t need another tie.” They’re also touted as “the most popular mattress on Twitter” by the American Marketing Association with their Twitter featuring a “talking” mattress!
However, Casper is taking multi-channel marketing to the next level by also taking it offline. Due to price increases of marketing on Facebook and Google, this startup decided to get a little more creative to reach their audience. Their offline marketing channels include subway and taxi top ads in New York and then San Francisco. Even these creatively reach their target audience with featuring a squirrel and a pigeon eating pizza stating that Casper is “the perfect mattress for locals.”
Interesting and memorable advertisements like this stick with the target audience, link them to other channels, and allow consumers to engage with them as a brand. They stay relevant and generate top-of-mind awareness for their audience when they now think of a mattress company. This, in turn, increases the likelihood of recommendations, even from people not looking to buy a mattress right now. Casper is winning at multi-channel marketing because they are reaching their audience where they’re spending their time and generating a ton of awareness.
Successful marketing strategies like Casper’s are no longer are limited to print and TV campaigns, but are a highly integrated and sophisticated multi-touch campaign designed to educate and captivate target audiences in each stage of the customer lifecycle. This is a brand that proves innovation and strategy go a long way, and this “talking mattress” can teach us all a thing or two about multi-channel marketing.
