You can host an event at your store or you can host an experience such as a mattress chucking competition.
This week, Trent Ranburger of Trent Bedding Company, returns to co-host the show and discuss how to host events at your store that are not only memorable, but leave a lasting impact. In this episode, Trent discusses partnering with their local chapter of the American Red Cross and hosting a “mattress chucking” competition, which is exactly what it sounds like. He hosted a men’s, women’s and children’s division and offered a new mattress set to the winner of each category. All the competitors had to do? Chuck the mattress the further than any other competitor.
Listen or watch as Trent discusses where the event idea came from, how they collaborated with local businesses and why it is an event that people will never forget.
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FULL TRANSCRIPTION
Mark Kinsley
What happens when you invite people to your parking lot to chuck mattresses across the blacktop Trent Ranburger is back to co host and we are talking events done right the fam marketing show starts right now.
Mark Kinsley
What’s up? Adria? Yo, Adrian?
Adrienne Woods
Okay, I have I have a trivia question for today. It’s gonna take you back to like fourth or fifth grade? What is the largest planet in the solar system? Oh,
Mark Kinsley
should we make jokes about? Should we make jokes about the size of each other’s CRO Magnum melons right now? Oh,
Adrienne Woods
I was gonna say something about your Rhiness that this is a family friendly show. And we tell people they could listen with their kids. So I’m not gonna go there. But if you haven’t guessed, while while you’re listening to the show Texas, head on over to Sam dot news. You can use our podium text button right there on the website, and then hang around. Because at the end of the show, I’m going to tell you what the largest planet is in our solar system.
Mark Kinsley
I should know this. Because I went to space camp recently. I went to space camp recently, and I studied the solar system and I gotten all the different apparatuses that spin you in all the different directions. And it was amazing. And I was the chaperone for the kids. Okay, it wasn’t just me. Oh, I should. I should know this.
Adrienne Woods
You you you would be the type just to go to space camp. Do you think you know the answer?
Mark Kinsley
I think I know the answer. I think I know the answer. The guy that has the answer to how to create great experiences like Space Camp is Trent Ramberg. He’s back to co host thanks for coming back. We did a show with you. Back. This is big for us. I mean, hey
Adrienne Woods
can you play your cards right? We might have that invite you back for a third. So it all rides on this new trend? No pressure.
Mark Kinsley
I think you got this well, Hey, Tim, take us into this experience that you created. I remember you telling me about this mattress throwing event. And a lot of retailers out there. When they’re thinking about marketing, their business, their store, whether it’s furniture, appliances or mattress, they’re thinking about creating in store experiences, you created an out of store experience that was revolving around a community event. Tell us about the mattress throwing event how you did it, what happened? Let’s dig into the details because I know they’re gonna be some great insights for people.
Trent Ranburger
To keep it quick. So my buddy that stopped my commercials come in one day, and he was like, dude, have you seen the video of the guys throwing mattresses out of the back of a pickup truck going down a country road? No, no. You got to do that. And I was like, no, no, we don’t That’s too dangerous. Like I said, previously, if people come to me with ideas, and I’m a person that I don’t say no to very many ideas, at least like to try something. And so you know, thought about what we could do how we could do it. And of course my parking lot. I’m in a shopping centres with a large parking lot. So I decided to team up with the American Red Cross our local chapter, which I’ve been on the board of for a lot of years. But before I was even on the board, I teamed up with them. So the benefit of Zim it was a benefit for the Red Cross. The Trent bedding was putting on this event. The event we called mattress Chuck so basically I had a twin mattress. And then I had like a like a promo twin mattress like a foam twin twin mattress, and pillows we had a men’s and women’s and children’s division. And literally whoever could chuck the mattress, throw the mattress the farthest in the parking lot. Want a new mattress set in the men’s women’s and the kids division. Now the kids they won, they won little prizes. They didn’t win mattresses, but they won prizes, but to you know to make in any event event, we decided to have it in October, which in Kentucky the weather is 5050 Because this is an outside event. But we would have we had vendors, you know, local businesses would come and set up a booth or chant and sell their wares promote their business, it could be a service, whatever. We would have a costume contest for the kids. So everybody would show up in costumes. And everybody would go in we’d have raffles. Literally, we would throw mattresses and we would have hundreds of people show up on a Saturday and stand around for hours until it was it was over and see who won because it was the furthest they wanted No. And like 33 feet and six inches or something like that, well, yeah. Like, like, the other guy could throw my foot. But yeah, that that event. I mean, even today people like, oh, well we’re gonna do that. I haven’t done that twice, five or six years because Planet Fitness moved in the shopping centre. So they took over my parking lot. And you know, I couldn’t do anything but on the day of the event, of course I’d have it outside in front of my store. We would have crazy sales that day because so many people were just caught up in the excitement and the fun. We’d have live music we had hot dogs and food I mean, it was just it was it was a family friendly fun Saturday once a year. Big of them
Adrienne Woods
have you looked up the Guinness Book of World Records to see who holds the record for checking a mattress the furthest? Because I feel like 33 feet should be there.
Trent Ranburger
Thank you should be great, but no I haven’t.
Adrienne Woods
Your next event is contacting the Guinness Book of World Records and getting a certified person out there to make sure that that makes it in
Trent Ranburger
we you know, did do a Guinness World Record that stemmed from mattress Chuck, it was human mattress dominoes back. And at that time, we held the world record. We had 150 mattresses, mattress, Domino’s and people in my parking lot. And we held it for about a week. And then someone in Puerto Rico Costa Rica somewhere they don’t like it, like 100 But yeah, so I like your idea about the microstructure. I never thought about that one for the world record.
Adrienne Woods
I’m telling you the mattress Domino’s sounds like a good recycling promo, like bring your old mattress we’re gonna domino them down. And that will take them to be recycled.
That’s it. Hello,
Mark Kinsley
you did I think that a lot of people maybe don’t think about is how do you make it interactive? You know, how do you involve people you know, you can have, you know, food and music and some things like that. But what are you going to do to actually get people’s hands on the product and make them involved? And I love that whether it’s Domino’s or mattress chucking and did you have a character as well? Well, it wasn’t a character like Chuck T mattress.
Trent Ranburger
Yes, we actually and I still have his costume solo and they gave me the shell of a twin mattress and I took it to a friend of mine that does that doesn’t monogramming and stitching and she made chuck the mattress. And it’s literally a twin mattress mascot, and we call it T mattress which is the mattress and shirts were made, you know, don’t jump on them chucking them. I mean, it was a whole it was like it was a whole event. We have a lot of fun.
Mark Kinsley
It did your friend at one time. Come back to you and and during Halloween with a special request.
Trent Ranburger
Yes, yes. Can you all hear my batteries are low. It’s terrible. Are we already called him? He is yeah, these devices. This is gonna sound crazy as well. He said so my wife and I are going to a costume party. That’s okay. He said, I want to go as you said, Excuse me. He said I want to go his friend was like, Okay. He’s like, I need something from my wife. You know, what can she be? And I was like, Oh, I have chopped the mattress up. She can be him. So literally, he came to the store. We got a road trip bedding shirt and the mattress costume and literally went through a costume party Halloween party dressed as me.
Adrienne Woods
That is excellent. How many costumes do you think you have in your back room?
Trent Ranburger
Oops, between me and little Trent a bunch. I could probably start a new business. I love it.
Mark Kinsley
Hey, impersonation is the highest form of flattery. Okay, so the fact that somebody dressed up as Trent for Halloween, and then his wife and his Chucky mattress is huge. So this this event, I want to help people break it down. Now we talked about making something interactive, like get people’s hands on the products do something that they can, you know, I’ve seen recliner events where they tried to cycle the most times in a recliner or they had recliner races. So something where people can build something, get their hands on it be interactive, I think that’s huge. The other principle within this that I think is key is tying it to a nonprofit. You were on the board. So people so it was very organic for you to tie that in. But it gave people a reason beyond just the fun of the event to come out support the nonprofit. Is that a key piece of what you think people people should do?
Trent Ranburger
Well, 100% net, and then that’s getting back to the community, giving back to the community. You know, in a lot of my over the years I’ve told you that’s one thing you’ve got to do as fuel as a business owner is give back to the people that give to you because without the community, I’m not in business. And choosing nonprofits is a great a great way to give back to them as well but it also might bring more awareness to that nonprofit as well. So you No, it’s It’s came up with with with good local nonprofits, you know, the national ones are great. And that’s like, you know, the Red Cross, yes, that’s the national worldwide organisation. But we have a local chapter. So it was a local chapter, the money went local, the money stays local. It doesn’t get sent to DC corporate, and then they distributed across the US know, it stayed 91% of every dollar given to the Red Cross is spent in the community. You know, so they worked off nine cents on the dollar. So Red Cross is a really good, which I’ve worked with dozens upon dozens of the years.
Mark Kinsley
And then you also made sure and you rounded out the event, you got entertainment, you had music, I’m sure you got your local media partners involved and you promoted it, you just didn’t hope people showed up. So I love all the boxes, you’re able to check in what it did. And let’s be honest, Trent, you saw a few people out there that could throw a mattress a long way. And you probably said, I’ve got a delivery spot open, you’re hired
Adrienne Woods
pretty much we’re hiring people. I mean, that’s a that’s a big win for an event.
Trent Ranburger
So it was it was always fun. It was I mean, people would get there early, they would stay late, they would help clean up. I mean, it was just goes back to just being approachable and being able to be talked to. But I mean, it was just it was it was so much fun doing it. And while the work but it just feels fun.
Mark Kinsley
I’ve heard about another event where they were able to take their store. And they were they were able to turn the story into a drop off number one for prom dresses. So they had a lot of younger people in their community that didn’t weren’t able to afford a really nice prom dress. So anybody that had one, they were able to drop it off the store. So that was step one. Step two, was once the drop off was made, they held an event for moms and daughters or family members and daughters that were getting ready for prom to come in, they turned the entire store into a bunch of changing rooms. So they’re able to try on these dresses come out feel beautiful, and get a prom dress for that special night that they otherwise wouldn’t have had. So it really tied into you know, some charity work, really helping people on the special night got involved with the schools and the communities. So I love these these ideas that get people involved and are just out of the box thinking and that was my friend Michael, who did that. So think about your events as ways to involve the Community Give Back do good make them fun, make them interactive, and like that last example if you can make it a two parter you get double the foot traffic in your store. And Trent Hey, I know you’ve done more events than that and we’ve got more amazing episodes in the works with you so be sure and everybody subscribe to the fam marketing show whether you’re on Apple podcasts or Spotify or you’re just on the newsletter make sure you subscribe and okay should we round it out and get this trivia question? The finality
Adrienne Woods
Yeah, okay, so Trent I want to try to answer what is the biggest planet in our solar system Jupiter it is really very nice very nice thank you
Mark Kinsley
get them off stage he’s talking too long.
Adrienne Woods
If you’ve got a tip it’s work for you and a topic that you want us to tackle also go to our website fam.news and tell us and join us then again next week as we bring you more fam marketing magic. See you guys!
