Do you want to read your customer’s mind?
What retailer wouldn’t want to do that if they could?
On today’s FAM Marketing Show, bed marketing guru, Brandon Bain of BedHead Marketing, joins Mark and Adrienne to discuss how you can extrapolate consumer data and learn exactly what your customer wants.
In this episode, Bain discusses morphing technology and how everyone from retailers to manufacturers are jumping on board to integrate it into their products and how that usage can be a useful tool when it comes to sales. Learn how to read the data that’s being received and how to translate that information into language your customers needs to hear to build confidence in their purchase.
FULL TRANSCRIPTION
Mark Kinsley: It’s the old school way of thinking about how to build a bed we’re doing it live right here with Brandon Bay right now. The FAM Marketing Show starts right now. And here’s what we’re gonna talk about. We’re gonna talk about the old school way versus how you can conceptualize and go to market with your products.
It’s the man, the myth, the reality behind Bedhead marketing. All right, Brandon, we kind of like tossed you into this one, right? Because we were laughing and talking and just pontificating about the direction of the industry and how things are done and where you saw opportunities with Bedhead and why Bedhead came to be, and I’m like, boom roll.
We have to record this episode right now. So before we get into this idea of where do products. And how do we conceptualize those and how do we bring ’em to market properly? We gotta start with some sort of trivia question, and I’m sure Adrian is just sitting here. Like, what? Like I didn’t even have a trivia question.
Ready, but we’ll, we’ll see. I’ll, I’ll go silent for a moment.
Adrienne Woods: Okay. All right. Here’s what I got. Hold on, hold on. Email marketing returns. How much money for every $1.
Mark Kinsley: Hmm. Email marketing returns, how much money? So return on, it’s almost like your roaz just for email marketing. Yes. For every dollar spent.
Mm-hmm. . Uh, now do we get options here?
Adrienne Woods: I can give you some options. Okay. Is it $15 $36? Four $42,
Mark Kinsley: 15, 36 or 42. If you have a guess, and maybe some of you do email marketing, so maybe you have a good swag idea, you can go to THA News and you can text us on our podium number. It’s in the bottom right hand side of the screen.
I will tell you from my, my old days in doing mm-hmm. , uh, thousands of emails, uh, by far email marketing was the number one driver of product sales. For Kip O. Now this is my athletic shorts with pockets for your phone. You know this is back, which is Jonathan’s favorite to this day. 23rd. Yeah, I saw Jonathan wearing like V2 the other day.
I’m like, man, that’s old school. But I’ll tell you when we sent an email and we made sales, so, okay, get your guests in $15, $36 and $42. And Brandon’s gonna guess here at the end of the show. Okay. Brandon Bain, c e o of Bedhead Marketing. Welcome back to the show as our co-host. Thanks much. Thanks for having me.
Happy to be here. Thank. Well, I’m happy to see that shirt again. I never thought I’d see it again. Here it is. Got all the bed
Brandon Bain: headss on there. . It’s gonna be the inside lining of one of your jackets One day. Mark. Mark. Woo.
Adrienne Woods: Nice. It’s his podcast shirt. That’s why he’s wearing it. To be on the podcast. He’s wearing that shirt.
That’s
Mark Kinsley: right. Ooh. You know, that’s, that’s what I need. I just need an official podcast uniform. You know, like the president of the United States just like goes in the closet and has like the same suit every day. It seems like maybe like two ties. I’m gonna have a podcast uni like that. Okay. Maybe it’s a, I
Adrienne Woods: get Tara on it.
Brandon Bain: I’ll get Tara on it. How you know it’s business time and put the business business shirt on. Business socks. All right, let’s go job. You got the socks right? You got the do Marco socks, so,
Mark Kinsley: Ooh, yeah, I’ve got some do Marco Socks. We need some fam socks. We need some fam marketing show. I’m all for it. I want Adrian’s face on my feet.
Boom. ,
Brandon Bain: good
Adrienne Woods: times. Although I will say, I just add in here, I asked for a shirt with a fam logo on it for like a year and a half, and then he brings Tara on board. Boom. In a month. I have a t-shirt, I have a long sleeve shirt, I have all the things I need.
Mark Kinsley: Tara came on board and she, she’s our director of events now, and she told me, she goes, I cannot do this job without a canvas bag with the fan logo.
I’m like, well get one. Like if that’s all and she got a
Adrienne Woods: notebook and she got another t-shirt. I mean, I also have like a workout shirt with the fam. I got everything I needed.
Mark Kinsley: Adrian, you don’t know this. I have a gift for you and for me. I, I need, I’m gonna bring it to you, so, okay. Okay. Just so you know, so I, I’m paying
Adrienne Woods: attention.
Do you know I still have your Christmas gift from last? .
Mark Kinsley: Sweet. Hey, remember what I got you say this year and re-gift your own gift. re gift. Like that idea. Fair . Hey, you know, speaking of like last year’s gifts, you know, we think a lot in last year or 10 years ago terms in the mattress industry and there’s like this playbook for how we develop products and how we go to market.
And I can’t tell you just go through this process. Like whenever I became responsible for England, Like people like pulling out, you know, all these different fabrics. And I would go to their offices in North Carolina and then we’re building beds and we’re seeing what people have and I’m like, hold on a minute.
Like can’t, like we need to come at this with some intention. And so we developed, you know, full brand guidelines and identity for Englander and color palette and, you know, mission, vision, values. It was very clear in our brand pillars and all these things and that informed the product. I was like, it all has to hold hands and map.
So when I think about how things used to be done versus how we do them today, it’s very different. And Brandon, the conversation that got us kicked off where I’m like, let’s press record, was your insight into how products have been built. Positioned, marketed, brought to market in the past versus how you think it should be done today?
Take us into your head, your bedhead, .
Brandon Bain: Um, so I mean, just the thought behind the way that products have been built historically is, um, as new technologies are made available, That manufacturers are trying to integrate those technologies into those product, into their products so that they can create the most compelling story, right?
The more technologies, whether it’s cooling or, uh, conformance and pressure relieving and adjustable friendliness, and all of the things that you want to kind of check the boxes off that your bed has, um, you kind of like, no, I wouldn’t say shoehorn them into a bed, but you’re developing it sort of kind.
That way where I kind of submitted, you know, why wouldn’t we start off? Because we have access to so much data instead of building a product that we hope works. And then maybe getting a focus group , maybe that’s a set of buyers at a, a retailer, is we start off with the customer. What do they want? What do they need?
Well, the best way to do that is just go right to analytics. Just go to the data. What are people searching for? What are the things that is missing when. Buying beds and they’re looking for, and, and you can even go to some of the long tail things. . And what I mean by that is you obviously, when you pull up people’s interest in buying beds, they’re gonna pull up things like firm, right?
you’re gonna get firm a lot, you’re gonna get support, um, you’re gonna get cooling, those kinds of things. So we gotta make sure we have all that. But there may be other things that are, uh, people are struggling with, like, Hey, I need, um, maybe it’s a bed for someone that’s, um, going through chemo, like what’s the best.
You know, sleep when, when you’re having to, you know, have an adjusted situation or whatever. Um, so I would say let’s start off with what people need and then develop products that way, um, and make sure that it, you know, fits your company ethos and and, and lines up on your product
Mark Kinsley: card as well. Yeah, I think that’s a, it’s a really important point because you’re right.
For the longest time, you know, we would hear from manufacturers who are saying, I wanna see something new from the component. And what they were saying is, I need some slice of innovation that I can call attention to and retailers are gonna wanna repeat to a consumer. And it was all about the componentry.
It was all about some performance aspect of that componentry, like you said, whether it was, you know, increase that or stronger this, or cooler this or that. And what you’re saying is, uh, I think a good, it’s a good marketing tip. That, that ends up paying itself off whenever the product does launch. And that is go to where consumer’s, uh, heads are right now, and where their, where their bedhead is right now, is they’re thinking about, look, I have a problem that I’m trying to solve and I did an exhaustive audit and I’ve done it a few times about, you know, who owns Sleep Online and Problems own Sleep online.
Overwhelmingly people are, For problems related to sleep that they’re trying to solve. So if you can, you know, bubble up that data and you can sort those problems in a way that allows you to map that, that componentry or that build to the problem that you can solve, that’s what people ultimately want.
They’re not, I, I mean, Sometimes they want new technology and innovation, but as long as it’s meaningful to their life. And I’ll tell you something else, it was really interesting. I would encourage you to tap into good bed.com and you can even reach out to Mike Magnuson and Jeff Cassidy and the team there.
And I did this early on with Englander cuz I had this suspicion, like this hunch that technology was slowing down people whenever they were going to buy a mattress. And what I mean by that, You know, I, I had so many inquiries through Englander’s contact form of people saying, can I get this mattress that I had 10, 15, 20 years ago?
What’s the new version of that? It, it was overwhelming the number of people that would email us and contact us through Englander to try and get the mattress. Cuz we’ve been around since 18, 18 94. So they wanted this all, and I’m like, ma, Magnuson, do you have any information? That consumers want mattresses made the way they used to be.
He goes, as a matter of fact, we do have one of the top 10 most trafficked blog posts on our site is about that very topic. Mattresses made the way they used to be. And so when, whenever you think about innovation and you think about problem, you know, solving problems, Sometimes it’s unexpected what people actually want.
And by tapping into that data and, and, and kind of the consciousness of the consumer, you’re gonna hopefully bubble up some information that informs you so you don’t go down a direction that’s just innovation for the sake of innovation, even though nobody wants it.
Brandon Bain: Yeah. I mean, it’s like crowdsourcing your product development.
Right. But , you’re, you’re doing it over such, such large swaths of information. Um, you’re getting a really big perspective in understanding how people feel. I think first off, we love the Good Bed guys. They have a similar mission that we have at Bedhead, similar mission that the FAM has, which is to elevate the category, right, for the benefit of the end consumer, the retailer, and the product makers.
It’s the same sort of thing that they’re working under umbrella. They’re working under that. You’re working under that we’re working under, and I think of a company that one that stands out that has sort of taken this mantra and, and executed it properly. You look at a company like Big. Right. They literally said, here’s a category of people that have a particular need.
Larger individuals that need particular, you know, comfort and support, pressure relief, uh, in their bed. And they created that bed for those people, they worked in this way backwards. They didn’t say, let’s make a bed and then see who likes it and then market it to those people. ,
Mark Kinsley: you know, another one that pops into my mind is Don House Living.
And of course this is a division of Ergo Motion. The folks from Don House are focus. Squarely on the senior market and about needs people have at home that evolve as you begin to age. You know, everything from, uh, monitoring and tracking and underbed lighting and some of those things that tell you how you slept and can also be communicated to your, to your physician or even your kids to let ’em know, Hey, I’m, I’m in bed.
Mom’s in bed, she’s doing. Uh, all the way down to the bed, physically moving up and down so that it’s easier to get in and out of bed. The ingress egress problem is solved, which is a major issue for people, mo mobility issues or seniors. So this entire bed is geared toward. Senior needs, and they started with research and they started by, uh, finding out what those problems are that they could solve.
So I think you’re absolutely right, and when you’re talking about a new product or going to market with something original, you really have to take a slice of the market that nobody else owns. You gotta get that piece of real estate and, and if you’re trying to compete with the big boys just based off doing the same thing they did, you’re gonna be playing their game and they’re gonna beat you.
Brandon Bain: Go Musk, get to Musk, get, you know, against those people that have done it for years at the highest levels is, uh, a recipe for disaster. Um, we, you have told me many times, here’s another one of the Kinsley isms, the riches are in the niches. So , you told me that for years, and I agree it’s. Not, not just, um, you know, the riches, but like the most benefit, the max good that you can do is to niche down into where people are actually having problems that you can tackle and solve.
So I think that’s a great way to develop products these
Mark Kinsley: days. And, and I’ll translate because Brandon was speaking, uh, probably Greek to some people. If you’re in the Pacific Northwest or San Francisco, he. The Rees are in the niches.
Brandon Bain: Rees,
Adrienne Woods: I’m gonna, I’m gonna cross stitch that on a pillow somewhere. .
Mark Kinsley: Well, Brenda
Brandon Bain: in the dose, Marcos send the fam store, right? Yes. Get that on the
Mark Kinsley: t-shirt. Ooh. I like that. I like that. If we had an embroidered, like total, like grandma style embroidery, uh,
Adrienne Woods: we’ll work on that. I’ll get Tara on it. I’ll get Tara on it.
That’s we talked
Mark Kinsley: about. Yeah. That canvas bag. It’ll, it’ll have embroidered Brandon. Thanks so much for coming back on the show. I think it’s great insight to anchor yourself in collecting information, learning your way into it. Lots of data is out there. One of the problems I think people are up against is how do you take that data and how do you make it meaningful?
Well, I think there are some usual suspects in terms of the problems that consumers are trying to solve in relation to sleep, and I think there are ways that you can position your products in relation to that. So hold your component suppliers account. Help them help you build that story. Uh, but ultimately, whatever you say at any level, whether it’s components or manufacturing or retail, it has to be able to fall out of that retail sales associate’s mouth and be meaningful to the consumer.
And sometimes your retail sales associate is your website. So thank you for anchoring us back in this idea of where to gather information so we can make great products. And I think this applies to furniture and mattresses and appliances as well. So, You gave us an email marketing trivia question. Mm-hmm.
Okay. Brands can be our guesser here. Okay.
Adrienne Woods: Email mark Marketing returns. How much money per $1 spent says the answer. $15, $36 or $42.
Brandon Bain: Feel like they should have the Jeopardy theme music in the background here. So without knowing
I, I’m tending to go to B because a lot of people send out newsletter style emails. Mm-hmm. that are not designed for conversion in the classical sense of transacting. And then a lot of people are really bad. at email marketing. If they were better, it would be higher . So I’m going with a B. Was that 36%?
$36? $36 would be there. $36, I
Adrienne Woods: mean. Yeah. Yes. You know, I think you were, you got the trivia question where on the last episode and you’re now two for two. So yes, it’s $36 for every $1 spent.
Mark Kinsley: Wow. That’s big. Good job. That’s big. I dunno that anybody’s ever gotten
Adrienne Woods: like multiple in a row. Super. You’ll have to come back for a third time and see what
Mark Kinsley: happens.
Okay. A thousand brother . Nicely done. Nicely done. Hey, if you’ve got there any dork prizes,
Brandon Bain: um, it’ll be a
Adrienne Woods: teacher that says, riches are in the niches, and we’ll send
Mark Kinsley: It’s embroidered. Yeah. So tie in . Um, hey, thanks sir everybody for tuning into the fan marketing show. If you’ve got a tip that’s worked for you, drop us a text on our podium number@fam.news.
Be sure to subscribe on Apple, on Spotify, on YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. And, They’ll never miss an eye deal. When they subscribe, they can make you a
Adrienne Woods: mind reader. I feel like that’s what we were talking a Yeti about.
Mark Kinsley: a Yeti or Yeti . And join us each week as we bring you more fam. Marketing magic.
