As they say, building a better mouse trap still requires marketing to sell it. This is very true because how else will people learn of the better mouse trap? Today, a better mouse trap is seldom the case but the marketing as if there is a better mouse trap is very common. This is especially true in the mattress industry where marketing rarely meets reality.
Probably the most important marketing gimmick is a mattress warranty. They are usually 10 years, sometimes 20 years, and occasionally “lifetime”. Can a mattress company offer a lifetime warranty, really? Yes, they can IF they exclude from coverage everything that can go wrong with the mattress. Secondly, they can if the warranty is not transferrable, meaning any person who wasn’t the original buyer cannot make any warranty claim against the manufacturer. The reason for this is simple. Mattress companies know that people will hate their mattress after a few years because of the sagging, which isn’t covered under the warranty, and if they give the mattress away, the second owner has no warranty. They also know that b y the time a sag gets to half the required depth of what it needs to be covered, people will likely give it away or throw it away. And thus they just got out from under any warranty coverage. Bingo! A warranty sounds good on the surface with long terms but manufacturers know most people don’t read the fine print of a warranty so the warranty is merely a marketing gimmick.
The second biggest marketing gimmick is the “Sale”. Everyone has seen them and see them regularly. The “President’s Day Sale” and the “Black Friday Sale” and the “Memorial Day Sale” These are all completely fake. Retailers mark up prices BEFORE they mark them down to give the appearance of great savings. The fact is, in a lot of cases of such sales, the price is actually higher than normal to cover the cost of the advertising of the “sale”. YES! MORE! Don’t fall for the “sale” gimmick and do your homework. Go to a mattress store a couple of weeks before Memorial day and make notes of the prices, then come back during the “sale” and find out the truth.
The Third most important gimmick in the mattress industry is “new technology in sleep” gimmick. This typically involves some new material but in almost every case it is merely polyurethane foam, perhaps infused with a gel, or a gel layer, or a “cool” fabric. But in every case, these mattresses will be made of cheap plastic foam that doesn’t last and, back to the warranty, doesn’t cover the very things that go wrong with a plastic foam mattress which is softening and body impressions.
Mattress companies are no strangers to the classic marketing gimmick. Check out this video and hear a few of the top marketing gimmicks that other mattress sellers use, and hear why Sleep Essentials doesn’t need to rely on gimmicks because we offer real, great mattresses.