The $13B mattress industry spends multi-millions on advertising, real estate, and terrible jingles. Casper set out to revolutionize a tired business — on a shoestring budget — while growing a brand new business in the face of those massive corporations.
We turned to social media and word of mouth, and drove $20M in sales in our first 10 months.
Without solicitation, each day we receive a steady stream of non-incentivized organic UGC, averaging 50 posts daily. Once we determined how many people were sharing the Casper box, we propelled the influx of photos by inspiring the most interesting, shareable uses of it. Think: dog house, fort, dining room table, standing desk, rocket ship.
Through social interactions and conversation, users shape the Casper brand as much as we do. We created a community from our users' sleep routines (casper.com/numbers), and empowered them to keep sharing through unique referral links — the #1 driver of sales.
Not only do Casper users share, but because @Casper posts unexpected, hilarious, and interesting social content, we've racked up more than 35,000 followers in 10 months.
Racking up mattress company followers on social is no easy feat. The social conversation around sleep was comprised of sales announcements and boring, recycled sleep tips. Everyone already knows we need 7+ hours of shuteye?
Casper didn't want to churn out the usual prescriptive advice. Instead, we focus on putting people to sleep with our mattress and keep them awake with our social. We tap into entertaining, comedic, and valuable sleep content through a novel voice that is authentic, genuine and feels like your friend — not a mattress salesman.
We celebrate sleep through humorous sayings, transform Billboard 100 songs into sleep jams, entertain late-night insomniacs who can't put their phone down with #linksomnia bedtime reading, prioritize the lifestyle of sleep (breakfast, pajamas, and boozy nightcaps), and boil down sleep news with our Week in Sleep.
We constantly listen to our customers on social. If they tweet that they're tired, we make sure to tweet them a coffee. If they're going on a trip, we tell them their Casper will miss them dearly (and wants a souvenir). When we notice someone raves about us, we'll send them something to enjoy with their new mattress — anything from a nightcap to breakfast in bed.
During the holidays, we delivered egg sandwiches and coffee to offices where employees were posting about their hangovers. It can be so hard to stay awake at work after a holiday party, but if you can't go back to sleep — the least we can do is offer a cure.
We also took the conversation offline and sent handwritten holiday cards to our most devoted social followers.
