The Sleep Matters Club from a UK-based bed and mattress company, Dreams.co.uk takes a highly creative approach to content marketing. In creating content for their blog, you might expect they’d concentrate on sleep psychologists and sleep experts. That’s what many of us would do – but that’s not good enough Dreams! So how about a couple of Olympic athletes, a wildlife Filmmaker or even a politician?
So how about a couple of Olympic athletes, a wildlife Filmmaker or even a politician? That’s exactly what the company did – after all, their brand promise is “It’s our dream to give everyone a good night’s sleep”.
It’s brilliant content creation strategy as Ken and Kristina explain in this video:
https://vimeo.com/202205871
You can see the stories we’ve featured – and a lot more at The Sleep Matters Club.
And here’s the full transcript:
Ken: Kristina, when I did the interview with you talking about influencers, one of the things that really stuck with me is, you said that the influencers didn’t have to come from the same industry, it was just people who had influence and they could come from anywhere. And I thought, “Gosh, that’s really clever. I wonder, can I find an example?” And I think I found one here with Dreams, which is a bed and mattress company.
Now, what they’ve done is, they’ve created the Sleep Matters Club and what they do, if you browse through the stories there–it’s a fantastic variety of stories–and I picked out three of them. First of all, there was to international athletes, secondly, a famous wildlife video-maker and then the third was a politician and how do politicians sleep at night? So, all of these were stories about sleep. And I thought, “Gosh, this is a great example.”
Kristina: I thought these were fantastic examples. And I think the best part about it was that while they’re all clearly influencers, they’re not necessarily influencers in a sleep market or a sleep help market. So, I thought these were just really enjoyable reads and it was interesting reading about perspectives that really, again, aren’t from sleep scientists.
Ken: Yes. And I think again, you know, if…what the wonderful approach was is that when you drop the shackles of saying we must talk to sleep scientists and sleep experts, you get all sorts of different potential stories from…I love this one with the two athletes. These are Olympic athletes and yet, they were prepared to talk to this little business about their sleep habits. Brilliant.
Kristina: And I think that it was really interesting, because if you watched the video that accompanied it, you could see how excited they were to talk about something different. They weren’t being asked about their diet or how they exercise or, you know, their favorite pastime outside of their sport. They were asked about their sleep and it was, as you and I have talked about, something that I think they were waiting to be asked about it but hadn’t been yet. So, Dreams did a great job of finding people that are relevant to the topic and excited to talk about it.
Ken: Yeah. And again, what a wonderful observation there, because I think you’ve really hit the nail on the head. People want to talk about things that are important to them, you know, things that they…I was going to say keep them awake at night, but maybe that’s not the right turn of prose. But things that they feel passionate about, little experiences that they’re going through.
And the great thing that Dreams did was not assume that they needed to talk about being an athlete or training regimes or all of those. They wanted to know about their sleep habits. Brilliant.
Kristina: They really did. And for me, I thought that that’s what the article was going to be about, talking to athletes. And at first I thought, “Why would you talk to athletes about their sleeping habits?” And again, there’s a really great reason that you would, because that goes into so much of what they do and why they’re successful in their athletic careers.
So, I think Dreams had a brilliant idea in talking to them and finding a way to make it interesting, relating it to health in a way that we can all understand, but putting it into those terms of, a superstar athlete needs sleep and so do you.
Ken: Yeah. And the other thing about superstar athletes. Actually, sometimes they’re not very hard to approach and often, they don’t get asked. So I think again, one of the big things there is to take the step and do that. So, top marks to Dreams for that one. That’s a great example and I think we can all learn something from that. So, that’s brilliant.
Now, another one that I loved–and it was the first one that I came across here–was a wildlife photographer. Now, why would you talk to a wildlife photographer about sleep? And then it came to me, “Oh, it’s because they spend all night hidden in the jungle or in the forest or up the mountains. Gosh, they must have some problems getting to sleep.”
Kristina: You know, a lot of us talk about how we lose sleep at night because of our jobs, or we stay awake at night and just can’t fall asleep and we feel like sometimes it affects us at work the next day. But can you imagine being like this gentleman who, his job almost requires that he get really rough bouts of sleep in order to do his job well?
It was just fascinating. I loved this approach. This has to be one of my favorite human interest pieces that I’ve read in a long time, because again, I never would have thought about the sleep angle. And you know that he was dying to talk about it, because he shared these incredible stories.
Ken: Yes. And you know, this is a point that people sometimes mess up by brand journalism–by the…what they call it, but that–is, they lose the standards of journalism. It must be a brilliant story, it doesn’t have to promote the product. But this is a hugely relevant story, even though it never mentions the Dreams products, not once. And I think that is just fantastic.
And the other thing that you develop when you do that is that you build word-of-mouth, you know? So, after reading this, I remember saying to some friends in a restaurant, “Gosh, you know what I was looking at today?” I was looking at a great story about a wildlife photographer and it was on this Dreams website, who sell beds. And I thought that was brilliant marketing.
Kristina: Yeah. You know, you do. You want to talk about great stories that you hear. If one of my friends tells me about a unique experience they had, I’m likely to tell my fiancé or my best friend or my mom, next time I talk to her about the phone, about this whole story that I heard.
And this is one of those pieces of journalism that I’m going to talk about like I heard it first-hand because in a way, you and I and the rest of the audience did hear it first-hand. It was a first-person point of view and I’ll tell you what…that snippet about the bear, where he’s sleeping next to his buddy and their out on location, they’re freezing, he feels something tapping on his foot and realizes that it’s a sizable-sized beer.
And his buddy wakes up and says, “Oh, just stick your head out the tent,” and he says, “Buddy, you stick your head out the tent.” I mean, that was great. I cannot wait to share that story, because I felt like someone that I know shared it with me. And that’s exciting and that’s how you know you have really achieved a great feature piece.
Ken: Right. So, top marks to Dreams. And check out the Sleep Matters club. I think it will have you smiling, too.
Great examples, Ken. They have my head swimming with ideas on how we can apply this to content creation for our clients. But the big question is how do you get Mike Tyson to give you an interview to talk about taxes or car parts? Or would I look for a different superstar who has an affinity with either of those industries? Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
Glad you enjoyed the examples and that’s a great question about Mike Tyson.
First of all, a superstar might just like to be asked about something they’re not usually asked about – the novelty might work in your favor.
If I was doing that sort of pitch, I’d do as much research as I could to pick up stories about Mike Tyson and car parts, then I’d use my knowledge in a pitch.
And many people reading this will think it’s not possible – but nothing is impossible, you’ve just got to get the timing right and keep at it. I once watched a former Manchester United manager on a late night BBC chat show and really wanted to talk to him. I phone the BBC the next day and somebody gave me his number. I then talked to his wife and then the man himself – I worked with him for about 12 months after that.
I’d really try your top choice of superstar first – you just never know…