What makes Sleep Number’s customer loyalty and engagement community award-winning? How this billion-dollar U.S. retailer uses storytelling to engage and activate their current customers to drive repeat and referral business.
THIS EPISODE AT-A-GLANCE
- What is Sleep Number's customer loyalty program?
- The Award winning program
- Using storytelling to better engage and create
- What to be aware of when engaging your audience
- Advice from Lisa
Links mentioned in the EPISODE
- Connect with Lisa on LinkedIn
- lisa.erickson@sleepnumber.com
- www.sleepnumber.com
Full Podcast Transcription
Lisa Erickson:
They were so proud to be a member of Sleep Number's inner circle rewards program because the company was giving something back to them. We weren't asking them for anything else. We were giving back to them and helping them live a healthier life and helping them get their best sleep.
Sarah Panus:
Hi, my name is Sarah Panus. I have spent the last two decades driving digital content for billion dollar brands. Now I help content marketers build winning brand storytelling strategies and reduce feelings of overwhelm and confusion. Join me as we discuss strategy, creativity, confidence, and building a better connection with your audience. Think of this as a creative content marketing jam session mixed with chicken soup for the soul. This is the Marketing With Empathy podcast.
Sarah Panus:
Hey, Hey, Kindred Speakers. Welcome back for another episode. Well, today we're gonna talk about customer loyalty and engagement. We all know it's incredibly valuable to our organizations and our companies to keep our customers engaged, right? It's more profitable to keep your existing customers engaged than it is to attract brand new leads to the brand. We we've seen the stats. So today we're gonna hear more about how Sleep Number has built an award winning customer loyalty and engagement community, and we're gonna be chatting with Lisa Erickson.
Sarah Panus:
So Lisa Erickson is the senior director of customer relationship management and loyalty at Sleep Number, a billion dollar health and wellbeing company that helps people sleep better through their industry, leading sleep. Number 360 smart beds and bedding. You've heard me talk about Sleep Number. I worked with Sleep Number for years. I've been working with them for 14 years, 12 years in house in the last two years as a consultant. So I love my Sleep Number bed. You've heard me talking about it on the show before, and we're gonna get more into a different lens with the company on the loyalty side today. So prior to Sleep Number, Lisa held leadership roles in the home improvement business in new business acquisition, and as director of new business innovation at best buy, we're gonna hear more about how Sleep Number uses storytelling to build and nurture their customer loyalty program and a multi award winning loyalty program. Might I add a great brand storytelling example to better connect and activate your existing customers? And we're gonna hear more about this after a word from our sponsors. Welcome to the show, Lisa.
Lisa Erickson:
Hi Sarah! Thanks for having me, excited to be here.
Sarah Panus:
Yeah, it's great to have you on, you know, you and I worked together for a very long time with when I was in house at Sleep Number and then now as a consultant. So I'm really excited to dig into this and I invited you on the show because Sleep Number has an amazing customer loyalty and engagement program, and you guys have done a great job of infusing brand storytelling into your program in a way to really incite that engagement and drive results and better results for the company. And so I'm super excited to share more about that with my listeners today.
Lisa Erickson:
Great. I'm excited to do that as well.
Sarah Panus:
Excellent, okay. Well first, let's help set the stage for us. Tell us more about Sleep Number's customer loyalty program. How does it work? Who's in it Give us the low down.
What is Sleep Number's customer Loyalty Program?
Lisa Erickson:
So the big question I always get asked is why would Sleep Number need a loyalty program, right? Why would they need a rewards program? And the main reason is we want people to think about their bed and the brand on a daily basis. It's more of an engagement program to keep our insiders and that's who we call people that don't Sleep Number's smart beds our insiders engaged with the brand on a daily basis so that they, they love the brand and they wanna advocate for the brand, with their friends and family. And, you know, we do something very different than other companies because the program works by awarding points for people that do activities to learn more about health and wellbeing. So they can do that through reading blog posts that Sarah, you helped create some of them or watching videos, any type of consuming content that really helps them stay engaged and feel connected to the brand. And it's a point space system where they move up the tier and they get different benefits for engaging. So gamification is really important, right? And making it fun to stay engaged is really important. And that is what this program does. And we're really proud of it. It took off it's five years old now, but it took off very quickly. And the senior leadership in the company saw the value almost immediately on what we were building. So very proud of it. Very proud of all the awards it's won
Sarah Panus:
Anybody just to add to that then. And everyone who has purchased and is the owner is an insider owner of a Sleep Number, bed is eligible to be in this program. So really your ticket to entry is that you have to buy a bed. Right?
Lisa Erickson:
You have to buy a bed. Yep. Okay. And part of it is because you get a, you get additional benefits after you've bought a bed, you know, different discounts and things like that, that other people are not eligible for.
Sarah Panus:
Yeah, definitely. Okay. And because I work with you and your team, I see firsthand how engaging and how profitable this loyalty program is. But aside from my endorsement, you've also picked up quite a few industry awards and accolades too, right?
The Award winning program
Lisa Erickson:
Yeah. So the loyalty 360 organization is the premier loyalty organization. And we have won every year, probably three to four different awards from them from best loyalty team to best engagement program, to best use of I can't think of what it's called, but working with our partners in make a wish and other other partners like that, to really keep people engaged. We're also up for an international, some international awards in June that I'm really excited about from the international loyalty community.
Sarah Panus:
Wow. That's exciting.
Lisa Erickson:
Yeah. And then we were also named one of the top 10 loyalty programs by retail touchpoints. And it's really because it's a strong engagement play. It is not a spend and get program, which is what most programs are. It's a way to stay engaged and build brand advocates.
Sarah Panus:
Excellent. That's what I was just gonna ask. It's a good parlay, cause I was gonna ask, what is it about the community that, that you think makes it work so well? So it's, it is this loyalty program. It's not like pay for points type thing. So can you expand a little bit more on what you're seeing, how you're using storytelling? Cause that's what I see is the beauty of this. You're engaging through these activities around health and wellbeing, which if you think about Sleep Number, Sleep Number beds, you think some people externally may think mattress company, but there it is a health and wellbeing company that is focused with sleep at the core that can help so many different things in your life. But talk a little bit more about kind of how you use storytelling then to better engage and create, you know, that upper funnel content in your program.
USing storytelling to better engage and create
Lisa Erickson:
Let me first start out with a quote that we got from our insiders when one of our insiders, when we first launched the program, because this person said everything that I was trying to build awesome, that they were so proud to be a member of Sleep Number's inner circle rewards program because the company was giving something back to them. We weren't asking them for anything else. We were giving back to them and helping them live a healthier life and helping them get their best sleep. So like I said, there's tons of content. We probably put up, I don't know, three to four blog posts each week where people can read different things about how to sleep their best how to live their best life, right. With sleep at the center of that. We also share stories from some of our partners in the NFL, some of our influencers and a lot of different insiders on what, how this bet has changed their life.
Lisa Erickson:
And, and, and that just, it, it makes you feel something for the company and for the product and makes you feel proud to not only be an owner, but for what it's done for your life. And that's how storytelling really enriches it. And we encourage our insiders then to share these stories with their networks. We have a new capability that we've had on the platform for about a little over a year now where we do these social sharing missions, where we can ask a question to our insiders right now we have some questions up for better sleep month. So, you know, tell us why one change you've made in your life to help you sleep better and they will tell us in great detail, those stories. And then they'll share those stories with their networks, which gives us reach of hundreds of thousands of people each week that we wouldn't have reached otherwise so they're powerful. And they're when they come from their own words, you know, from their own heart, it just makes such a difference.
Sarah Panus:
And you know, I can attest to that firsthand too, something that is so amazing with Sleep Number, bed owners with these insiders is how incredibly passionate they are. So I know before we started this interview, Lisa, you and I were just chatting and, and on this, we're doing a lot of really exciting work right now around the storytelling aspect with the insiders. And every time I get off a phone with one of them, whether it's for videos or blog stories or things like their quotes or responses from a survey, we've asked them to answer things like that. They are so passionate and you, you guys all my listeners, it's like the dream. You want your customers to love you so much. You want them to be so engaged with your product. And there are so many, many, many, many insiders that are like that.
Sarah Panus:
And it is, it is incredibly passionate. So I just love working with your team, Lisa, because I love being able to tap into this powerful community that you've created. You've, you know, these, these people were all out there and that's what I say for everyone, listening for your company, you have customers, and you're gonna have varying levels of products of how engaged they are versus not, but they're out there. And if you don't create a community to wrangle them into one place, you're never really gonna know their feedback. You're never gonna be able to tap into them. You're never gonna be able to use the power of storytelling, both ways with them, whether it's pushing or pulling from them to be able to grow that community more. And I just love it, Lisa, your team is so amazing. I love sharing the blog stories.
Sarah Panus:
So thank you. I know you guys do a great job with that and the blog activities and all this content, it's some of the top performing cont activities that they do every month. Yeah. So it's not like you're just pushing it and hoping that they'll engage with it. I mean, there are lots of people engaging with this stuff every single month. So you can see the proof in the data of how well it is performing. And so, and I also love, so from a push perspective of pushing that content to them, and then they then engage. So they're, they're seeing value, they're getting tips, they're getting insights to help improve their health and wellbeing. It's not like we're every single article is about the Sleep Number bed. It's about quality of life and health and wellbeing and sleep is an aspect of that. But it's broader cuz we wanna help the whole person. Right.
Lisa Erickson:
That's right. And most of them aren't even about the Sleep Number bed. Right, right. They're about different foods to eat or different, you know, just different activities. You can do different yoga poses, you know? So it, it is really adding value. One of the things that I, I share a lot is, you know, my team gets all the, the happy, the happy stuff. Right? So Vanessa, who, who op runs the operations of the program gets a lot of love notes from insiders. And those love notes. She'll send them to us when she gets them. And there, there, there's just, there's an activity where it's just like if you wanna tell us something, you know, click here. And usually when you have activities like that, people are gonna be complaining, right. Or they have a complaint, not in this case, in this case, they're like, oh my gosh, thank you for this program. I'm learning so much. I really love it. Or thank you for this aging product. It's changed my life. She gets love notes like that every week and it's so fun to read.
Sarah Panus:
Yeah. What a fun job, what those are like when you said love notes. Those are the love notes that are, are appropriate at work. Those are the ones you wanna get, you know?
Lisa Erickson:
Those are the ones you wanna get.
Sarah Panus:
Yeah. And it's also like, what's been so great with this community too is, you know, so the sharing and the adding value of the customers, then they're gonna wanna reengage, they're gonna wanna repurchase they're gonna stay connected to the brand. But I also love being able to, you know, the power of these loyalty programs of being able to tap into the community to ask questions like as a brand, it gives us a lot of data and insights on what to inform things that we wanna talk about or things we're maybe thinking about doing yep. Or understanding more about where their mind is at on certain topics. So we can create content that would address that. And I also love it for helping find customers. I find our find insiders to feature in our stories. Right. So what a great way to attract more customers like the ones you have than talking about your current customers, so that your audience can put their themselves in the story. Oh yeah, I have that issue. Or I deal with that or, oh, I, I always, I always want more energy. I always feel sluggish. How does that person have all this energy? You know? So there's, it's, it's such a great way to think very holistically of how your owner base feeds your entire content ecosystem.
Lisa Erickson:
Yeah. And I think something, you know, the vision that I always had was, you know, and I wanted this community to be a two way street, right. A give and take for us to provide value to them, for them to provide value back to us. And we do have this this, this component of the program where we do surveys and we ask questions and you are right, Sarah. It could be just something fun, funny that your bet do your pet sleep in bed with you. Or it could be something that we really wanna know that'll provide a direction for our product team to go, right? Or for another team in the company, customer service, you know we had a survey up for them, you know, asking about best communication methods, you know, until, you know, which helps inform them.
Sarah Panus:
So they're not going down the wrong path. So they're really meeting our customer's expectations. Our consumer insights team now is, is using this community instead of going out and paying, you know, somebody else to do this work. We use this community to get information and inform things. And we just did something with consumer insights where there's, they said, boy, we'd love to get 40 people to do this. And you know, Adam and I left 40 that's that's hysterical because we knew that a thousand people would raise their hands within an hour and they did it totally.
Sarah Panus:
And it's so true because I had a story mining survey that we had sent, we had put out and we were like, we wanna define a certain type of customer over the certain type of content that we're creating. And we had it up for a week and we had like over 5,000 responses. Yeah. You know, like it was a lot, we're like, whoa, we need to shut this off. There's just such an in, there's just so much passion and activity. And it's because you've, you've paved the way you've created a great community where they know you're adding value. You're not always asking, asking, asking. Yeah. It's a give and take. So I think you've definitely accomplished that. So I
Lisa Erickson:
Really, and I was just gonna add, you know, one thing I think it's important for top leaders to understand is, you know, we may have over a million people in the program, but there's going to be a select group that are so at, you know, so active and really advocate for the brand. And that's, that's the group you're gonna tap into. Right. You're not gonna get everybody to behave like that. Think about how you are in your life and what brands you, you know, advocate for. But there's this passionate group that will do anything for Sleep Number.
Sarah Panus:
Yeah. Yeah. And, and it's because you've created this great program and there's a great product. They're happy obviously with the product and they're happy with the community. Yes. So, okay. So Lisa, because you're an expert then in customer relationship building, I'm curious, I always like to share good things and bad things that people may be doing so we can all learn from each other. Are there any mistakes that you see brands making when they're trying to engage their existing owner audience? Any watch outs you would caution my audience to avoid?
What to be aware of when engaging your audience
Lisa Erickson:
I would say the biggest wa is, is you have to be authentic in what you're doing. Don't try to be something you're not, your customers will read right through it. And I think that's one of the, the reasons our program has been so successful is because we are being authentic. We're pushing content, you know, that will help them live a healthy lifestyle and with their health and wellness and get their best sleep. And we're listening back, you know, we're asking them and we're doing something with what they, a, you know, what, with the answers they give us, we're not just asking for the sake of asking it's because we really want to hear from them and we really wanna build a community. So authenticity is the most important thing. And, and not to make promises that you're not gonna keep.
Sarah Panus:
Yeah, I did. Were you saying that it, it, I thought of another question too, that I think would be helpful for my listeners, which is you have this, so people listening, you, they have a community they're getting feedback. How do you, how do you at Sleep Number, take those insights and kind of share them, or make sure that they get leveraged across the organization so that it just doesn't sit in the silo of your community program, but that it's leveraged further. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Lisa Erickson:
Yeah. So, like I said, we work really closely with different teams in the building. So really closely with consumer insights, with the product team with the customer service team. And, you know, we definitely share any information that we get from surveys with those teams. We build surveys and questionnaires with those teams. And we use that data to, to inform decisions that we're gonna make for the company. And it's really provided a huge value because it cuts down a lot of the time to build new things, right. Because you're getting firsthand responses and you're not going down a path. So I'll, I'll give you an example of the one we've got up for customer service right now. You know, we wanna have the best customer service team in the world. Of course we do. And they're trying to figure out what the best communication methods are and they have in their mind how, how people wanna be communicated with, that's not the answer that they're getting back though. So, you know, they keep asking us, leave it up longer, leave it up longer, hoping to get the answer that they're gonna want, but the answer's been pretty consistent for weeks on, on how our insiders wanna be communicated with. So very important learnings, the important, the most important pieces to use those learnings and listen to them. Right.
Sarah Panus:
And I would, and I would add to that, cause since I do work with you and your team so closely, and when I see, and for everyone listening, that's in a content role, I would say, you know, it, it goes, don't just wait for your loyalty team to come to you with everything. It goes both ways. Yes. Like work together, hand in hand, think about what you would like from that community and ask and collaborate like at Lisa is sharing. There's so much collaboration, that's happening, both ways of what insights people are looking to learn, and then your loyalty. Team's gonna know the best about how that community likes to be engaged with and you know, their calendar and what their, you know, cadence is for things. But it goes both ways and kind of really be thinking about that in both ways. And then be thinking about my tip too, is then work on operationally, how you can house and save that content, those quotes, those stories, those people you're super advocates like Lisa was talking about that are very, very engaged and love, engaging and connecting with you. So you wanna keep nurturing that you wanna keep finding more people like that. Right. So just kind of be thinking about that both ways from a collaboration, as well as an operations perspective,
Lisa Erickson:
And that's really important. So, you know, I mean, we had to prove ourselves to some of these other groups and once we did, I mean, they're knocking down our door to help, you know, to do things within the inner circle rewards program, which is so great. And you know, one of the things I, I do wanna add is, you know, what, we, we, we, we love these top advocates. So one of the things we just did, it's the five year anniversary of the program is we just sent them a gift, no hands, BARR, just thanking them for being, you know, one of our top insiders, just a little thank you, gift. And something like that goes a long way.
Sarah Panus:
Definitely. Beautiful. Okay, Lisa, so this is great. Is there anything I haven't asked you about yet that you wanna add? Have we missed anything?
Advice from Lisa
Lisa Erickson:
I don't think we've missed anything. I just think, you know, something, a program like this is just so energizing and it's just, it's just amazing what it can do for a brand if you do it right. So that's, that's the advice I'd give to everybody is really know who you are and what you're trying to accomplish before you launch out on a program. You know if you're not able to get the content, like we're blessed right. With all the content we can get because our insiders expect new content weekly so you have to be prepared to give them what they want or you will fail. So I I'd just be really smart about how you're gonna implement. Perfect.
Sarah Panus:
I think that's a great tip to end it on. Okay. So before we wrap up then, how can people connect with you online? Where do they find you? If they're interested and they wanna connect online?
Lisa Erickson:
Well, I've got a LinkedIn profile. They can connect with me there, or they can email me at Sleep Number, lisa.erickson@sleepnumber.com
Sarah Panus:
Perfect. I'll make sure I put all those links in the show notes folks so that you can click on and wherever you're listening right now, just look at the podcast description. You'll see the link for the show notes. So thank you so much, Lisa. This was really great. I, I love it. Congratulations on the amazing group and community program that you have created. This community is exceptional. I love working with you guys on it. It's so fun to be able to think about brand storytelling with such a active and engaged group and to have grown it through all these years. So really good job. Yeah.
Lisa Erickson:
Thank you very much. It was a lot of fun, Sarah.
Sarah Panus:
Thank you. All right, folks. Well, big thanks again to Lisa Erickson from Sleep Number for joining us. Before this, check out the show notes for all the links mentioned. Until next time, Kindred Speakers.
Closing Remarks
Sarah Panus:
If you're hearing my voice right now, you're likely a corporate content marketer of some kind looking to level up your brand storytelling career. What would it feel to have the skills, confidence, and know how to advance your brand storytelling results and love the work you're doing? In an ideal world you and your content team are high level strategic thinkers that know how to humanize your brand to drive seven X engagements and actions. You have the right creative mindset to attract your ideal audience and build brand trust and loyalty through storytelling. You're viewed as top performers in the company and brand storytelling is valued because it's driving business results and supporting multiple channel teams. But things don't always go our way, right? Maybe your brand lacks, a cohesive content strategy. Maybe you and your team are asked to deliver a lot for your company and it's hard to keep up.
Sarah Panus:
You know you need to invest in figuring out next steps in your company's brand storytelling plans, but haven't had the time to figure out how yet. And you need help integrating it across the organization. You personally want to level up your skills because you know, you need to know how to do these things to advance in your career. You want your work to be valued so that you love coming to work each day, attracting leads, increasing repeat, and referral actions or creating a loved brand. And in this competitive market, you're looking for ways to stay competitive, for yourself or retaining and attracting top talent for your company. That's why I created the Brand Storytelling Academy, a hands on three month group training program designed to help corporate content marketers attract upper funnel leads that drive bottom funnel results through storytelling. For one sixth of the cost to hire a person on the team or onboard a high level brand storytelling strategist, you and up to five people on your team can be developing and accelerating your brand storytelling skills. Think of it like a college certification program for you and your team, but you get the knowledge a lot quicker and your professor, me, has 20 years of hands on experience guiding you along the way. Curious? Fill out the application at kindredspeak.com/apply to learn more and I'll be in touch to answer all your questions and discuss if it's a good fit. Go to kindredspeak.com/apply.
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ABOUT SARAH PANUS
Sarah Panus is a brand storytelling marketing strategist, Minnesota mom, and owner of Kindred Speak, LLC, a remote consultancy that helps corporations attract upper-funnel leads that drive bottom-funnel results through storytelling. Her mission is to add value to the world by humanizing brand+consumer connections. Her online courses teach content professionals inside corporations think like Editorial Directors for their brand to drive stronger results while enjoying their jobs more. She’s spent the last 20 years helping brands including Sleep Number, Starbucks, Nestle Waters, Christos Bridal, Game Crazy, Cone Inc, and others, speak a kindred language with their audiences, driving brand advocacy and millions in revenue and brand engagements. Learn more at www.kindredspeak.com. Follow Sarah on Instagram and LinkedIn.
