3 Ways Sleep Number Made the Leap to Online Leads

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Josh Peterson , senior director of digital at Sleep Number Corporation, shares how the retailer pivoted from in-store sales to driving triple-digit growth in e-commerce revenue.

Prior to the pandemic, Sleep Number’s business model was centered on creating delightful in-store experiences that helped customers improve their lives by enhancing the quality of their sleep.

Typically, most of our sales came from physical stores. However, when social distancing measures were introduced, second-quarter same-store sales fell 40% year-over-year.

We needed to pivot quickly and find new ways to reach customers and drive online sales.

By following three principles, we found we could adapt to general manager email database changing customer needs and remain resilient in a dynamic environment.

Three illustrated icons accompany the following text: 1. Evolve with the customer. 2. Go back to strategy fundamentals. 3. Connect online and offline experiences.1. Evolving with the customer

As customers were changing the way they connected with us, we had to be flexible and change with them. This meant bringing a more human touch to online experiences.

We updated our website design, ensuring customers could request callbacks and share their information with us early in their research processes.

We also tailor our messaging to customer needs, clearly communicating how our products help improve sleep quality.

Normally, this process can take months. But we had to brainstorm, design, and execute these changes in a matter of weeks.

Our updated site delivered the enjoyable, individualized experiences customers expect from Sleep Number, and online, chat, and phone sales increased by more than 200% from the second quarter of last year.



Online, chat and phone sales increased by more than 200% since the second quarter of last year.

. Back to the basics of strategy


Adjusting the website for lead generation would only work if we also adjusted our core marketing strategies. Keywords, audience, and creative plans needed to help us reach high-intent people who were researching potential purchases online or buying something from the safety of home.

We used Google Trends to identify which of our product categories were increasing in search interest and ran online promotions for those items. As customers spent more time at home, we found that they wanted to improve their home environment.

When there was a surge in search interest for bedding products, we made sure our campaigns included keywords to reach customers searching for items like sheets and pillowcases.

We also took a “test and learn” approach to new campaigns and ad formats. This helped refine our creative and speak to people in a more authentic and empathetic way.

For example, we reached audiences with the right message at the right time by optimizing our online video mix, spoke to changing customer needs with TrueView for Action campaigns on YouTube, and used local inventory ads and local campaigns to reach interested people in stores that had reopened.

A yellow pie chart wedge indicating 35% is overlaid on an illustrated gear icon. Text reads: 35% increase in the use of automation tools like Smart Bidding.
To make these massive strategy changes, we increased the use of automated tools, such as Smart Bidding, by 35%. This helped us make
the most of our resources and keep up with changing consumer demand.

Connecting online and offline experiences

As online leads grew, we knew we had to rethink what “business as usual” would look like going forward. We realized we could maintain our relationship-based selling approach by giving our customers a seamless transition from online interactions to attentive offline service.

As many of our sleep professionals transitioned to working from home, they were able to follow up with online leads and provide personalized service to customers via phone calls.

To ensure customers get the best and most relevant customer service by location, we now direct them to sleep professionals at their local stores using the zip codes they shared with us online.