The elements of a helpful, informative review

One of the things I’ve learned since starting GoodBed.com – a site that features thousands of mattress reviews – is that many people don’t actually know how to review their mattress to help others. This isn’t altogether surprising when you consider that mattresses are a product you “use” primarily when you’re sleeping. Most mattresses don’t have actively used features you can discuss, or measurable performance you can reference. Furthermore, most people have only owned a handful of mattresses in their lives, so the comparison set is small, not to mention hard to remember. Most people don’t know why they like their mattress, or even how much. They just know it does the job.

The first problem people have in writing a mattress review is a lack of vocabulary, or in some cases even awareness of what they like about a mattress. When someone tries a mattress on a sales floor and is asked what they think of it, they’ll probably shrug and say “it’s comfortable.” If they try another mattress, chances are they’ll say the same thing about that one. This is part of what leads to such difficulty in choosing a mattress – and it leads to difficulty in writing a mattress review. Even after owning a mattress for a while, a satisfied owner will often have difficulty articulating what it is they like about it. It simply isn’t a subject that we’ve discussed enough to know how to discuss it.

Another thing to be aware of in writing a mattress review is that most aspects of a mattress are highly subjective and personal. What feels too soft to one person may feel too hard to another. And the bed that feels like a hammock to you as a stomach sleeper may provide the exact right support for a side sleeper. The key here is not that you need to caveat everything you say, but rather that your review needs to include certain relevant information about you so the reader can correctly translate how (or whether) your experience is relevant to them.

Finally, what really makes mattresses hard to review is that most people aren’t aware of all the problems that are NOT happening because of the mattress.

• Do you wake up often when your partner tosses and turns? If not, you might not think to mention that your mattress is doing its job with regards to motion isolation.
• How about pressure relief? If you don’t wake up with tingly arms or sore hips and shoulders during the night, then your mattress is probably doing pretty well on that front.
• No back pain in the morning? Your mattress must be providing you with proper support for your spine.

When your mattress is working the way it should – it tends to be the kind of product you don’t think about at all. 

We, on the other hand, think about mattresses all the time. In particular, we think about what makes one mattress a better fit for someone than another mattress. And we think about how that fit can be reflected in a review. Naturally, whether the mattress feels “comfortable” is part of it, but really it’s just the beginning. For most people, the sum total success of their mattress is a function of all the problems they don’t have with it. And since mattresses are designed to solve problems that can come up when you’re sleeping, they’re the kind of problems you don’t think about – especially when you aren’t having them.

What we found is that in reality, people often have a fair amount to say, once they’ve been given a little direction as to the types of things that other mattress shoppers ned to know.

Top 3 tips for writing a mattress review

1. When evaluating your mattress, think about how you feel when you lay on it, how you feel when you wake up and how it’s changed over time. These are the three most important things that consumers are paying for in a mattress, so your feedback in these areas will be most valuable.
2. When talking about your likes and dislikes, try to distinguish between things that relate to your personal preferences (eg, comfort) vs. things on which most mattress owners would be like-minded (eg, durability).
3. If you don’t feel you have much to say in a mattress review, it’s probably because your mattress is doing its job – which would actually be a really valuable thing for mattress shoppers to hear!

If you’d like to learn more about mattress reviews and how to make your review more helpful, visit GoodBed.com. Some links you might find helpful:

• How to choose a mattress
• Personal mattress test
• Mattress types

About Michael Magnuson

Michael is the founder and CEO of GoodBed.com. GoodBed.com is the premier information resource for mattress shoppers, helping consumers with every aspect of their mattress purchase, while providing uniquely targeted and highly efficient advertising and marketing solutions for the mattress industry.