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.
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.
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:
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