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AMA: Gainsight Former Chief Marketing Officer, Anthony Kennada on Category Creation
January 23 @ 10:00AM PST
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Gainsight Former Chief Marketing Officer, Anthony Kennada on Category Creation
Top Questions
How would you go about naming a new category?
Hey guys, for those of you who have been in the position to name a new category, what steps did you take to ensure that you were on the right track?
Anthony Kennada
AudiencePlus CEO • January 23
Great question, and one that I’ve done some writing on (see link below). http://www.categorydev.com/category-branding/ There are SEO, branding, PR/AR and many other implications to selecting a category name – so it’s important to get this right. I believe new categories and markets are created......Read More
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Anthony Kennada
AudiencePlus CEO • January 23
Is it clear that the competitor is currently the market leader? Are they a large incumbent (thinking what Salesforce is to CRM, for example) or a few years ahead of you? If so, it may be the case that you are indeed in a challenger position for an already defined market in which the disruption ......Read More
1289 Views
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Anthony Kennada
AudiencePlus CEO • January 23
It has to start at the top. Creating a category is very expensive, so you’ll need the board and CEO to be bought in. Frankly, it impacts everything from fundraising strategy to a lot of decision making on deploying marketing spend. The question comes back to the strategic value you’re hoping ......Read More
1076 Views
2 requests
How much effort is it to market products that create new categories? As in time and touches vs. existing products.
Or in other words, what is the education/definition effort vs. competitive differentiation effort in a known category
Anthony Kennada
AudiencePlus CEO • January 23
A lot of effort. I think you need to be comfortable playing the long game. Think about it this way, if we took a “typical” marketing approach and started outbound prospecting into manufacturing companies on the iron belt asking them to be routed to the person who runs Customer Success, we would ......Read More
1276 Views
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Anthony Kennada
AudiencePlus CEO • January 23
Waiting too long to layer in the tried and true tactics that work. I mentioned in another response that traditional tactics such as outbound prospecting or PPC did not convert well early in our years building Gainsight and Customer Success. Reason being, no one knew what CS was nor were they doi......Read More
1219 Views
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When do you "earn the right" to create your own category?
One of the main benefits of category creation preventing commoditization. However, if you really don't have much to differentiate yourself (i.e. - ARE commoditized), it seems that creating your own category kind of seems morally dubious. At what point can you say "ok, I can call this something else and be cool with it, because it's true."
Anthony Kennada
AudiencePlus CEO • January 23
I definitely don’t think you need to earn the right – or at least, no one gave us the right to do so with Customer Success. At the end of the day, category creation has more to do with the people within the job function that you’re serving than the actual product that you sell. I don’t find th......Read More
1345 Views
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Anthony Kennada
AudiencePlus CEO • January 23
I don’t see a difference actually, at least for technology companies. At the end of the day, customers don’t want your product, they want outcomes that your product (and company) help them derive. Few examples: • Uber/Lyft sell the ability to get from point A to point B without a car. The app is......Read More
1218 Views
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Anthony Kennada
AudiencePlus CEO • January 23
I would orchestrate it as a compelling event to re-invent yourself. You can choose to which extent you would take that – rebranding the company, new logo, etc. – but ultimately you need to let the world know that something new is happening. At Gainsight (or Jbara Software as we were called at th......Read More
1020 Views
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