AMA: Dun & Bradstreet Former VP Global Marketing, Nipul Chokshi on Category Creation

Several things come to mind here:Messaging is too generic: you’ve not done a good job of really identifying the audience and understanding what they care about in order to develop a specific message Messaging doesn’t “provoke:” the objective of a message is to get your audience to do or feel something - if its too blase, you’ll have a hard time achieving that objective Messaging is inward focused: if you’re targeting an external audience, you’ve not done a good job of using the words/mental mode ...Read More

Depends - if you’re able to differentiate enough to be a #1 or #2 player in the market, stick with the current category. I would, however, start to amp up the thought leadership so that you can influence the category more going forward so you can start to play your own game.Not knowing more details its hard to go into specifics here, but you could also consider creating an off-shoot of the current category (again leaning into your differentiation) and tell the story around how “other vendors are ...Read More

I’ve found that category creation is always more time and resource intensive than competing in an existing category. When creating a new category, you’re doing a lot of education about how companies can recognize the fact that they have a problem, why they need to prioritize (and budget for) solving that problem and the new approach to solving that problem. It's like you’re defining the rules of a new sport you’re going to play, defining who’ll be in the “league” and then playing. Competing in a ...Read More

For me, great messaging always starts with two things: Point of View - which articulates your perspective on the problem(s) your target market is looking to solve [why is the problem worth solving, what are the key steps in solving the problem, what kind of tech solutions will help you to solve the problem].  Positioning - which articulates your unique value proposition for your target market These two things inform the messages you want to deliver for each audience in your campaign [buyers, use ...Read More

I don’t think it’s super critical for there to be a “new role” when creating a new category. When I was at Yammer, for example, we defined the “Enterprise Social Networking” category but made it a must have for various existing roles in an organization (VP HR, COO, VP Sales, etc.).What you’ll find is that new categories often don’t have a corresponding line item in the buyer’s budget - so you’ll need to help them identify ways to fund the spend for your solution (by borrowing from other line ite ...Read More

In my experience, category creation requires two things at the start: Point of View - which articulates your perspective on the problem(s) your target market is looking to solve [why is the problem worth solving, what are the key steps in solving the problem, what kind of tech solutions will help you to solve the problem].  Positioning - which articulates your unique value proposition for your target market The messages and stories that flow from this become the basis for your campaigns. General ...Read More

I found that making the shift to “solutions” or “platform” requires becoming more business outcome focused in terms of your messaging. Rather than speak to individual user-level features/benefits (e.g. “the app launches 2x as fast”) you want to speak to the business impact that it delivers (e.g. “enable 2x increase in pipeline or revenue”).The key mistake most folks wind up making is not really connecting the dots between what your app does and the business outcome it helps to deliver [or worse, ...Read More

Assuming the right answer for you is to indeed switch categories (and I’d really make sure to get this answer right), I’d recommend by laying out your point of view on the market problem, why it needs to be solved, and your positioning (ability to solve that problem in a unique way). I’d also be careful to consider what it means for you in the original category. Is it the case that the “category” is evolving given changes in the market and user behavior? Or is it something new entirely. I’d imag ...Read More

You do need to walk a fine line between highlighting that fact that you’re unique while acknowledging the other choices customers have. There are a few considerations here - As part of the category creation story, consider highlight some trends in the market (or shifts in user behavior) that play into your key strengths (e.g. if you’re selling an AI solution, play into the trend around how more user data is being generated than ever - where only AI can make sense of this data). This helps to bol ...Read More