AMA: Observe.AI VP Product Marketing, Hila Segal on Category Creation

1. Listen to sales/CS calls. As a team on 1 you can't be on every call but make it a weekly habit to listen to at least 5-10 calls (you can listen at 1.5 or 2x speed 😊). Be strategic about the calls you listen to - use keyword search or tagging for key topics of interest that are relevant to your business like competitors, pricing, implementation, ROI, etc. This will give you great insights into what your customers and prospects care about and how your team is responding. 2. Read G2 reviews. There's so much information shared in these reviews about what your customers like or don't like and what matters to them. You can also make it a fun activity with your CS team - once a quarter host a happy hour and each one reads a couple of reviews out loud (record it and you have a great video to share on social). 3. Follow NPS comments. If your team is running NPS surveys, comments left by your customers are also a great source of intel. You can btw, easily turn these comments into customer quotes that once approved can be used in your marketing content, social, sales deck, etc. As a marketing team of 1, you need to multiply yourself so this will allow you to kill 2 birds with one stone. 4. Set a goal for yourself to talk to at least x customers every quarter. It can be a formal interview or just listening in to a customer QBR.

If you're going after a whole new market, consider using services like G2G where you can provide the desired profile including industry, companies, titles, and areas of expertise. Then you'll get scheduled interviews where you can ask very specific questions. Set aside some budget for these interviews and be selective because they are costly. 

Category creation is a journey into the unknown. There are rarely clear right or wrong answers at the beginning so brace yourself for the ride. Here are a few areas to think about: - Category name. You want to find a name that represents the new world and the promise of the category while making it understandable and relatable. Don't be tempted to narrowly represent your product with the name. Think big. - Start early with the analysts. Your efforts will likely not move the needle for the first 12-18 months but keep investing in analyst education to help shape their POV. - Category creation is a company-wide effort. Don't think of it as just the responsibility of the marketing team. Category creation requires the entire company - from sales, CS, and marketing to engineering, implementation, and HR - to rally behind the story and evangelize it with customers, prospects, partners, candidates, and vendors. It's that level of commitment and consistency that is required for the market to take notice. - Category creation is not for everyone. Not every new product or solution deserves a new category. Think long and hard if you are really in the business of a new category or disrupting an existing one. 

It really depends on how much competition exists in the market. If you're a market of 1 you'll have to fund 100% of market education and this will take time. In this situation rely heavily on your existing customers and early adopters as champions and spokespeople for the category - recruit them in creative ways to evangelize the new category and why change. You need great relationships at the most senior levels to pull this off - don't be afraid to ask your CEO and other executives to help in this effort. Turn these early customers into "celebrities" of the new category and show their success in every possible way. Also, invest in educating Forrester and Gartner analysts by showing them the new way through your customer success. This is a long journey so be prepared but you want to be the one shaping their POVs about this emerging market category. If there's already competition then the good news is that they are all investing in the education effort. You'll likely see more healthy inbound as people are actively searching for the new solution. In this case, you'll need to invest in differentiation and why you vs. the others but you also have a great opportunity to rise as the authority in the space with great content. 

The short answer is customer validation. The best messaging is what comes out of your customer's mouth so spend time learning from your customers and informing your base messaging. But even after you validated your messaging, test it. Run a/b tests in digital, email, and other channels to show you what's resonating, and use this data-driven insight to continue to refine your messaging. Bring all of this data to your executives to create the needed alignment. 

Analysts will not endorse any vendor directly. Your goal with AR is to help shape their POV about the market, especially if this is a new category and ultimately get well positioned on MQs and Wave reports. Shaping their POV means showing analysts how customers are getting value from this new type of solution and what critical capabilities that are required to be successful. Do this by building a personal relationship with the analysts, sharing insights, connecting them with your customers, and keeping them updated about your roadmap and product innovation. 

Naming a new category is a big deal. Don't name it just by the scope and capabilities of your own solution - think bigger. A few things to help the naming process: 1. Talk to customers and try not to lead the witness. Understand what terms they use to describe the pain points and expected business value of the category. Make sure you talk to a broad set of customers that represent different industries, segments, and buying personas. 2. Research what other categories exist, how much traction they have, how they are defined, and what's the potential overlap. Create a map of the landscape. Leverage analyst reports, G2, and other review platforms. 3. Create a hypothesis and test it - internally and externally with your partners, CABs, analysts. 4. Once you land on a name go all-in by creating content and thought leadership to educate the market. Every employee in the company becomes an evangelist of the new category and consistency matters. Also, rely heavily on your customers and early adopters to promote the new category. 

Not everyone should pursue a category creation strategy. It might be appealing but it's a huge heavy-lift and will require significant investment and buy-in from everyone in the company - not just your executives. It really all starts from the story - the strategic narrative - and how strong and new it is to justify creating a new category. Spend time on getting this right, validated, and agreed upon internally and this will naturally guide the team on the category question. The biggest champion and spokesperson of the category in the company is the CEO - collaborate with him/her to get the story super tight. 

Not validating it enough and getting sucked into internal debates between stakeholders. Messaging can be very subjective and emotional. When working on messaging for a new product - 1. Start very early, put the first draft of messaging and continue to refine. 2. Write the press release early too and use it as a way to create alignment. 3. Validate. validate. validate. Go onsite with customers, interview Beta users, and learn from CS/implementation/sales teams. This will help you drive buy-in to the new messaging by using the proof points from customer interviews. 

Have a strong point of view on the market and don't be afraid to reframe the current definition, but be prepared to invest heavily in education and thought leadership. Rely on proof points to support your narrative in the form of customer advocates that evangelize your definition and why it drives value. The good and the bad news is that someone has already created the initial interest - invest in execution and authority marketing to grab market share.