How do you "defend" your category in a way that serves the buyer?

I have taken pitches from two companies that, although unique and cool in their own right, were at the end of the day either Marketing Automation or Outreach platforms. They were so allergic to even being considered among their competition in those fields that both told me they "didn't consider themselves as having competitors," when they obviously did. I respect their commitment to the uniqueness of their solution - but what's the push/pull between touting your unique offering vs actually selling against the realistic choices others have? When do you dismiss some metrics as unimportant vs actually get into the nitty gritty and compare?

Answer

2 Answers

Category Creation

Nipul Chokshi

Fourth CMO • 5y

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

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Pete Schott

CrunchTime Senior Director of Product Marketing & Content • 6y

Companies create and “defend” categories because they believe, or want you to believe, that they solve existing problems in a new way or are packaging together solutions to a variety of problems in a way that wasn’t done before. It becomes a natural way to deposition other companies who fall into older/existing categories because they do things the “old” way or other reasons. That said, it's also a disservice to yourself (even arrogant) if you disregard the older categories altogether.Example: A ...Read More

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