Category Creation
Fourth CMO • 5y
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 ...
828 Views
UiPath Sr. Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Salesforce, Tableau, Microsoft • 1mo
Anthony's take is provocative but I've seen the same pattern. Let me add some specificity on what's actually worked across the companies I've been in.The highest-ROI anal...
160 Views
Mentor | Product Marketing Leader | Formerly Lenovo | Dell Boomi | Celigo | GoodData • 6y
A micro category is relevant for specific product/service as it provides a niche use case that the offering supports.
A macro category for a company is the high-level c...
519 Views
ServiceNow Global Partner Marketing Director • 3y
The frameworks that I use for positioning and messaging have changed over time, as I've advanced in my marketing career in enterprise tech. Earlier in my career (when I w...
14176 Views
WalkMe Senior Vice President, Product Marketing | Formerly Clari, Observe.AI, Vendavo, Amdocs • 4y
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...
2221 Views
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Director of PMM | Formerly Meta, Upwork, Zendesk, PagerDuty • 1y
Creating a new category is hard, and not sure that a channel strategy is what comes first to mind when creating a new category. More often than not, category creation inv...
1602 Views
Abnormal Security Senior Product Marketing Manager | Formerly Xpanse, Cisco Meraki, Ripple • 3y
While all marketing aims to solve a customer problem. When it comes to category creation, you are going to focus a significant portion of your time convincing Analysts an...
818 Views
Resolve AI Product Marketing | Formerly Google • 1y
Creating a new product category is like embarking on a voyage to a new continent. While exciting, it's not just about setting sail. It's crucial to first ensure that this...
4442 Views
Director of Product Marketing • 1y
When most people encounter a problem, they typically search for instructions on how to solve a pain—not a tool. Build a content strategy around top-of-the-funnel awarenes...
579 Views
The Remarketables GTM Advisor/Fractional Leader/Author | Formerly Google, Salesforce, Box, Mulesoft, WeWork, Matterport, Canva • 2y
What a great question, and having seen this shift happen at a few companies, I don't think it was necessarily just a messaging effort that caused the mindset to shift. To...
1043 Views
Coachendo Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Google, Microsoft • 2y
My messaging testing strategy utilizes a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. I leverage A/B testing frameworks and advanced analytics tools to optimize w...
3374 Views
Wynter CEO • 2y
Use a messaging evaluation framework like Message Layers.The way to improve messaging is to break it down into five components, measure, and work on each separately:↑ Cla...
325 Views
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
AudiencePlus CEO • 8y
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 prospec...
1831 Views
Freelance Senior B2B Copywriter • 7y
I agree with Anthony. If you're looking to enter a space that has already been defined, what you need to do is create a niche and/or double down on the unique approach yo...
613 Views
Diageo Head of Tequila Portfolio • 3y
Some of the most important decisions you need to consider as a product manager are:How competed is the new category?: There is no right answer. More competition means mor...
3511 Views
Unusual Ventures (former VP PMM @ Okta) Operating Partner • 6y
One of the biggest challenges we had in the early days was competing against Microsoft. They are the grand-daddy of identity in that they created Active Directory, which...
1109 Views
Diageo Head of Tequila Portfolio • 3y
Creating a category could be one of the most complicated process for any organization. It is very important that you make sure your company has the resources necessary fo...
6231 Views
Symphony Talent Head of Product Marketing • 5y
You have to start with understanding your audience and your product. For the audience – understand their key business issues and pain points and for the product, understa...
1397 Views
Circana Chief Strategy Officer | Formerly Microsoft, SAP, McKinsey • 4y
I am a believer that your messaging/positioning has to be consistent with how differentiated your product really is. Customers will quickly figure out what is marketing f...
2518 Views
AudiencePlus CEO • 6y
Not critical. In fact, you may be better off launching a new category into an existing (and much larger TAM) than also taking the task of creating / expanding a smaller ...
2103 Views
Writer Chief Marketing Officer • 4y
You need to listen to people, share positioning work as it develops and be iterative. If you just show up with a messaging strategy without involving leadership in the f...
2441 Views
Writer Chief Marketing Officer • 4y
We have a "storybook" with all of our core messaging. It's a powerpoint with a lot of slides covering segmentation, personas, products, and all the appropriate messaging...
2208 Views
Upgrade, Inc. Director of Product Marketing • 3y
Awareness and the top of the funnel are key. With a new category, you'll need to make prospects aware of the problem you're solving and convince them that this is a prob...
2008 Views
Upgrade, Inc. Director of Product Marketing • 3y
Naming is important! Ideally your category is established enough that there are industry terms that you can use. That way you're building brand equity for your brand name...
1808 Views
AudiencePlus CEO • 8y
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 str...
1645 Views
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?
BrainKraft Founder • 7y
Connect the name of the new category with something familiar to your market: Horses + Carriages => Horseless Carriage => Automobile. And because Sharebird says my a...
645 Views
OpenAI Product Marketing | Formerly Twilio • 4y
In my opinion, benefits need to describe the outcome of using the feature. The outcome should address a real pain point for the target customer of the feature. The benefi...
1606 Views
Stealth Founder | Formerly Loom, Tavus, Wizeline, Government • 4y
This is the same as generally testing your messaging, but just segmenting your tests per audience or persona.
a/b testing emails and landing pages
using an agency to sur...
710 Views
How do you switch categories after being in business for 2-5+ years? Should you consider a complete rebrand, new site, email outreach, etc?
Founding a new category vs moving into one you've created
Silicon Valley Go To Market Dojo Founder • 8y
In category creation it is critical to tell the story that matters....figure out the story and the category follows. Make the category the magic in your customer's hero'...
428 Views
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?
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 ...
509 Views
KPI Sense Chief Executive Officer • 6y
Or whether you've developed such tunnel vision that you need to go "external" and have a neutral third party assist with this segmentation exercise.
2210 Views
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."
AudiencePlus CEO • 8y
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 ...
1859 Views