Category Entry Points In A B2B World

Linking Buying Situations To Brand Sales

Here is an interesting paper written by Professor Jenni Romaniuk on behalf of the LinkedIn The B-to-B Institute on the importance of what she calls Category Entry Points in the world of B-to-B marketing.

Category Entry Points (CEPs) are the cues that category buyers use to access their memories when faced with a buying situation and can include any internal cues (e.g., motives, emotions) and external cues (e.g., location, time of day) that affect any buying situation. While each category buyer and each buying situation is unique, there are common recurring themes which we call CEPs. CEPs influence which brands are initially mentally available in decision-maker memory – and form the list of initial ‘go to’ options. Understanding CEPs helps you build useful associations between your brand and the category’s core buying situations. Therefore when a buyer enters the category, your brand has a greater chance of being mentally available, which is the first step to being bought.

In a nutshell, the more CEP a brand is associated with, the less likely a customer is to switch. And the more CEPs a brand is associated with the more likely this brand will be selected when the customer is in the market for a new vendor.

Salesforces, arguably one of the best managed B-to-B brands, for example, has identified and focuses on 33 CEPs, according to their global CMO Colin Fleming.

In other words, CEPs act as relevant brand associations that connect a brand to a relevant category cue.

SIGN-UP FOR MY NEWSLETTER TO KEEP UPDATED

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: 

GO BACK TO 'FUNDAMENTALS” for more articles about brand strategy, brand positioning, customer insights, and creative problem-solving.

Learn everything there is to know about brand position development and become more “brand positioning fluent” than 99% of the marketing community with my online course “The Art & Craft Of Brand Positioning Development”. Learn what it is, how to set objectives for your positioning, how to segment your consumers, how to create genuinely differentiating and distinctive positioning statements, sources of brand positioning, how to assess, evaluate, and improve existing positioning statements (with examples), and learn what mistakes to avoid. 

Do you just want to learn the basics of brand positioning development? Check out the award-winning “Brand Positioning Workbook:  A simple how-to guide to more compelling brand positioning, faster”. Available on Amazon around the world. (RAISE the prices again?)

Working solo on a brand positioning project or preparing a positioning workshop? Check out the best-selling Brand Positioning Method Cards for guidance and inspiration. 

Interested in insights and how to generate them instead? Then the Aha! The Indispensable Insight Generation Toolkit might be for you. Available as a set of method cards in the US and as a Kindle document outside the US. 

Need an expert team to help you position or re-positon your brand and identify new growth opportunities? Then reach out

Alternatively, you may want punctual advice, feedback, and inspiration without hiring a consulting team. Then, book an hour of coaching with me.