Category Creation: How to Build a Brand that Customers, Employees, and Investors will Love
- 3h 34m
- Anthony Kennada
- John Wiley & Sons (US)
- 2020
There is no such thing as an original idea anymore – right? Actually, it turns out that the world’s most innovative companies have created so much more than just brand new products and technology. They've created entirely new market categories. The challenge is that successfully building new categories requires a perfect storm of luck and timing.
Or does it? Category Creation is the first and only book on the topic written by executives and marketers actively building new categories. It explains how category creation has become the Holy Grail of marketing, and more importantly, how it can be planned and orchestrated. It's not about luck. You can use the same tactics that other category-defining companies have used to delight customers, employees, and investors. There’s no better strategy that results in faster growth and higher valuations for the company on top.
Author Anthony Kennada, former Chief Marketing Officer at Gainsight, explains how he led Gainsight in creating the “customer success” category, and shares success stories from fellow category-creators like Salesforce, HubSpot and others. It requires much more than just having the best product. You have to start and grow a conversation that doesn’t yet exist, positioning a newly discovered problem in addition to your company and product offerings. The book explains the 7 key principles of category creation, including the importance of creating a community of early adopters who will rally around the problem they all share―especially if someone will lead them.
- Identify the “go” and “no go” signals for category creation in your business
- Activate customers and influencers as brand ambassadors
- Grow a community by investing in live events and experiences
- Prove the impact of category creation investments on growth, customer success, and company culture
Written for entrepreneurs, marketers, and executives from startups to large enterprises, Category Creation is the exclusive playbook for building a category defining brand in the modern economy.
About the Author
ANTHONY KENNADA is the founding Chief Marketing Officer at Gainsight. Anthony and his team are credited with having created the Customer Success category―a business imperative, profession, and software category that helps subscription companies grow sustainably by becoming customer obsessed. By focusing on human-first community building, content marketing, live events, and creative activations, Anthony and his team developed a new playbook for B2B marketing that both built the Gainsight brand and fueled the company's growth. Anthony has previously worked at Box, LiveOffice and Symantec, and serves as an investor, advisor, and board member to enterprise software companies around the globe.
In this Book
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Category Creation: The Noble Marketing Strategy that Can Spark a Movement
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Why Brand is at the Heart of Category Creation in the Business-to-Human (B2H) Era
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The Six Challenges of Creating a Category (and How to Overcome Them)
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Special Considerations for Established Companies in Commoditized Markets
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Live Your Purpose, Values, and Culture Out Loud
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Focus on the People in Your Market—Not Just Your Products
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Create a Lifestyle Brand for Your Category
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Grow a Community by Doubling Down on Live Events and Experiences
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Activate Customers as Brand Ambassadors
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Recognize that Analysts Don't Create Categories, Customers Do
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Establish Trust at Scale Through Authentic Executive Communication
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How to Connect Category Creation Programs to Growth for Executives and Investors
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The Intangible Benefits of Category Creation on Customer and Teammate Success
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