Every marketer needs a superpower. But Christoper Lochhead may have uncovered the greatest superpower of all. It’s something called category design. Category design is the process of building a new space that your company can own and dominate over the long term. It’s about “following your different” instead of trying to be “better.” As the author of
Like most marketers, I’ve had plenty of successes, but I’ve my fair share of failures, too. So I was thinking today about what led to those failures. And when I look back at the ideas that didn’t do so well, it usually comes down to one thing: trying to flying solo. In other words, when
Who better to interview about category creation than someone who’s in the midst of building a major new category right now? That’s why I asked Dave Gerhardt, VP Marketing at Drift, to join me on the latest episode of the #categorycreation series on the B2B Growth Show. In case you haven’t encountered Drift in the wild, they’re the
The software demo started off like any other. A few slides about the company’s client list. Some stats on the number of employees they had, how quickly they’d grown. But as I listened to the pitch the rep gave about his company’s PR monitoring software, I started to feel pissed off. Later on, I tried
Throughout my career, I’ve helped bring new concepts to market. The process has been highly rewarding yet unusually challenging, and I’ve had my mix of failures and successes. To help other marketers improve their odds of success, I wanted to share a few lessons I’ve learned along the way. Focus on the problem. When you’ve developed something special,
Building a category-leading company involves so much more than the initial category design itself. It’s a continuous effort that requires you to constantly nurture and define your brand as your category evolves. That’s why I was so excited to interview Bill Macaitis on the #categorycreation series of the B2B Growth Show. Bill’s one of the most accomplished B2B SaaS
Since I started co-hosting the #categorycreation series on the B2B Growth Show, I’ve had the chance to speak with some of the top thinkers around category design. And right up there at the top of the list is Kipp Bodnar, CMO of Hubspot. Hubspot is one of those companies that comes up in nearly every
What is Airtable and why isn’t everyone using it yet? Airtable combines the power of spreadsheets, databases, project management software, “no-code” apps, and collaboration tools into a very powerful and flexible tool. There are few Airtable alternatives, and six years after launch, it should be have reached mainstream adoption by now. But it hasn’t. Instead,
If you could describe the goal of B2B messaging in the simplest way possible, you might say that it’s to get the right message in front of the right audience, at the right time. Easy to say, tough to do. The most clever writing in the world won’t matter if it’s delivered at the wrong
How is it that the country with the largest oil reserves in the world is nearing economic collapse? The same reason B2B brands in a crowded space find it nearly impossible to survive: inflation. Inflation is an invisible force, but it can decimate both economies and B2B brands alike. In this article, I’ll explain how
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