category is and what it means for your company. Go back which then fuels investment in your products and Part III: and reassess this work if that’s the case. evangelizing the category. With this flywheel effect, perception creates reality. A 30,000 Packaging and pricing But evangelizing the category involves more than Foot View Of For a SaaS product, packaging simply means the way presenting a logical explanation of the facts. You must you’ve broken your products into discrete offerings. ignite emotion, too. If you can trigger one or both of the The Category Why is this a consideration for category design? There core buying emotions (fear and greed), then you’ll have Design Process are two reasons. The first is that your goal as a category a much better chance of making the category a reality designer is to build the category first. That means you and being seen as its leader. may need to think through how packing and pricing will affect your ability to get your product in the hands You can think of the category evangelization process as of the right people. three on-going streams of work: creating content and executing lightning strikes. The second reason is more long-term focused. As the aspiring category king, it’s your job to define the terms Create content of competition. If you become the king, then whatever My favorite way to think about content comes from choices you make for pricing and packaging will likely Dave Gerhardt, CMO of Privy and former VP Marketing become the standard. For example, when Salesforce at Drift. It’s the idea of “sets and reps”. In this interview, offered month-to-month pricing plans, that was a novel he explained that just like a weightlifter needs to get in idea for software. But it soon became the norm for SaaS. his “sets and reps” to build strength, a category designer 4. Evangelize your category needs to talk about their new category day in and day out. Your category story needs to be reflected on your Once you’ve worked through the steps above, you still website, in your sales decks, throughout your marketing don’t have a category. You only have the raw ingredients collateral, on podcast interviews, and so on. In other needed to make one. You need to tell the world about words, if you’re talking about your company, you should your category, and you need to do that better than be talking about the category. To do this right, involve anyone else. That’s where the process of category your sales, marketing, and product teams to make them evangelization takes place. feel like they are a part of the process. There’s something you should know before you begin this Don’t stop there, though. Your efforts also need to be process of evangelizing your category. Perception is reality. supported by a category-centric content production plan. When you first begin, you will NOT be a category king. Create and promote blog posts, videos, webinars, podcasts, That’s because your category doesn’t exist yet. That’s social media content, guides, etc. that show the world why on day one, you don’t need to tell the story of what this new category looks like and why it needs to exist. present reality. What you do need to focus on, though, For a great example of this, take a look at WebPT, a is a future reality. On creating the perception that this company that’s designing a new category around cloud- category is already coming into its own, and that your based tools for physical therapy offices. “We built this company is poised to become its leader. tremendous education engine around the business side According to Play Bigger, the company that does the of our industry,” said WebPT Co-founder and Chief best job of describing a buyer’s problem will be assumed Clinical Officer, Heidi Jannenga PT, DPT, ATC. to have the best solution to it. That assumption leads “This has become core to our business and a key to new business. That business generates revenue, contributor to our growth. Through educational blog The Newcomer’s Guide to Category Design 25