Spoiler alert: category design is probably not the represents the reversal. It involves focusing on the best right strategy for your company. As I mentioned in accounts first, then developing campaigns based on part one, it requires a sizable investment of time and getting their attention alone. By developing software resources. This requires the right capabilities. But to help with this, and by heavily evangelizing ABM on your circumstances are just as important. For category the side, Terminus developed a new category around Part II: design to make sense, you need to solve a new problem this new solution. or solve an existing problem in a new way. Category Design Here’s how to assess circumstances and capabilities for GAINSIGHT: SOLVE A NEW PROBLEM your own company: Not more than a decade ago, the term customer success Is Powerful, but wasn’t on anyone’s radar. It wasn’t part of a job title, the Circumstances: don’t pursue category name of a department, or an established discipline. But Not For All design without a “different” solution as SaaS companies recognized that churn and account Having the right circumstances for category design expansion represented the potential for major revenue is all about having a new angle on solving a problem. loss or gain, respectively, they started to pay more Remember, categories are ways of grouping similar attention to proactively serving customers after the products together – products that aim to solve the same sale. With that, the customer success discipline was problem. born – an entirely different approach than the more reactive customer support role. WHAT YOU’LL LEARN: There are two ways to think about this: you can solve a With this development, though, a new problem In this section, I’ll show you why your company needs new problem that has recently emerged (one that there emerged: customer success teams didn’t have software the right set of circumstances before category design are no solutions to). Or you can bring a new approach built for their unique role. Help desk software that can apply. I’ll provide 14 questions to help you assess to solving an old problem, an approach so unique that customer support teams used just wasn’t cut out for it. these circumstances. I’ll also show you how your comparisons with old solutions don’t make much sense. Enter Gainsight. By creating customer success software, company also needs to have the right capabilities before Here’s an example of each. they were able to solve a new problem that had emerged. embarking on this journey, too. Finally, you’ll see how Gainsight wasn’t the only company to develop customer category design isn’t just about breaking free from TERMINUS: OFFER A DIFFERENT SOLUTION TO success software, but they were better than anyone else existing markets – it’s about a decision to ultimately AN OLD PROBLEM at evangelizing customer success as a new idea. As we’ll become a category leader. Marketers have dealt with inefficient and ineffective later see, that’s a big part of category design. tactics since the beginning of time. We’ve wasted plenty There’s one distinction worth mentioning with this of money on ads delivered to the wrong audience, or idea of solving a new problem. Sometimes, this problem on capturing leads that had no intention of buying. is one your buyers are already aware of. But it’s just as There have been plenty of solutions to help us solve likely that buyers may not even be aware that they have this, too – tools for retargeting, attribution, finding a problem. As a category designer, it may be your job the right audiences, intent data, and so on. Terminus, to show them. though, provided a novel approach, called account- These examples have one thing in common. Neither based marketing (ABM) that attempts to solve this Terminus’ account-based marketing software or problem in an entirely new way. Gainsight’s customer success software would have If the old demand generation approach meant fared very well if they were positioned in existing capturing a bunch of leads at the top of the funnel and categories. That shouldn’t be a surprise though. These working to convert them, account-based marketing new categories were aimed at a new type of buyer The Newcomer’s Guide to Category Design 14