Category Entry Points: Win Before Google & ChatGPT

The Problem Most B2B Marketers Face

You're running 50+ different ad messages this year. "Increase productivity." "Boost collaboration." "Scale efficiently." "Reduce costs." Each message fights the others for space in your buyer's brain.

Meanwhile, your competitor focuses on one specific frustration: "When remote teams miss deadlines." They repeat this message everywhere - LinkedIn ads, email campaigns, landing pages, sales decks.

Guess who buyers remember when their remote team actually misses a deadline?

This is the difference between spray-and-pray marketing and Category Entry Points (CEPs).

What Are CEPs?

CEPs are the mental shortcuts that make buyers think of your brand when they hit specific problems.

Here's what actually happens:

1. Buyer hits a frustration ("God, our remote team just missed another deadline")

2. Brain automatically scans memory for solutions

3. Brands linked to that frustration surface first

4. These brands get considered before any Google searching happens

The key insight: Buyers don't wake up thinking "I need to research project management tools today." They wake up thinking "I'm stressed about this deadline situation." The brands that get bought are the ones already connected to that stress in memory.

Why This Matters More Now

When someone asks ChatGPT "What tool should I use for my remote team that keeps missing deadlines?" - that's not a keyword search, that's a full situation description.

LLMs recommend brands based on existing conversations and content (think Reddit). If your brand isn't strongly linked to specific buying situations in human memory and online discussions, you won't surface in AI recommendations either.

The game is shifting from "optimize for search" to "build memory networks."

The 3-Step CEP System

Step 1: Find Your Buying Triggers

Interview 10 recent customers. Ask one question: "What was happening in your business when you started looking for a solution like ours?"

Their answers are your CEPs. Look for patterns like:

• Timing triggers: "When we were preparing for busy season"

• Situation triggers: "When our team went remote"

• Emotion triggers: "When I was stressed about security"

• Context triggers: "When we needed something that worked with Salesforce"

Step 2: Pick Your Battles

Not all CEPs are worth targeting. Filter using these three criteria:

Credibility: Can you believably own this space?

Competitiveness: How crowded is this mental territory?

Commonality: How often does this situation happen?

Choose 3-5 CEPs to focus on over the next 12 months.

Step 3: Build Memory Links Through Repetition

The golden rule: One CEP per campaign. Multiple messages dilute memory formation.

Real example - Loom:

• CEP: "When remote feedback cycles are slowing down projects"

• Ad: "Ready to transform your remote team from a group of floating heads on Zoom to a tight-knit crew that gets things done?"

Notice how the ad directly mirrors the frustration. No generic benefits. No feature lists. Just a specific problem and a specific solution.

Marketing is a repetition game. A single brilliant ad creates a weak memory link. The same message repeated across 50 touchpoints creates a superhighway in your buyer's brain.

How to Execute This Week

Day 1: List your last 20 ad campaigns. How many different messages did you run?

Day 2: Pick your highest-converting campaign. What specific frustration does it address?

Day 3: Rewrite 3 other campaigns to focus on that same frustration.

Day 4: Launch the focused campaigns and track which CEP-focused ads perform better.

Day 5: Interview 2 recent customers about their buying triggers.

Common Mistakes That Kill CEPs

Mistake 1: Multiple CEPs per ad

• Wrong: "Perfect for remote teams, scaling companies, and compliance-focused orgs"

• Right: "Built for remote teams that miss deadlines"

Mistake 2: Generic situations

• Wrong: "When you need better productivity"

• Right: "When your sales team misses quota two quarters in a row"

Mistake 3: Changing messages too quickly

• Memory formation takes 3-6 months minimum

• Resist the urge to constantly refresh creative

The Payoff

When you nail CEPs:

• Short-term: Higher ad relevance = lower acquisition costs

• Medium-term: Stronger memory networks = more inbound leads

• Long-term: Mental market share = pricing power

Your competitor's latest feature announcement gets forgotten in a week. Your CEP-linked memory network lasts for years.

Your Next Move

What specific frustration do you want to own in your buyer's mind?

Start there. Build that memory link. Then expand your network.

The brands that win aren't the ones with the most features - they're the ones buyers remember when problems hit.