The most important search engine is still the one in your mind. Most buying journeys start not by searching Google or AI engines, but by searching our memory. If you believe most buyer behavior starts with memory, it then follows that the primary job of marketing is not only to generate clicks, but also to generate memories.
Category Entry Points (CEPs) are the cues that category buyers use to access their memories when faced with a buying situation and can include any internal cues (eg motives, emotions) and external cues (eg location, time of day) that affect any buying situation.
CEPs influence which brands are initially mentally available in the decision-maker’s memory – and form the list of initial ‘go to’ options. Understanding CEPs helps you build useful associations between your brand and the category’s core buying situations. Therefore, when a buyer enters the category, your brand has a greater chance of being mentally available, which is the first step to being bought.
Buyers in B2C or B2B go through similar memory processes – because all buyers draw on the same brain. In a B2C situation, a buyer might use her memory to identify possible restaurants for a Valentine’s Day meal, and the CEPs might be “somewhere romantic” and has a “good vegan menu”. In a B2B situation, a buyer might use the memory to identify possible advertising agencies for an international product launch, and the CEPs could be “specialized in B2B” and “good English copywriters”.
The advantage of having your brand linked to multiple CEPs are quite obvious. The more times you are considered, ie being one company on the buyer’s list, the more time you will win the business. The flip coin of this is the fewer the CEPs that a customer links to a brand/company, the greater the likelihood of switching from that brand/company.
Marketing communications plays a major role in building wider, fresher, memory networks for the brand. When properly utilized, marketing communications can:
- Create the opportunity to build brand links by showing decision-makers advertising that links CEPs to the brand.
- Scale the reach of these links by building opportunities through a wide reaching media plan, so more decision-makers can build links to your brand.
- Refresh the brand’s links to CEPs in the minds of decision-makers to counter competitive activity.
- Repeat this process for different CEPs over time (as budgets allow) to widen, as well as freshen, the brands’ memory networks.
If you think Category Entry Points is interesting to explore, download the full report from LinkedIn Institute here.
And if you want to discuss communication, you are always welcome to contact ulf@sfinxagency.se
