BY JOSH GAROFALO
10 years of helping clients such as HubSpot, Bloomreach, Unbounce, Wave, Hotjar, Deputy, and 100+ more B2B SaaS startups win in crowded categories.
Your SaaS category is crowded.
You reach the same prospects with the same message and a similar product.
Your product is similar to your competitors' because consistently launching features that separate you from the pack is hard. Instead, you "borrow" from one another until you reach perceived parity.
You used to be able to rise above parity by using the voice of your customer to inform your messaging. But the world is catching on to this trick, nullifying its advantage. Instead, you're just one more voice in the echo chamber chamber chamber.
A good product supported by a good product story gets you considered — not chosen.
And your prospects don't need more choices. They need help choosing.
How does your prospect make a choice when faced with similar products and product stories?
The odds of winning the customer once on the shortlist aren't in your favor. The majority of vendor searches end in no decision because splitting hairs and parsing product stories is no fun.
Those who do choose will usually choose your category's leader. If you're still in the race, your odds are roughly 1 in however many competitors are on this shortlist with you.
And you're not sure why you win when you do.
Your prospects need you to stand up and stand out so they can toss the other options into the bucket of sameness and move forward.
This is where the Category Story comes in...
A Category Story is an attempt to craft a compelling narrative not just for your product, but for your category as a whole.
It's summarizing the history of your category and airing out your category's "dirty laundry."
It's casting your direct and indirect competitors while reserving the starring role and spotlight for yourself.
It's explaining why you are the perfect fit for your ideal customer and why the alternatives aren't right for them.
It's infusing your most visible assets with this story. Adding some fight to your home, why us, and pricing pages, and the intro of your sales deck.
It's what top-of-mind SaaS brands such as Salesforce, Drift, and Coda have done. And it's what dozens of smaller startups chipping away at the incumbent's pie do.
As Rory Sutherland, author of Alchemy, wrote:
A Category Story gives your ideal prospect permission to end their search, shred their shortlist, and choose you.
I send this newsletter when I have something to say — not because it's Monday.
This newsletter will cover topics such as:
- The how-tos of crafting a Category Story
- How to infuse your messaging, sales, and product with your Category Story
- Breakdowns of well-executed Category Stories in the wild
- And I'll formalize in public a lot of what I've been doing for clients behind the curtain
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