Category Entry Points (or CEPs) are the reasons, motivations, and occasions that prompt consumers to consider a specific product category. They represent the triggers or situations that lead customers to recognise a need and explore options within that category.
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What are
Category Entry Points
Why are they
Important?
Category Entry Points, originally developed by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, are the cornerstones of Mental Availability (i.e. brand salience). Improving Mental Availability makes your brand more easily come to mind at key purchase decisions and occasions, and is critical for brand growth.
Category Entry Point Research & Measurement
At SaliencePlus we have a two-stage process, to firstly identify Category Entry Points and secondly to measure and track mental availability within those CEPs over time.
STAGE 1
IDENTIFY
Exploratory Research
In the “Identify” stage of our Category Entry Point research process, we model each CEP based on a wide range of relevant data points through quantitative research. This minimises the influence of subjective biases from other methods, such as internal development or workshopping.
This consumer data is then processed through a CEP-focused modelling engine, our advanced proprietary statistical solution, to identify which W’s are most influential in delivering a purchase within your category.
Our experienced industry team then reviews and refines the resulting Category Entry Points. We further enhance these CEPs by profiling the demographics, attitudes, and behaviours associated with each.
STAGE 2
MEASURE
Validatory Research
Our Category Entry Point measurement system operates like an advanced brand health tracking study, focusing on spontaneous brand consideration (and awareness) within each CEP and other key metrics.
At regular intervals, we ask a fresh audience of real-world consumers which CEPs they engage in and, for each, which brand(s) they currently consider buying from. We trend brand mental availability within each CEP over time, allowing us to track performance against marketing activity.
Our approach to mental availability measurement ensures you capture the key metrics traditional brand health tracking fails to do, helping modernise your brand tracking.
Category Entry Points
A deeper understanding of Category Entry Points can offer actionable insights to enhance your brand strategy and marketing efforts. These insights enable a more targeted strategy and provide a more comprehensive method for measuring brand performance. They can help guide areas such as:
BRAND MEASUREMENT
Assess your brand's performance across CEPS, as well as your competitors
STRATEGY & PRIORITISATION
Understand which CEPs matter for growth, where do you need to build mental availability?
BARRIERS TO GROWTH
Understand where you have mental availability issues which are limiting growth
MARKETING OR COMMUNICATIONS EVALUATION
CEP(s) can be used as a KPI(s) for marketing activity or communication campaigns
GAP ANALYSIS
Understand gaps across the company portfolio or product features. Helps inform innovation pipeline
BRAND PLANNING
Helps inform brand planning and the path to purchase
AUDIENCES
Understand performance across segments, are any demographics holding you back?
COMPETITOR INSIGHT
Gain a better understanding of where and how competitors are growing
COMMUNICATION MESSAGING
Helps inform messaging, what should you be saying in order to build mental availability against key CEPs?
BRAND MEASUREMENT
Assess your brand’s performance across CEPs, as well as your competitors
BRAND PLANNING
Helps inform brand planning and the path to purchase
STRATEGY & PRIORITISATION
Understand which CEPs matter for growth, where do you need to build mental availability?
AUDIENCES
Understand performance across segments, are any demographics holding you back?
BARRIERS TO GROWTH
Understand where you have availability issues which are limiting growth
COMPETITOR INSIGHT
Gain a better understanding of where and how competitors are growing
MARKETING OR COMMUNICATIONS EVALUATION
CEP(s) can be used as a KPI(s) for marketing activity or communication campaigns
COMMUNICATION MESSAGING
Helps inform messaging, what should you be saying in order to build mental availability against key CEPs?
GAP ANALYSIS
Understand gaps across the company portfolio or product features. Helps inform innovation pipeline
Evolve your
Strategy & Brand Health Tracking
Most Brand Health Tracking is based on the traditional funnel and lacks purchase context. We use Category Entry Points (CEPs) to introduce context to purchase decisions. Category Entry Points are reasons, triggers or occasions when someone considers buying a product in your category. By knowing your priority CEPs, attaching your brand to them, and measuring performance, you can improve Mental Availability.
Old Brand Health Tracking
Traditional Brand Health Trackers generally focus on the traditional funnel, asking respondents to tick the box on which brands they are aware of or consider. They keep the respondent’s purchase context within that of an online survey e.g. “Which of these brands have you bought in the last 3 months?”
Modern Brand Health Tracking
Mental Availability
Measure CEP breadth and depth
Barriers To Growth
Understand your salience challenges
External Credibility
Which CEPs are relative strengths and where are the white spaces?
Consumer Profiling
Profile mental availability performance across subgroups
We’ve reimagined Brand Health Tracking to consider the latest in marketing science thinking. Our focus on measuring salience in the moments that matter provides a truer picture of brand health with an actionable report rather than just numbers. Read more about our Brand Health Tracking solution here.
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Learn More About CEP Research
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