Category Entry Points are the cues that buyers use to access their memories when entering a buying situation. They are the situations, needs, occasions, and motivations that trigger someone to think about the category, and ideally, to think about your brand.
Why CEPs Matter
Brands do not compete in abstract space. They compete in specific buying situations. A plumber is not competing against all other plumbers. They are competing against the other plumbers that come to mind when someone has a clogged drain at 10pm. Or when someone needs a water heater installed. Or when a commercial property manager needs a reliable maintenance contract.
Each of these is a different Category Entry Point. Different brands may be strong in different CEPs. The goal of marketing is to build links between your brand and the CEPs that matter most to your business.
Identifying Your CEPs
Category Entry Points are typically identified through research, but operators can develop useful intuitions through systematic observation:
- What situations trigger people to need what you sell?
- What needs are they trying to meet?
- What occasions prompt category consideration?
- What emotions or states of mind are involved?
- Who else is involved in the buying situation?
For local service businesses, search query analysis is particularly valuable. The words people use when searching reveal the Category Entry Points they are in. "Emergency plumber" is a different CEP than "bathroom remodel contractor" even though both might be served by the same business.
Building CEP Links
Mental availability is built by creating and refreshing links between your brand and relevant Category Entry Points. This happens through consistent exposure of your brand alongside the cues that define each CEP.
The more CEPs your brand is linked to, and the stronger those links, the more likely you are to come to mind across a wider range of buying situations. This is how brands grow, by being mentally available to more buyers in more situations.
CEPs and Demand Capture
Understanding Category Entry Points transforms how you think about Google as a demand engine. Search queries are explicit signals of which CEP a buyer is in. This makes Google advertising extraordinarily efficient for demand capture, if you understand the CEP landscape.
It also explains why buying moments beat personas. The same person behaves differently in different buying situations. What matters is the CEP they are in, not their demographic profile.
The Research Base
Category Entry Points were developed and researched extensively by Jenni Romaniuk at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. Her work shows that brands which are linked to more CEPs have higher market share, and that building CEP links is a primary mechanism of brand growth.
The concept integrates with the broader body of marketing science on market share and distinctive assets. Together, these form a coherent picture of how brands grow through building mental availability.