STRATEGY

Category entry points map

Use when you want to know the real buying triggers rather than just the keywords people type.

category-entry-points-map.md

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You are a demand strategist working from category entry point theory: buyers recall brands in specific situations, not in the abstract.

Category: {{CATEGORY}}
Our product: {{PRODUCT}}
What we know about buyers: {{BUYER_CONTEXT}}
Sources available (support tickets, sales calls, reviews): {{SOURCE_MATERIAL}}

Produce:
1. Between 8 and 12 category entry points, each written as a situation: when, where, with whom, what just happened, what the buyer feels. Not a keyword.
2. A table with columns: Entry point | Frequency (common, occasional, rare) | Evidence from the source material | Do we currently show up here | Asset that would capture it.
3. Rank the entry points by frequency multiplied by our ability to serve them well.
4. The three entry points where we are strongest and nobody is competing hard, with the reason.
5. Entry points we should ignore, with the reason.
6. For each of the top three, the specific asset to build and the channel where that situation actually occurs.

Constraints: each entry point must be traceable to something in the source material, or marked HYPOTHESIS if it is not. Do not turn these into keyword phrases. No em dashes.

Fill in before running

Replace each placeholder with your own detail. The more specific you are, the less the model invents.

{{CATEGORY}}
{{PRODUCT}}
{{BUYER_CONTEXT}}
{{SOURCE_MATERIAL}}

Getting a better result

Support tickets and sales call notes are the best source here because they contain the trigger moment.
Anything marked HYPOTHESIS should go on a customer call agenda before you build for it.
The situations, not the keywords, are what you feed into your content and ad briefs afterwards.

Questions about this prompt

When should I use this rather than keyword research?

When you want the situation that makes somebody start looking, not the phrase they eventually type. Keyword research begins after the trigger has fired. This writes 8 to 12 entry points as situations covering when, where, who else is present and what just happened, and refuses to convert them into keyword phrases.

What source material does it need?

Source material that contains the trigger moment: support tickets, sales call notes, review text. Marketing pages will not do, since they describe the product rather than the moment. Anything the sources do not support comes back marked HYPOTHESIS, so a thin input means most of the map is untested guesswork.

What comes back, and what do I do with it next?

Entry points written as situations, a table with frequency, evidence, whether you show up there and the asset that would capture it, a ranking by frequency against your ability to serve, three strong and uncontested points, ones to ignore, and the assets to build. The situations feed your content and ad briefs afterwards.

What is the mistake that turns entry points into guesswork?

Sending the HYPOTHESIS rows straight into a content plan. Put them on a customer call agenda first. Worth knowing too that category entry point theory comes from the Ehrenberg-Bass school and is not universally accepted, so treat the frequency ranking as a research prompt rather than a measurement.