What is the Category Entry Point Audit?

It's a seven-question tool that maps the specific moments when buyers enter your category. Each answer gets you closer to a situation sentence, the thing a brief should be built around.

Whose framework is the audit based on?

It's adapted from the 7W framework developed by Jenni Romaniuk at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. This version asks When, Where, Why, While, Who (who the buyer is with or buying for, usually the buying group in B2B), With (what they use or buy alongside your category) and Feeling. Romaniuk built the Ws to find the memory cues that bring a brand to mind; this audit uses them to write the brief.

What do I get at the end?

Each distinct buying moment becomes a Situation Card, which is the brief. A card covers the moment, what the brand needs to signal, the emotional register, and an output format. A skill file is also available so Claude can run the audit interactively.

Framework: adapted from Ehrenberg-Bass

Category Entry Point Audit

Seven questions turn into Situation Cards and a brief you can use Monday morning.

Most briefs start with who the buyer is. This framework starts with when they're in a position to act.

Bain and Google's 2022 survey found that 80–90% of B2B buyers already had a "day-one list" of vendors before they started researching, and about 90% of them bought from that list. The shortlist forms in the moments you're about to map, long before the RFP.

Work through the seven questions below. Each answer gets you closer to a situation sentence: the thing the brief should be built around.

Adapted from the 7W framework developed by Jenni Romaniuk at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. Introduced in Open Folders: Why Nobody Ever Got Fired for Buying IBM →

The 7 Questions Work through in order. Each W builds on the last.

W1 When

When does the need for your category typically become urgent?

Think trigger events, calendar moments, business cycles, or a specific question from a CEO they couldn't answer in a meeting.

W2 Where

Where is the buyer when this need surfaces?

Physical location, the workflow they're inside, the platform or channel they're in when it hits them.

W3 Why

What problem or job makes your category relevant in this moment?

What just became urgent that wasn't before? Name the job the buyer needs done.

W4 While

What else is the buyer doing while this need surfaces?

What adjacent task or activity is it interrupting or emerging from?

W5 Who

Who is the buyer with, or buying for, in this moment?

In B2B this is usually the buying group: a committee, a champion, a CFO they'll need to convince.

W6 With

What else does the buyer use or buy alongside your category in this moment?

The tools, products and decisions that travel with yours. Romaniuk calls this one "with what."

W7 Feeling

What's the emotional state when the need arises?

Time pressure, anxiety, relief that something finally broke so they can fix it, curiosity. What's the register? This shapes creative tone and channel.

What you're building toward

Each distinct buying moment becomes a Situation Card, and the card is the brief. Treat each one as a hypothesis to check with category buyers, and expect several: Romaniuk's work shows bigger brands are linked to more entry points.

Situation Card: Example

The moment A VP of Marketing at year-end, in a budget meeting where the CFO just asked what marketing contributed, looking for a vendor the board will recognize as credible.

What the brand needs to signal Credibility before the demo. Familiarity with the problem. A name the CFO has already heard.

Emotional register Pressure and exposure. The buyer needs to defend their recommendation before they've made it.

Output format "A [role] [when/context], [what triggered the need], looking for [what they need the brand to be]."

Use with Claude

The full skill file runs this as an interactive audit: seven questions, one at a time, with pushback when answers are still segment-level. Drop it into Claude Code.

Download skill file →