Promoting a category: make it easy to see, name, and adopt

When you find yourself stuck in a crowded market, a red ocean, just flee and create a new category. But do this wisely. Owning a category does not guarantee success. Choose either a category that already lives in your audience’s mind, the best option, or frame a new one so clearly that people grasp it in a single breath. Make sure it matters to enough people to move real outcomes for you: attention, invitations, pricing power, deal flow. In other words: do not just own a drawer in theory, make it a drawer people actually open.

If that is the strategic choice, promotion is the operational craft that turns choice into traction. Your job is to make the category obvious in words, tangible in proof, and repeatable by others. Here is a focused playbook.

Claim the words

Choose a short label and repeat it everywhere: bio, headline, talk titles, deck covers, podcast descriptions. Pair it with a one line descriptor that names the audience and the outcome.

• Steven Bartlett: “diary of a CEO” frames an entrepreneurial self improvement drawer people can repeat.
• James Clear: “atomic habits” is a sticky anchor phrase that readers and media cite back to him.

Show the prototype

Turn the category into something people can point to. Publish a signature asset on a predictable cadence: a named framework, a benchmark, an annual report, or a live demo.

• Hans Rosling: Gapminder live data demonstrations and Factfulness make evidence based global awareness tangible and shareable.

Curate the arena

Host the conversations where your category becomes canonical. A recurring podcast, webinar series, or roundtable concentrates attention and gives the drawer a home.

• Lex Fridman: a long form forum where scientists, founders, and thinkers debate AI, robotics, and society.
• Steven Bartlett: a convening podcast that crystallises the operator plus self development space.

Design distinctive cues

Make recognition effortless. Standardise verbal and visual anchors: title patterns, slide architecture, signature openings and closings, recurring formats.

• Marques Brownlee: consistent review formats and clean production grammar that signal the tech review drawer instantly.
• Steven Bartlett: black box set design and reflective monologues as reliable cues.

Educate to create demand

When the category is new, teaching is the promotion. Publish primers, FAQs, and comparisons that answer: what it is, what it is not, when to use it, what results to expect.

• James Clear: micro explainers and checklists that teach the method before the ask.
• Hans Rosling: animated data stories that make complex trends intuitive for non experts.

Orchestrate the social loop

Invite others to name the category when they recommend you, not just your name. Encourage hosts, clients, and peers to reference your label and signature asset explicitly.

• Simon Sinek: audiences repeat “start with why”, which hardens the drawer socially. You can foster this effect with Susan Blackmore’s meme generation technique: craft short, copyable phrases and visuals designed to spread.

Be selective about channels

Choose the few places where your category can become canonical. Depth beats breadth. Prioritise one long form channel you control, one stage your decision makers trust, and one community where peers debate ideas.

• Marques Brownlee: YouTube as the home base, with carefully chosen spillovers.
• James Clear: a focused newsletter plus the book rather than channel sprawl.
• Lex Fridman: the long form podcast as the primary vessel, with selective clips for reach.

Common pitfalls to avoid

Many category efforts fade because the signals never converge. The label tries to cover too much, so no one repeats it. The creator spreads across too many channels, so the category never finds a home. The role changes from month to month, so the audience loses the script. Content piles up as opinions, but too few pieces help people make decisions, so the category feels like talk rather than a path. Virality is chased, consistency ignored. The fix is simple: use a tight label, give the category a visible home, stick to one role long enough to be learned, and publish assets designed to be cited. That is how a drawer forms in people’s minds and sticks.