Marketers are hungry for better discoverability

What is the difference between traditional list marketing and the Marketfish approach? One of our key differentiators is depth of discoverability. Discoverability refers to how easy it is to find things. But that doesn’t sound very impressive, so read this juicy parable below to understand why good discoverability is absolutely crucial to a positive and productive marketing list rental process.

What’s on the menu: A list marketing parable

Scene: a traditional list marketing cafe

A customer (you) walks into a restaurant.

“What would you like?” the server asks you.

You glance around looking for the menu. There is none. A bit odd, but you’re willing to roll with it.

“Umm, well what do you have?” you ask.

“We have everything. What are you in the mood for?” the waitress replies.

“Ok… do you have salad?” you say.

“Hold on, let me check with the cook,” says the waitress, pivoting on her heel and disappearing. She comes back a half hour later, beaming.

“Yes!” she says. “We have salad. Would you like one?”

“Well, how much does it cost?” you say.

“Hold on,” the waitress says. “Let me go check with my manager.” She pivots and disappears for another half hour. You’re starving at this point, and late for your next appointment.

“Ok,” she said when she comes back. “We have a salad and it’s $19.99″

Hmm, you think. That sounds pretty expensive for a salad. Also you’d really like to know what’s in the salad and what kind of dressing they have. Still, you’re starving, late, and you don’t want to sacrifice another hour to find out this basic information.

“Ok,” you say. “I’ll have the salad.”

She returns with a Caesar salad. You sit there, glumly eating it while wishing you could have had what you really wanted, a spinach salad, hold the croutons, with huckleberry vinaigrette on the side. “Oh well,” you think. “This will have to do.”

As you’ve probably guessed, the waitress in the parable is the traditional list broker and you are the hungry customer. This scenario perfectly paints the importance of discoverability by highlighting what happens when poor discoverability is in play.

Aspects of poor discoverability

• You don’t really get to see your options, so you rely on guesswork to get what you want
• Since you are relying on guesswork, your criteria is more broad and cautious
• Because the back-and-forth process is so clumsy, you get quickly defeated and settle for less than what you want

Contrast that with Marketfish, which offers greater depth of discoverability.With our platform, you get the full menu of options for your consideration.

Great discoverability, the Marketfish way

• The platform layout lets you see all the options and details available, just like a restaurant menu
• The platform is search friendly, so you feel much more comfortable using keywords to explore possible options (no twenty questions, no peer pressure)
• Our selects are prominently displayed so you can know which ones you’ve used and which ones are still available (call it a selects buffet)
• Our selects are complimentary, we don’t charge you so you can narrow as deeply as you like

The moral of the story of course is that ease of experience matters, and that’s what discoverability brings to the table.

People think that discoverability is no big deal, maybe just a nice add-0n. Most of us can’t even imagine going to a restaurant with no menu and having to painfully extract each detail about each food and course available from a single individual, yet this is what traditional list broker customers go through every day. It’s terribly tedious and puts a huge glitch in your convenience and pleasure. We at Marketfish believe that not letting your customers know what’s on the menu is unacceptable, because being in the dark about your options when making a buying decision is not ok. That’s a major reason why we started this business, and that’s why you the customer should settle for nothing less than full discoverability, a basic right in a buying process.

discoverability, email marketing, list marketing, list rental, search marketing