Discovery Data Launches New MarketPro Platform

Discovery Data CEO Bob Skea discusses the launch of MarketPro and some of the new tools it provides to asset managers, insurance firms, fintech, and advisors. Skea also shares how firms are using the new platform and how MarketPro is helping them address certain challenges.

Video Transcription:

Jenna: Hello and welcome to AssetTV. Joining us now to talk about an exciting new development at Discovery Data is CEO Bob Skea. Bob, why don’t you start by telling us a little bit more about Discovery Data and the recent launch of your new platform, MarketPro.

Bob: Sure, thanks, Jenna, thanks for having me. Discovery Data really provides the most actionable and deep domain data in the financial services space and allows our customers to do better levels of marketing intelligence. We have a platform that allows them to assess the marketplace and go to market better and faster. What MarketPro allows them to do actually is take the data and move into various segments that they may want to target. Our customers tend to be asset managers and insurance firms, and whether they’re distributing product or hiring new people or recruiting use case, it allows them to do a greater level of segmentation, workflow analysis, and analytics to do precise targeting against that marketplace.

Jenna: And, Bob, what types of firms are using MarketPro today?

Bob: So our primary customers are asset managers, insurance firms, and investment advisors themselves, but also we have the firms that are trying to access those firms. For example, fintech firms, financial technology firms, insurtech firms as well as consulting firms, some bankers, and certainly media clients as well. So, we kind of sit in the middle of this ecosystem, which is a very vibrant and critical ecosystem for the economy. That is the investment management industry. We kind of sit in the center of that between these firms, asset managers, insurance agents, and those that are trying to contact them to produce better outcomes for their clients.

Jenna: Bob, what are some of the challenges that firms are facing today that MarketPro can help them address?

Bob: Yeah, so I think, very timely right now is, getting to the market is becoming more and more challenging for all of our clients. Almost every industry, of course, with COVID a lot of folks that are normally on the road now being benched. It’s really important to have a defined and actionable go-to-market strategy, particularly for chief marketing officers, and we work with them pretty closely. There’s a new kind of digital imperative. And I think in the past, firms were able to kind of have a strategy in that regard, pay lip service. Perhaps you can’t get away with that anymore is a new digital imperative where you need to get to market in a more accurate and precise way. So our platform allows our customers to do better audience targeting and a more precise way to truly find where they should best be spending their efforts. It really allows our customers to go from that big data issue that we’ve all wrestled with for years to get to a more tiny, precise, actionable dataset that allows them to drive business more quickly.

Jenna: Sometimes less is more.

Bob: Exactly.

Jenna: And can you talk a little bit about the new features and tools available and why they were important to you to incorporate into the platform?

Bob: I would answer that by continuing on what I just talked about, and that is when you’re trying to accomplish and hit your target market more in a more effective and efficient way, the ability to do analytics against that and things like behavioral targeting become really important. Lookalikes as well as best fit for distribution of your product set is really important. So what the platform is going to allow our customers to do is look at, to give a specific example, if you’re interested in distributing alternative products, we have combed through thousands and thousands of firms to find who are the most likely advisory firms to distribute your alternative products. And we’re able to package that into the application to allow you to quickly sort, sift, and save that type of that search, if you will, as something you can go back to and then perform marketing against that. So it’s really the ability to have the tools to do the analytics and download an analysis, to be more precise in your in your outbound marketing and frankly, your recruiting. We do an awful lot of work with recruiting firms to find the right talent in the marketplace. And it’s very challenging to find the right fit vis-a-vis registrations. But also something that’s very, very prevalent right now is a diverse workforce. And it’s something that’s really hard to accomplish. And we’re trying to help our customers with that as well.

Jenna: And finally, Bob, before I let you go here, is there anything else that you’d like to share about Discovery Data or MarketPro?

Bob: Yeah, so we’re excited about MarketPro and we’re excited about the next generation of Discovery Data. It’s a company that’s been around for a while, but we think we can do even more for our clients to help them achieve their goals and outcomes. It’s really not about data so much, and we do feel we have the best, most accurate, and deepest data in the industry. But it’s really helping our customers achieve better outcomes. It’s not about the data. It’s about answers and outcomes and getting to better answers and outcomes more quickly to help you grow your business or to hire the right people in a really timely and effective way. We’re looking forward to working with our clients and continue to grow that way.

Jenna: Well, congratulations and great to have you. Thanks for joining us, Bob.

Bob: Thanks, Jenna. Really appreciate the opportunity. Take care.