Ad Evolution: Mark Silverman’s Insights on Modern Marketing Strategies

In this episode of the FreeDive Podcast, Deb and Kristy dive deep with Mark Silverman, Senior Vice President of Client Services at Seapoint Digital, to explore the evolution of marketing and advertising. Mark discusses his passion for finding what sets a client apart in a crowded marketplace and shares his insights on the major shifts shaping the industry today, including the power of big data and the impact of digital platforms in creating personalized, targeted campaigns.

Mark also explains the importance of balancing traditional and digital marketing methods, emphasizing a rigorous approach to testing and measuring ROI to ensure every marketing dollar is well spent. With decades of experience navigating the changing landscape, he reveals how brands can remain agile, adapt quickly, and connect meaningfully with their audiences in an ever-evolving market.

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Chapters

• 1:29 Marketing Landscape 30 Years Ago
• 5:11 Changes in Marketing: Data and the Internet
• 6:50 Using Data to Drive Success for NEA
• 12:06 Balancing Print and Digital Marketing
• 14:48 Consumer Behavior and Challenges
• 17:48 Communication is Key
• 19:45 Mindset of the Consumer
• 24:37 Qualities for Success in Marketing

Transcript

 welcome back to another episode of the free dive podcast I'm your host Kristy Billingslea and today we have with us Deb McGranaghan and Mark Silverman so we're very excited to have Mark with us today uh Mark is our senior vice president of Client Services is that did I say it right yes perfect perfect um and Deb has uh co-hosted a couple episodes with us before but we're gonna uh have her join us again today so thank you Deb thanks for having me Christie I am very excited to get to chat with Mark today we get to work a lot together so this is a treat yeah so today we're going to kind of dive into an episode of uh the history of marketing Mark's been working in marketing for 30 plus years so he's got a lot of knowledge in the changes in marketing so we're gonna kind of pick his brain about all of those changes so 30 plus years that's a long time Mark what what was the marketing landscape like when you first started your career I the it was different but constantly evolving uh with technology uh you could say that it was much more uh handwork driven um you know when you had a work up a budget a lot of it was uh with a calculator on your desk uh and you know an Excel spreadsheet um figuring out response rates and and uh U you know conversion rates so uh but it gave you a way to really understand the business rather than have the machine or the computation already built into a computer or a program you actually had to understand what the what the computation was to be able to do it so it gave you a very uh deep understanding of of the business so that was helpful um yes it was it was painful and arduous at times but it but but you know it it paid off in the long what made you get into marketing like how didd you get started in this industry oh you know it's interesting too I always um knew I wanted to do something my whole family is you know skus creatively you know uh so uh my my daughter's in advertising my other daughter's in film uh both of my nieces and my n niece and nephew were also in the creative Fields my brother's in entertainment on the management side and that's he's my twin brother and so we both knew that we wanted to do something that would be we needed to be stimulated creatively but yet we knew we weren't creative like oh I'm gonna go out and become you know Taylor Swift or whatever we're not like that or I'm gonna be go we didn't have those kinds of of you know gifts but we knew we had to do something that was going to stimulate us and and um and you know get our creative juices going so for me it was uh B and at the same time I wanted to have a decent life so it meant going into business so the creative side of business is marketing so that's why I got into marketing because I knew it would it would uh always keep me stimulated and interested and curious and all those things are necessary to me to be a good marketer besides just being smart in business you also have to always be always curious and always asking why why do people do that you know why do they behave that way that is I think the essence of a good marketer to me yeah no I I can totally see that that's very interesting because there's I know you're work with C point you do a lot with the strategy side and whatnot um which some people might not they think of creative as like the graphic designer and the writer and they may not realize that the strategy part of it is just as creative that's really cool that you found a way to use your strengths and that that area you knew you needed to do something and you weren't going to be Taylor Swift but you did create develop quite a love of music as we've talked about many times but that strategy is just as creative knowing how to put all those pie pieces of the puzzle together and you do that so well well thank you you know it's it's again you gotta you got to want to get up every day at a bed and do what you do right and I love what I do because again it it's always trying to answer that question why for the client you know and trying to find that Niche for them that makes them stand out in the marketplace what's unique what's different what differentiates them what gives them that competitive advantage that uh will help our marketing and our advertising sing to a Potential Prospect uh versus everybody else in the market that hopefully looks kind of vanilla yeah have there been any spe significant like Milestones or specific things that you've noticed like changes or pivots that have happened in marketing over those years thatum a slow Evolution to me it's been a slow Evolution um Insurance you know again much of my career is financial services and insurance marketing so uh they're for the most part followers they're not leaders so it gives me a chance to absorb what's happening in the marketplace and then be able to apply it uh to fin to the financial service or or insurance that I've been marketing um I would say the biggest changes though I have seen two things uh you know data becoming U big data right uh data becoming more uh accessible and usable and relevant in making marketing more personal and relevant to uh somebody who's receiving it receiving that stimuli um and then the internet being able to deliver it on a whole another platform outside of TV or radio or mail or billboard um or magazines and newspapers so um that has been explosive um you know we see it now we go onto a website we search you know blouse whatever purple blouse whatever next thing you know is you see an ad that comes up when you're online for you know purple blast right so we've all seen it you walk into a store and if they had the capability they could shoot you a coupon um if you're a customer so you know it's it's being able to use the data um the the greatest experience that I've had ever had with using data and if I'm going off just just stop me hit The Brak say hey new question but the the best experience I ever had was I was working for the national with the National Education Association um and we were marketing an insurance product and the National Education Association is Teachers basically you know K through2 teachers and some college across the country so it's a 50-state insurance program uh we were marketing an an accidental death and dismemberment ad and program it was very inexpensive um and again taking a step back and I said you know they weren't going to make a lot of money on the on the product but what that product did was if somebody raised their hand and took it it opened the door to cross sell term life which was their lead product so all of a sudden you became a cold a cold off a cold offer for term life versus somebody that had a relationship with the NAA already you became a member who had insurance and now would you like to upgrade to to life insurance so it's a much different different conversation and it gives you know the more people we could get in on the ad and the the the easier it would be for them to another group to do the cross- selling so um when we took a look at the audience and again this is the this is a a look at my first blush with really using data to your benefit so first off you have to understand the audience the audience is Teachers as I mentioned but the National Education Association is the national they're located in Washington many members have virtually no real relationship with the Nea okay their main when when you when you join the association you join at the local level you know for we're we're in Maine so the the kidy Education Association you would join it as in your local school you go to school you go to your Schoolhouse you know your school building and there's somebody there from the association walking around saying would you like to join the association and you sign up so your Affinity right is really at the local with the kidy Education Association not so much the main education not so much the National Education Association so we had to do some testing as the National Education Association I had to prove to my client that the Affinity was going to make a difference so we did testing over six month period of the national associ envelopes it was Direct Mail envelopes of and and luckily they had the data so we did a package that you know was to Deb mcgran a hand with the Nea brand and then we did another package same offer same package but a different brand for the main Education Association when we did those two packages side by side the main Education Association destroyed the National Education Association so we knew right then and there that was that was was working the next part of the test again it was like six months of testing we took the main Education Association and tested it against the kidy Education Association in the envelope you know in the out of the envelope there was no question we the the local Association where people signed up and it makes sense if you get something from the kidy Education Association and you're working in that in the school district are you not going to open that of course you're G to open it where the National Education Association may you may say it's promotional mail throw it out right so the last time I I heard that they mailed the pack that ad and package and it was a very assumpt and the whole package was thought through to be um very assumptive what I mean by that was this is what all members do this is part of your benefits you know they opened it up it wasn't even a letter it was a form the the enrollment form was the letter we built the enrollment into the into the introduction of the package so it was thinking through uh you know how we were going to present ourselves to these people using the data we had and um the results were the last time they mailed into Massachusetts which was a long time ago but they were getting over 2% um uh over 2% sales which is unheard of in direct mail unheard of and this is when most Affinity clients their response rates uh were were really you know declining dramatically like off a cliff and all of a sudden we turned it around so what that did was they were getting hundreds if not thousands of people raising their hand and taking this ad and package that they could turn around to and say hey would you like to buy term life insurance so it was a dramatic success dramatic success but again it was the idea of how to use data to help help you get in front of people people aren't against Insurance per se they just need to understand why you're offering it to me and what the benefit of it is so that's what we did and you mentioned in that story several levels of testing that gets into that creative thing like okay what are two different ways that we can send this out now I know in in our our work together like the with the clients that we work with there's a lot of digital marketing but there's still print that's done I know you you probably came from the time where you started before the digital was right even a factor um how has that shifted and how are companies able to use both is is print still working well enough to be worth the extra cost um to add that in like how can companies kind of balance those too with the print and the digital um it is a balancing act you know and it's always a cost benefit and you see if you're going to get the ROI you testing is always the key and as I mentioned in the in the last example we were always testing to prove it and that's what direct marketing it's like like we say uh C point is where digital and direct marketing like to meet uh because again it's that you know using the rigor of direct marketing of the constantly measuring but always with the nimbleness of uh you know online marketing digital marketing um so you can pivot quickly because now you get results quicker online but with all the other channels depending upon the client and their competitive space and how they can reach their um Their audience best some uh channels may be uh worthwhile others may not just fit you know for example with our client Texas Medical Association Insurance trust um we would never do billboard we would never do it radio right we have the list from the client so we don't need to do those kinds of channels that just don't fit so it kind of you know each client's needs are different whereas one of our other client which is a um a regional um uh Regional food store grocery store uh you know something like that may fit to be thought of right to be think think through could we could it work could we make it help um you know boost some of the other channels um and surround the customer more that's all yeah so it's sounds like that combination of of testing new things knowing your client base or like knowing your customer base and how they might actually find you but then not being stuck in one way of doing things either like take those results of the testing if you're like determined to do print but print's not working it's not worth the cost exactly right always always be open-minded try to find different channels and ways to you know um to help boost your results yeah have you seen any changes in like consumer Behavior over the years and how people are responding to different types of marketing I I think people are yes I think people are more um you know they're they're they're uh skeptical about um some of the some of the things they see uh they are um they don't have the same attention span uh because they're bombarded uh so much by so much advertising and everything that's online on their phones so advertising has to be quicker smarter um you know get under their skin quicker uh if you can or make them stop and pay attention faster it's more challenging say the least yep yeah the long form sales letter doesn't really fly anymore it's harder it's harder to make it work yeah yeah yeah people want instant information and whatnot have you run into any like major roadblocks or challenges over the years that you've had to overcome um let's see I can't whether in your career or in marketing in general well there's always a you know is is always the marketing challenges that you could find that could be tough that you can't surmount um but no for the most part if you if you do your homework you'll find you'll find some solution it may not be uh the best answer or that's not right the right way of saying it it may not be the the one that works the way you want it to work but it still can give you some breakthrough uh so sometimes things are iterative you know you have to work several several times before you get it right uh you don't always hit you don't always hit a home run right from the from the get-go so you you the testing and learning testing and learning um cycle is important and that's why it's it's so rudimentary in marketing yeah sounds like marketers have to have a better attention span than the consumers have and patents as well I think yeah yeah for sure pay attention and you gotta you got to be willing to roll up your sleeves and dig into the data you know what what the results really mean so much of the data now is is you know Google Google makes the online ads Google makes the decision for you what pieces of ads to change and what and but you never really understand why it's working you understand what ads working better but you're never really get to why yeah that is definitely something I have learned from you Mark is always asking why about things that you might not think that there would be a nugget in there and it's like oh I didn't even think of that yeah no I I appr I appreciate that but again Mutual admiration Society I I've loved working with you too you're you're you're one of those people who are willing to roll up her sleeves and and do the work so um and to your to your point you know you you've you've seen it too you've seen it when you dig in and you see the numbers it all of a sudden you get that waa moment ah now I now I see why yeah right right and having a a client that like where we are managing this for other clients um or businesses having them be open to that information and be willing to pivot based on that information is really helpful too so that's kind of a little piece of piece of advice for businesses out there be willing to make changes based on that data and don't feel like oh I've always done it this way I have to keep doing it this way that's not always going to be the most beneficial way yeah I agree and the other thing too that I would I would recommend to to prospective clients or anybody listening if you are in the on the client side is to share information with your with your um marketing Partners um we're only as good as the information you're willing to give us I mean there have been times Deb as you know when we're on the on the phone with a client having a status call or just going through you know talking about a campaign that that we're preparing the client will say something off the cuff and we'll say wait a minute hit the brakes what did you mean by that and they'll tell I mean this is why we've been so successful with health insurance marketing for for Texas Medical Association is because they told us a throwaway line and we delve deeper into that to understand what it meant and it created a whole new uh strategy and campaign that we've been running for what you know six years or something so it's that's been very successful very successful right right they've made it's been very successful for the client and therefore obviously successful for us as well so you know the more information you can share with your with your marketing partner the smarter they can be in in helping helping you you know deliver results for the for the organization yeah is there are there any trends that you see uh coming up in the future like do you have any predictions as to where this industry is heading over the next five to 10 years oh boy thatd be I'd be foolish to even try um no I I I don't have predictions but I always try to keep my ear to the ground as we as we all do uh on the agency side what's next and you know how can we make it work for our clients um you know always trying to learn uh to be better right if there's something new that's that's going to advance marketing um and help us serve our clients and their customers better we want to know about it for sure is there any particular moment in your career where you learned a particularly valuable lesson that influences you still today I don't know if I could say a lesson but I what I can tell you is is I always put my myself in the in the mind try to put my mindset put my mind in the mindset of the consumer right so when I'm developing a you know a a a marketing strategy or trying to come up with something that's going to make them unique or or clients unique um I always put you know say okay well why would somebody buy from them what is going on in the in in the consumer prospective consumer mind or in their life that makes them want to buy would make them want to buy from us right so it's and you really have to think about you have to you know shut off the your phone shut off your computer um and think about it or do enough research to give you the insights that you find that nugget right ah got it that may be a way in that's what I was going to say is it seems like you have to research a bit about your your audience or client in order to to gather that information yes look sometimes it comes you get inspiration from other other um things that you would never in places you would never expect for example uh I was recently on a plane um flying down to Florida and we were working with an insurance company that um well I was I'll go back to the story and then I'll Circle back we were flying in and we're coming in low and I'm seeing feels and Fields into West Palm Beach fields and Fields of of new devel new Housing Development it was like it was like a new country was springing up so many new houses were be being built and we were staying with with some friends and we decided to drive around and look at some of these new developments well every time I drove into one of these new developments where the building was still going on there was a trailer and the trailer had a family name you know um [ __ ] Construction Company Smith construction company right and I saw this like three or four times in the different developments we went in into and that gave me the inspiration to think that a lot of these a lot of the businesses that we were that our client was going to work with were family-owned right there a captive insurance company is our client I'm thinking about they're they're they're all family-owned so they want to continue the Legacy the people the person the the Father the grandfather who started it and the son who took it over that son wants to keep that Legacy alive for their children unit you know captive insurance is one way to help do that cut their cost manage their risk right but we came at it from a and this client happen to be um they are family-owned also so there was the link that made them unique right so this wasn't really based on Research what it but then it caused me to go back and do research how many businesses in the United States are familyowned right and the majority are familyowned right and it fits because it is as usually a single person making the decisions so if you can now we now we understood right now we had a we in that was unique when I looked at the Sea of advertising for all the other uh captive insurance companies they were all the same you know you could put slap any logo on any one of them and interchange them like you know walnuts on a table it wouldn't matter right but with with with our with our um client we're hopefully going to find something that's going to make them unique and stand out right captive insurance for family-owned businesses nobody says that yeah so again that inspiration came from just again keeping an open mind and being curious so again it doesn't necessarily have to always come from data or research the research came later to to to um confirm it but interesting yeah that's really cool so we've talked about a mentioned a a few different qualities that are needed in this business you mentioned the creativity having patience being curious anything else that would benefit people to be able to have this certain type of mindset or this certain quality to be successful willing to do work you have to be willing to do the put in the hour the time right put in the time and again you you don't do it because oh I got to do I got no you do it because you love it right you got to love it you gotta you got to I'm going to find it if it's the last thing I do why why how do I make this work for this client well you're thinking about it on your time off when you're on a plane so it's just kind of always with you you know either it's either in you or it's not you you know you love it or you don't that's all I mean look at Bill he's built the same way I think I he's always thinking about it yeah and he comes back from a vacation he is like ideas man like to the max just like he comes back in here with a brand new fire of things he wants to do it makes we're like all right lay out the tasks Bill what do you want is all the work on now it makes it not work it's not working yeah it doesn't feel like work yeah yep that's very true and that's and too like we we've kind of highlighted at the beginning like work working with similar-minded people makes it also feel not like work and it's really been um it's been so fun for me um learning from you Mark because not only do you possess all these qualities we talked about I know you don't like the compliments I'm G to give you one anyway um there's also a humility with this that you have to be willing to be like okay what here's my idea oh no that's really not the best idea in the room that idea sounds really good and even though you come with Decades of experience the fact that you are still you come to collaborations with such an open mind and willing to listen to All of the ideas and no ideas wrong and that has helped people like me who are newer in doing this work to not feel as intimidated or as like okay I gotta keep my ideas to myself because it's not going to be as good as the you know like it it opened it up right away and I just want to thank you personally for being like that because I was terrified when I came into this job and you've really made it fun and it's been awesome to learn from you don't shake your head no I'm being serious' been terrific too you've been willing to put in the hours and the work but let me say this if a smart client will understand that the power of an agency is is the collaboration for sure not only our own collaboration internally as we're working through challenges for a client but for the client to be willing to sit on the sit on the a call with us or get in a meeting with us and have an open give and take that is the power of working with an agency all these Minds everybody working toward the same goal not just one person sitting at their desk you know scratching their head what do I do now use the agency for the power it represents and that's all people within it that's great advice excellent advice very nice is there anything else you would like to say to our listeners of the free dive podcast Mark no I I don't think so I just you know enjoy what you do that's all I can say just you got to love it hopefully you do and um I have found marketing to be just really rewarding um and I say marketing not just advertising advertising is a part of marketing I love the creative side of it but I love the marketing the marketing the numbers the the data the strategy the thinking yeah again that's always um when somebody hires when a when a client hires an organization hires an agency I I always say you know in in a like I just had a pitch the other day you want to know how we think let us help you understand how we think yeah so um it it all it all besides just getting along do I do I like them do I like the guy do I like the people could I get along with them do I see myself working with them through all of our challenges but are they also you know good thinkers so that's part of it too for sure well that's great advice right well thank you so much this was so insightful so helpful we appreciate your time and thank you to Deb for leading Us in this conversation I know that you've worked so much with Mark that you were the perfect person to kind of lead our discussion here so thank you very much Deb and thank you very much Mark for being here my pleasure and thank you guys I appreciate the discussion it was fun and we'll we'll see everybody next time great take care guys