Don't Do That: Don't Guess What They Want; Ask What They Need with Mark Forman, Optifino

Are you chasing marketing metrics but still feeling disconnected from your audience? 

On this episode of Don't Do That, Kelly Waltrich welcomes Mark Forman, CMO of Optifino, a company rooted in one simple but transformative concept: truly knowing your audience through genuine human connection. Mark shares how his journey from poetry major to marketing leader taught him that the best marketers combine technical expertise with deep empathy for the humans they serve.

This conversation explores why marketers, firm leaders, and founders should ditch assumptions about their audience and instead build real understanding through direct conversation. From the challenges of hiring in the AI age to the irreplaceable value of face-to-face research, this is a masterclass in building marketing that actually connects.

Kelly and Mark cover:

00:00 – Introductions and Mark's mouth-taping breathing experiment

01:33 – From poetry major to "accidental marketer": How creative writing shaped Mark's approach

03:30 – Building marketing from scratch and learning to be a team of one

04:45 – What OptiFino does: AI-powered insurance marketplace solving legacy system problems

07:55 – The dicey landscape of hiring great marketers and what separates good from bad

08:52 – Why creativity + technical skills + independence = marketing success

10:59 – Why startup experience trumps large corporate backgrounds for marketing roles

13:01 – Generational differences in technology adoption and the AI dependency trap

15:18 – "Machine beats man, but man and machine beat machine" - the future of AI-human partnership

18:00 – How empathy becomes your superpower in an automated world

20:26 – Why life insurance finally has a marketplace (and why it took so long)

22:40 – The "TAMP of insurance" concept and serving ultra-high net worth clients

25:04 – The opportunity for RIAs and hybrid advisors in life insurance planning

27:44 – Mark’s Don't Do That: Don't ignore your audience or assume you know them

28:29 – The arrogance trap: When experience makes you stop listening

31:27 – HubSpot's masterclass in audience understanding (Kelly's career-changing story)

34:02 – Companies doing audience research right: Josh Brown and storytelling that connects

36:50 – Why face-to-face conversations beat all digital research methods

37:01 – Mark's marathon: 25 advisor interviews in 36 hours that changed everything

39:24 – How user stories completely transformed OptiFino's messaging strategy

41:42 – The "bionic" approach to AI 

43:25 – The real difference between being known and being worth knowing your audience

Connect with Mark Forman

• LinkedIn: Mark Forman
• Website: Optifino

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