Topics discussed in this episode with time stamps

00:00 – 00:20 “So often, when I go into a content program, there’s a person, a leader often, who wants to do something different every week. They want to experiment, they want to pivot, they want to try something new, and that is a terrible idea. You make these decisions once, and please stick with it for at least six months so you’ll know if it worked or not.” — Lee Densmer

00:21 – 00:39 Welcome to Peppershock Media’s Marketing Expedition Podcast

00:40 – 01:34 Lee’s Background

01:35 – 05:02 Marketing Essentials Moment: AI in Business

05:03 – 06:34 Welcome to the show, Lee

06:35 – 08:07 Memorable Travel Experiences

08:08 – 10:39 Diving into Content Marketing

10:40 – 12:30 The Content Audit Process

12:31 – 14:28 Foundational Decisions for Content Programs

14:29 – 16:03 Balancing Team Capacity with Content Goals

16:14 – 18:38 The Value of Transcription Tools

18:39 – 20:43 Overview of Lee’s Book “Content Simplified, The Biggest B2B Content Marketing Mistakes and How to Fix Them”

20:44 – 24:30 The Three by Five Framework

24:31 – 26:07 Optimizing for AI and Search Engines

26:08 – 26:44 Poderific, baby! Whether you’re looking for a podcast studio to rent or need help with the entire production and distribution of your podcast, we gotcha covered.

26:45 – 29:14 Recommended AI Tools for Content Marketing

29:15 – 33:25 Teaching AI Responsibly in Academia

33:26 – 36:01 Integrating AI into Marketing Strategies

36:02 – 39:15 Case Study: Transforming a Content Program

39:16 – 42:25 The Impact of Email Newsletters

42:26 – 43:15 Reach out to Lee

43:16 – 43:39 Final Thoughts and Key Takeaways

43:40 – 44:03 Thank you so much, Lee! Share this podcast, give us a review, and enjoy your marketing journey!

44:04 – 44:50 Join the Marketing Expedition Community today!

Like what you hear, but need more information?

Meet with Rhea Allen

————————————————————————————————

Read the full transcript

Podcast Intro

Welcome to the Marketing Expedition podcast—an auditory journey through the latest in marketing, branding, and advertising. I’m your Marketing Expedition guide, Rhea Allen.

Rhea Allen: On this episode of the Marketing Expedition podcast, I get to speak with Lee Densmer. She’s a content marketing strategist who helps B2B teams fix costly content breakdowns that stall revenue growth.

After digging into more than two dozen established content programs, she identified 40 recurring issues that consistently sabotage performance—and she literally wrote the book that shows teams exactly how to solve them.

With 20 years in B2B marketing, Lee created an efficient 3×5 content strategy to simplify content marketing so busy teams can do more with less and finally see results. Known for her straight-talk, clarity-first approach, she gives marketing leaders the tools to cut through complexity, reduce stress, and build content engines that drive growth.

You’re in for a treat. We’re going to talk content marketing, AI tools, and a number of things you’ll want to pay attention to.

But first—right now—it’s time for your Marketing Essentials Moment: the basics you need to keep building your brand and your bottom line.

Marketing Essentials Moment: Will AI Replace Your Business?

Rhea Allen: I get asked this a lot lately: “Is AI going to replace your business, Rhea? Are you going to lose clients because they’re all using AI?”

The answer is a little tricky.

Yes—there’s a space and a place for AI. But there are also things the human relationship and the human condition can’t be replaced.

We’re in the wild west of learning AI tools and all the ways they can augment what we do—idea generation, research, automation, efficiency. Sometimes it even gives us more time to do something we don’t do enough of: think.

I’ve started labeling my work more intentionally. If something is my original thought, I’ll say so. If I used AI to help, I’ll note that too. And honestly, I’ll often run something I wrote through AI just to check grammar or see if I missed an angle.

AI is a tool—like tools in gardening. You’ve got a shovel, a hose, and yes, the knee pad I use so my knees don’t hate me later. Tools make things easier and more efficient.

But you can’t replace the human touch. You can’t replace the authenticity of a real video interview, a candid conversation, someone’s reactions in the moment. AI can’t replicate a human being speaking from their lived experience—coming from their lips to your ears.

So yes, we’ll keep using AI tools. And we’ll keep using our own brains, too.

All right—let’s get into today’s interview.

Interview: Lee Densmer

Rhea Allen: Welcome to the Marketing Expedition podcast. I’m your host, Rhea Allen. I’m the President and CEO of Peppershock Media and the founder of the Marketing Expedition community.

Today’s guest is Lee Densmer. Welcome to the show, Lee.

Lee Densmer: Thank you so much for having me.

Rhea Allen: Absolutely. Let’s dig a little deeper. Who is Lee? How did you get to where you are now, and what are you working on?

Lee Densmer: That’s a huge question. At my age, I’m still figuring it out.

Broad strokes: my life themes are writer and teacher. That’s what I’ve studied and done professionally all my life—professional writing, linguistics, language, literature, teaching.

Professionally, I’ve brought it all together in marketing—specifically content marketing.

Another thing that defines me is my love of travel. My husband and I have been to 42 countries, and before him I traveled extensively. That definitely colors who I am and what I do.

Rhea Allen: Forty-two countries is incredible. What are a few of your most memorable trips?

Lee Densmer: Top three trips we’ve taken as a family—including my son when he was a teenager—were China, Turkey, and Peru.

I was born in Peru, so that one was especially meaningful. I speak Spanish.

Let me tell your listeners about Turkey: if it’s not on your radar, put it on your bucket list. It’s geographically stunning and historically incredible.

One of the most powerful moments for me was visiting Ephesus. There’s a huge colosseum that seats 25,000 people—so you get a sense of how big the city was.

But the moment that connected me most to the place and the people was walking into their bathroom—rows of open seating stalls. It sounds funny, but I could suddenly picture how people actually lived. Imagining real people living and breathing there 2,000 years ago was an incredible moment.

Rhea Allen: Of all the things, that’s fascinating.

Lee Densmer: What’s more human than a toilet?

Rhea Allen: Fair point. Thanks for sharing that.

Content Marketing: What Goes Wrong (and How to Fix It)

Rhea Allen: Content marketing is your expertise. What have you done in your career, and what nuggets of wisdom would you share with listeners?

Lee Densmer: I was in-house for a long time—working for a couple IT companies. I have 25 years in corporate, which gives you a certain understanding of how businesses work.

For the past three years, I’ve been consulting. I go into established B2B content programs and simplify, fix, or uplevel their strategy—and I put an operation in place.

Over time, my theme has been simplifying.

Here’s a story. I walked into a company—about a $100 million company. They hired me to help them publish more content. Sales was saying, “We don’t have any content.” The CEO was saying, “I don’t like our content. I don’t like our blog.”

But when I looked, they had 1,712 pieces of content.

They had a massive content engine over years—and still had nothing to show for it.

So you ask: what went wrong? Thousands of dollars, lots of people, lots of effort—and a pile of wasted words that didn’t serve the business.

Rhea Allen: How did you tackle something like that?

Lee Densmer: Once I saw the issue, I recommended a content audit.

You have to figure out what you even have, what should be thrown away, what can be updated, and where the gaps are.

In that case, we kept about 10%. A lot was simply old. You’ll see companies with blog posts from 2016 still live, and you think: that can’t be current.

So it’s a two-part process:

• Clean up the old stuff—use it or lose it.
• Build a forward-looking strategy aligned with current buyers and buyer problems.

At the time, SEO and AIO were shifting, and we needed to make sure the strategy wouldn’t land them back in the same mess.

Rhea Allen: What did the future strategy look like?

Lee Densmer: We spent two or three months not creating content.

That was important because we didn’t have the foundations to create meaningful content.

We defined their buyers. They had 15 buyer persona profiles that were basically demographics—education, income. We built goal-focused buyer personas for their top buyers.

I only let them do four—not 20—because you have to start with what you can execute.

We also looked at:

• Messaging: Is it differentiated? Is it clear?
• Team capacity: What can they realistically produce?

I see teams with a content plan so broad—so many channels and content types—that a team of three has no chance.

So we matched their capabilities and budget to a reasonable plan. Two blog posts a month, not eight. One social channel, not five.

Then we built a quality process that didn’t stress people out.

Getting Subject Matter Expertise Without Burning People Out

Rhea Allen: A lot of teams rely on subject matter experts who aren’t writers. How do you get their insights into content without draining their time?

Lee Densmer: You need a process that works for that person.

You’re often working with an engineer or SME who doesn’t like writing and doesn’t have time. You have to design a workflow where they can contribute depth without being pulled away from their day job.

Rhea Allen: Recording audio or video helps. Let them talk naturally, then transcribe it.

Lee Densmer: Exactly. Transcripts are incredibly valuable.

You can turn one transcript into:

• An interview blog post
• Social media posts
• Training material for a custom AI project

My advice: start recording your calls. Record every call.

Rhea Allen: There are so many tools now. We used Otter.ai for a long time. Lately I’ve been playing with Fyxer (f-y-x-e-r.ai). It records meetings, drafts follow-up emails with action items, and even suggests scheduling by looking at my calendar.

Lee Densmer: I’m using Fathom. Zoom’s native tool is also pretty good.

If listeners aren’t using AI to transcribe and capture meetings yet—start.

Rhea Allen: And now you can chat with the meeting. Ask: “Who said what?” “What were the action items?” That’s saved me more than once.

Lee Densmer: And it lets you focus on the person.

One of the keys to getting great content from SMEs is the relationship. AI tools let you stay present in the conversation instead of scribbling notes.

Rhea Allen: Plus, if it’s video and you add subtitles, social platforms can use that text for the algorithm.

Lee Densmer: Anytime you can publish a transcript alongside audio, it helps search and accessibility. It’s the same content in another format—and it helps everywhere.

Lee’s Book + The 3×5 Content Strategy

Rhea Allen: Tell us about your book. Give us a preview without giving away the farm.

Lee Densmer: Over the years, I kept seeing the same problems—over and over.

I identified 40 of them in five categories. The book is designed so you can read it chapter by chapter. It’s not a narrative—you can dip in and out.

Each chapter addresses a specific problem.

The blind spots fall into:

• Foundations (Do you even know your buyers?)
• Strategy problems
• Quality problems
• Process failures (content by committee is a big one)
• Distribution and optimization problems

Over time, I developed an approach I call the 3×5.

It’s a framework that guides you to make 15 decisions—only 15—and that becomes your foundational content strategy.

When you make those decisions once, daily decisions get easier. It reduces cognitive load and helps teams execute.

Rhea Allen: What are some of those decisions?

Lee Densmer: The five categories each have three decisions:

1. Goals: Pick three goals for your program.
2. Buyers: Pick your top three buyers.
3. Themes: Pick three themes—your pillars.
4. Channels: Pick three distribution channels.
5. Metrics: Pick three metrics that prove each goal.

It’s the KISS principle. Three is manageable, memorable, and trackable.

The result is a strategy the C-suite can understand—and the team can actually execute.

Rhea Allen: I love that you only pick three channels. People try to do everything and end up doing nothing well.

Lee Densmer: Exactly. And I also encourage teams to stick with it for six months.

A common problem is a leader who wants to pivot every week—experiment, try something new. That’s a terrible idea.

Make the decisions once. Stick with them long enough to know if they worked.

If something is truly wasting time or money, pivot. But don’t scramble every time someone with a big title has a new idea.

AI Optimization + Conversational Search

Rhea Allen: I teach digital marketing at the College of Idaho. One thing we talk about is adding FAQ sections—structured like people asking their devices questions. That helps you show up in AI summaries and conversational search.

Lee Densmer: Yes. It’s an extension of optimizing for search.

It’s more conversational now—less about single keywords and more about key phrases woven into content so LLMs can find it.

Ad Read

Want to start a podcast but don’t know where to begin?

At Poderific, we don’t just produce podcasts—we help you create auditory experiences that captivate your audience.

Our state-of-the-art podcast recording studio, powered by Peppershock Media, is designed for creators like you. Record with high-quality equipment supported by our expert team and distribute your podcast across major platforms like Apple and Spotify.

Whether you’re launching your first episode or you’re a seasoned podcaster, we’ve got you covered.

Visit Poderific.com today to learn how we can help you produce, record, and share your story with the world.

Your podcast deserves to be Poderific.

AI Tools Lee Recommends

Rhea Allen: What AI tools are you encouraging clients to use?

Lee Densmer: In content marketing, Claude is rising to the top.

Recently, Claude “skills” showed up—structured instructions that train the tool to do specific things inside a project. It’s giving content marketers more control.

I encourage people to dig into Claude—but also not to ignore AI features in tools they already use.

A lot of marketers use HubSpot, and they’re adding strong AI features. Before buying another tool, look at what you already have.

Rhea Allen: It’s hard to keep up. There’s something new every day.

Lee Densmer: It’s overwhelming.

I’m in communities like Exit Five and Superpath. They do AI show-and-tells, and some people are building advanced automated workflows.

That’s great—but it’s not typical. If you’re just starting with AI, don’t begin by trying to automate everything.

Start with your gap. What problem are you trying to solve?

Maybe it’s synthesizing call recordings. That’s a clear use case.

Solve micro problems first before building an AI system nobody can sustain.

Rhea Allen: Prompt engineering matters too. Iteration after iteration.

Lee Densmer: Yes—and each tool has nuances. ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity—they all respond differently.

We’re all taking ourselves to school right now.

Teaching AI in Marketing Programs

Lee Densmer: My son is finishing his sophomore year at the University of Utah, getting a marketing degree. They’re building AI classes and even an AI minor inside the business program.

I’m curious what they’re teaching—especially because students worry AI will replace marketing jobs.

Rhea Allen: I’ve seen the academic world resist AI at first. When I taught at Boise State, the initial reaction was: “No AI—it’s plagiarism.”

I pushed back because we were already using AI in the agency. Students need to learn how to integrate it—or they’ll be replaced by people who can.

Lee Densmer: Exactly. You can’t stop students from using AI. You have to teach them how to use it ethically and responsibly.

Rhea Allen: For my students, I ask them to show me the prompt, the tool, when they used it, and what parts are AI-generated versus their own words.

Sometimes the prompt is longer than the output.

Lee Densmer: That’s a weird thing to think about.

Building AI Capability as a Team

Lee Densmer: I’m onboarding a new client now who wants AI-enabled content.

I told him: we can build custom Claude projects and skills—but it needs to be done on your premise, with a paid version, and with the whole team using it.

This can’t be isolated projects that only I use. I’m a consultant—I won’t be there forever.

We need system thinking. A shared tool, a shared approach, and a sustainable capability.

The last thing you want is five people on a marketing team all using different tools with no consistency.

Rhea Allen: Then the voice isn’t consistent. But if you train the tool on your tone and writing samples, you can get repeatability.

Lee Densmer: Exactly. About half the time, I see writers using AI independently. It’s hard to put the genie back in the bottle.

If you start with: “We’re using this tool, this paid team plan, and we’re doing it together,” that’s very different than telling people to go use AI.

And you also have to think about data. If nobody’s using a paid version, people are uploading who-knows-what into free tools.

A Client Example: What Changed After Simplifying

Rhea Allen: Before we wrap up, share a client outcome you’re proud of—maybe using the 3×5.

Lee Densmer: I’ll go back to the company with 1,712 pieces of content.

We reduced their blog content dramatically. In their case, we archived 300+ blog posts. They had around 495 posts, and we archived about 75%.

We updated the remaining posts with:

• Current statistics
• Better SEO
• Stronger calls to action

Not a full overhaul—just a rewrite.

Rhea Allen: People get nervous about archiving content because of links. Did you do redirects?

Lee Densmer: Yes—redirects. It took time. Now AI can probably help.

We redirected archived posts to the homepage or a similar post to preserve link integrity.

That immediately improved traffic quality because the remaining posts were stronger.

We also ungated their case studies. They had all their case studies gated, which was strange.

We cleaned them up, rewrote some, removed old ones, and started writing them quarterly.

We launched a monthly newsletter. They had email marketing, but no real newsletter.

They started with about 2,000 contacts—after cleaning their database. That’s a strong list.

They were sitting on an email list they weren’t using. That’s a direct line to customers, and it was a big missed opportunity.

Rhea Allen: Do you recommend posting the newsletter as a blog post too?

Lee Densmer: I keep it separate.

Newsletters are best at about half the length of a blog post. You can rewrite a blog post into a newsletter, or expand a newsletter into a blog post.

But what I recommend is:

• Email the newsletter through Mailchimp/HubSpot
• Post it as a LinkedIn newsletter

Same content, two distribution channels.

Rhea Allen: I’ve heard concerns about duplicating content.

Lee Densmer: There’s less concern than there used to be.

Email is off-platform, so you’re not creating a true cannibalization issue. There may be some audience overlap, but it’s minimal.

It’s worth using the content in multiple channels.

We also overhauled their LinkedIn presence.

They were mostly posting job openings or “we are excited” posts—and expecting LinkedIn to generate revenue.

LinkedIn is an awareness engine.

What they were missing was employee advocacy.

We trained employees on why it mattered, how to post, how to comment, and how to engage.

We ended up with four ambassadors—three in sales and one account manager.

Their follower counts increased, brand awareness improved, and they started getting better sales conversations because the market was more educated.

Where to Find Lee + Final Advice

Rhea Allen: How can people reach you and get your book?

Lee Densmer: The easiest place to find me is LinkedIn.

For the book, go to leaddensmer.com/book. Use the coupon code FRIENDS20 for a discount.

The book is called Content Simplified: The Biggest B2B Content Marketing Mistakes and How to Fix Them.

There are about 450 copies out in the wild now.

Rhea Allen: Congratulations.

Any final words of wisdom?

Lee Densmer: Keep it simple. Do what you can handle. Pin down a few key decisions in each area.

And don’t be afraid to archive old, bad content.

Rhea Allen: Thank you so much, Lee, for joining us today.

Lee Densmer: Thank you, Rhea.

Outro

Rhea Allen: For those of you listening, the best thing you can do is share this episode with someone who needs it.

And please leave us a review—those are gold for podcasters.

Until next time, enjoy your marketing journey.

Thanks for listening to the Marketing Expedition podcast. Want to continue the journey? Don’t miss out on new episodes. Subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was one place you can go to get the latest information and tips about marketing and advertising?

The Marketing Expedition community is that place. People like you gather in our online community to build relationships with others and find the latest marketing trends, tactics, tools, and technology.

We help you build your brand and your bottom line.

Start your adventure today. Visit themarketingexpedition.com to find out more.