Content, Simplified with Lee Densmer

content simplified lee densmer

Episode 238

Talk of Content marketing started appearing online around 2007. One of the few people who  started talking about it was former Funnel Reboot guest Joe Pulizzi. It wasn’t until 2014 I became aware of marketers who were staking their career on the profession of creating content. I found the idea of giving-away-expertise a bit unsettling.  Maybe it was because for a dozen years prior to that, I’d mainly communicated with audiences through paid ads. Gradually, Content marketing won out – we simply expect content on social media brings marketing results. 

Only one problem, our guest says most of us aren’t doing content marketing right. One of her main critiques is that we’re making too much of it..

I’ll use myself as an example. Let’s look across the various accounts I’ve had on twitter/x; that have a combined 40,927 posts. Of those, analytics says only about 200, or 0.5% of them were home runs. If I’d known how our guest turns less into more; my marketing results could have been very different. I would also have been less stressed and would have slept better.

Our guest is founder of Globia Content Marketing agency. After earning two Bachelor’s degrees, from the University of Puget Sound and Boise State University, and completing her Master’s at the University of Colorado Boulder, our guest spent two decades as an in-house B2B marketer. Wanting to improve how content marketing’s done, she started posting on LinkedIn and built a sizable following and hung out her shingle in 2023. In 2025, she published her book Content Simplified. 

Let’s go to Boise Idaho to speak with Lee Densmer

 

Chapter/Timestamps
00:00 Intro
01:34 Meet Lee Densmer
02:46 Why Content Fails
04:08 Quantity Trap
05:47 Three by Five Framework
07:27 Set Three Goals
09:23 Burnout Social Example
10:48 Pick Three Buyers
15:14 Choose Three Themes
17:09 Mission Statement Focus
19:29 Stay In Your Lane
21:08 Avoid Endless Debates
22:28 AI Limits And Guardrails
25:54 SME Interview System
28:30 Chatbot Announcement
28:59 CEO Approval Bottleneck
30:59 Channels Promotion Repurpose
33:48 Metrics That Matter
36:29 Proving ROI And Budgets
37:21 Book details & Wrap Up 



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People, products, concepts mentioned in the show: 

Lee’s book: https://leedensmer.com/book

Lee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leedensmer/

Goodreads page for book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/243764645-content-simplified

Lee’s email lee@globiacontent.com

If you want to catch Ashley Faus’ episode, click here.  

content marketing book Lee Densmer

Why you want AI to be a more Skilled Marketer than you, with Chris Dore

ep 237 Chris Dore

Episode 237

Small businesses run on lean marketing teams and tight budgets, but don’t count them out. They’re the overwhelming majority of businesses on earth.
Small companies have one function that’s poised to figure out AI through experimentation, analysis and strategic changes in direction. It’s marketing, and it may very well determine the winner of the AI race.
After graduating from Laurentian University, our guest worked in corporate and consulting positions across Canada and even in Korea. He then founded a business which he grew to a successful exit, which led to mentoring students at Algonquin College and eventually teaching in their Business Management and Entrepreneurship program. Hungry to understand what AI could do for businesses, he went back to school in 2016 — to Carleton University for a Master’s degree. In 2025 he heard about the AI Collective and founded its local Ottawa chapter. He is now CEO of ScarlettNova, an AI company dedicated to building artificial intelligence solutions for businesses, and Founder of Rogue Ventures, an AI venture studio.
Let’s go to a coffee shop to talk with Chris Doré.

Chapters Timestamps:
00:00 Intro 
01:47 Why Chris says Marketers will endure
02:50 Why Pay for Pro Models
04:50 From User to Builder
08:02 Automation vs Agents
10:33 Context and Company Brain
13:36 Document Workflows for AI
17:47 Adoption Gap and Learning Curve
19:06 Token Costs and Budgeting
22:01 AI Energy Debate
22:19 Quantum Boost Ahead
23:00 Marketing Rapid Fire
23:18 Websites Get Personal
25:22 Vibe Coding Limits
26:06 Skills Over Knowledge
26:38 Events Still Matter
28:43 Paid Media After SEO
30:17 Winning With Niches
32:06 Trust And Adoption
34:32 Full Spectrum AI Help
36:02 Adoption Is Human
37:45 Venture Studio Spinoffs
39:20 Wrap-up



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Shownotes

Chris on LinkedIn

Rogue Ventures

ScarlettNova

Julie Lavergne

Earn It! with Steve Pratt

Steve Pratt Earn It

Episode 236

Everyone makes content now. But having content doesn’t automatically mean anyone will actually consume it. There are brands with long-running programs and audiences that carve out time for their content, while other brands’ programs fade because it became a thankless chore. What’s different between content that’s adored and content that dies in obscurity?  

The brands that win make content that audiences don’t see as branded content. Where the work they made was so genuinely useful, or surprising, or true — that instead of feeling exploited, the recipients felt like they were being favored.

A gift doesn’t need your logo on it. Your fingerprints are already there.

Our guest knows how to do this. His early career was working in production at AOL and several TV and radio networks. Then in 2014 he launched Pacific Content, an agency he built into the one brands trusted when they wanted to stop making noise and start building audiences. It was acquired by one of the country’s largest media companies in 2023. What he learned doing that became the book Earn It, which came out in 2026.

Let’s go to this talk with Steve Pratt.

Chapter Timestamps:
00:00 Why Content Gets Ignored
01:00 Meet Steve Pratt
02:12 Attention Is Finite
04:38 Be The Party Host
06:52 Marketing As A Gift
08:23 From You Not About You
09:55 Bravery And Commitment
12:46 Promote The Gift
15:03 Podcast Case Studies
21:07 Measuring Time And Trust
24:04 Fewer Things Better
25:35 Expertise Over Platform
27:04 Pacific Content And Wrap Up 



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Shownotes: People/Products/Concepts Mentioned in Show

Steve on LinkedIn

The Creativity Business

Earn It book

Steve’s substack

Steve’s midlife field guide

Michael Dell

Walter Isaacson

Joe Pulizzi

Malcolm Gladwell

Seth Godin

From Adversaries to Advocates: How to win friends (and budgets) with data

How to win friends (and budgets) with data Ep 235: From Adversaries to Advocates

I can’t prove it, but I think many marketers wish they could improve how they’re perceived by corporate leadership. 

I have felt this way in more than one role, and racked my brain on how to fix it. I’ve entertained everything including coming to board meetings with a dozen custom-branded donuts.  

Thankfully, the a solution I have come up with isn’t extreme and it doesn’t require donuts.

I was recently given the chance by a local association – the OPMMA – to give a talk and I picked this problem. 

I hope as you listen to how I think it’s solved and the three moments where this method demands doing the opposite of what our gut says to do.

So give a listen to ‘From Adversaries to Advocates’



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Chapters/Timestamps:

00:00 Intro
01:59 Why Data Wins Trust
03:57 Moment One Get House Order
05:13 Tracking Compliance Audits
07:37 Gaps Biases Data Assets
10:34 Definitions Limits Data Quality
14:45 Meeting Before Meeting
17:27 Build Story Driven Deck
22:45 Clean Visuals Handle Questions
24:40 PSA on new Reading Room
25:22 Moment Three Sustain the Habit
26:31 Wrap Up

People and Products mentioned:

Google Analytics

Meta

Google Tag Manager

Check out the bookbot containing every book that’s been on Funnel Reboot

Using CRM for Total Recall, with Brandon Drake

Using CRM for Total Recall

Episode 234

We humans like conversations that keep moving forward.  Every time we share some detail about ourselves, we expect the other person to remember it. 

If they bring that detail back up in our next interaction, we feel pleased and want to keep that relationship going. Conversely, we get annoyed when they blast us with messages we had already said didn’t interest us.  

This is severely problematic for us sales and marketing professionals. The sheer volume of people and details we all encounter is too much to keep straight in our outbound emails, let alone in our heads, and that’s why we use CRMs. 

But there are many CRMs out there and to fit a business, they all need to be customized. That’s where our guest comes in.  

A graduate of CalState in information systems, he worked in data analyst roles for several tech companies, including a Customer Relationship Management company that sold to enterprises. Wanting to work more with solopreneurs and SMBs, he decided to go out on his own as a CRM consultant to show them sustainable relationship-building techniques. Suffice to say, he is able to deliver immediate benefits to his clients under this business model.
 
He also has a passion for coaching people on their nutrition, which explains why both components are blended in the name of his business – the health data guy. 

Let’s go to Laguna Beach to speak with Brandon Drake. 

Chapters/Timestamps:

00:00 Why Memory Matters
00:34 Meet Brandon Drake
02:19 From Burnout to Health
03:44 Back to CRM Consulting
07:00 Relationship First CRM
09:14 Automated Nurture Emails
11:20 Crowdsourced Content Engine
12:11 Bio Form Data Hack
16:11 Progressive Profiling Scores
19.45 PSA: Funnel Reboot Reading Room
20:29 Segmentation Beats Spray
26:46 Protect Email Reputation
28:16 AI Needs Process First
32:28 Where to Find Brandon



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