See show notes for this episode: S 02 | Ep 16 Why leaders shouldn’t be the smartest person in the room.
0:00:04 - Alex Shevelenko
Welcome to Experience-focused Leaders. I am delighted to introduce today’s guest, Kevin Lee: digital marketing pioneer, author, philanthropist, and the mind behind Didit, one of New York’s top marketing agencies. He built tech before Google was born, turned an SEO startup into a full-service powerhouse, written four books, and raised millions for nonprofits, including Giving Forward, proving that marketing can drive both profits and purpose. Kevin, welcome, let’s dive in.
0:00:52 - Kevin Lee
Thanks for having me, Alex.
0:00:54 - Alex Shevelenko
So, Kevin, whenever I meet someone who is building new products, running an agency, leading nonprofit activities, and even running your own podcast for an e-marketing organization—how do you combine it all? What’s your secret? Where do you get the energy and resources to do all of this?
0:01:23 - Kevin Lee
Well, the energy is just boundless because I enjoy every minute of what I get to do every day. I guess in the same way that actors and musicians feel blessed to do what they love every day, I feel blessed to run businesses, engage in marketing of various types, and, of course, participate in philanthropy.
0:01:42 - Alex Shevelenko
You’re the master of marketing—that’s how I should have introduced you.
0:01:46 - Kevin Lee
Well, the back of my card says “Marketing Mad Scientist,” right? That’s the common theme—whether it’s cause marketing or traditional marketing. I think having great teams and being able to delegate is key. I’m the guy who comes up with ideas, and then my teams execute them.
Whether I’m generating ideas for clients under DIDit or building new technologies under the DIDit umbrella—like our unique QR codes on every piece of mail that, when scanned, ping the CRM and create what I like to call “Glengarry leads,” or developing SEO technology or generative engine optimization tech—these are all fun to invent. I don’t code; my teams have actually prohibited me from coding because I tend to go in at three in the morning and break things. I just come up with ideas, have the teams execute them, and the secret is having amazing people I can trust to delegate to.
0:02:56 - Alex Shevelenko
One of your secret weapons is your nonprofits. You find a lot of volunteers to support nonprofits while creating win-win opportunities. I’d love to hear how you’re helping early-career marketers get operational experience while supporting great causes.
0:03:22 - Kevin Lee
Sure. We run two different nonprofits: Giving Forward, which is cause-marketing focused, and the eMarketing Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the eMarketing Association. Since the Foundation’s mission is teaching best practices and helping marketers become great at what they do, we can bring on volunteers.
We’ve discovered that under the current US immigration system, talented master’s and sometimes PhD students can only stay in the country after finishing their studies through something called OPT—Optional Practical Training. This requires them to either get a job or volunteer for a nonprofit, so our programs provide that opportunity.
0:04:18 - Alex Shevelenko
Or they could marry someone, but that doesn’t sound like a great option these days.
0:04:22 - Kevin Lee
Well, maybe while they’re volunteering, they can date up a storm! We keep them busy nine to five, and from five to nine, maybe they can focus on dating. I don’t have marketing tips for that.
0:04:40 - Alex Shevelenko
I hear dating profiles are all about marketing—not that I know, exactly. I’m already married.
But yes, you’re helping people who want to stay in the US and are fascinated by marketing—whether technical or otherwise. I’ve noticed that marketers whose first language isn’t English often have a strong passion for marketing. In our hiring at Relayto, and in our entrepreneur program, we’ve seen many people deeply engaged in marketing in a second language. They may need to refine technical skills, but there’s something about connecting with people and getting the message across despite language challenges that’s really meaningful. Have you noticed this pattern among your volunteers?
0:06:00 - Kevin Lee
Absolutely. We have a variety of volunteers—some pursuing master’s degrees in business or MBAs, others in data-centric fields like data science. Fortunately, we have enough projects that align with their educational goals, so we can create a win-win for them.
Interestingly, while some people see AI as “evil,” it can actually be a bridge for these volunteers. They can describe something in their language and request the English version. Many have worked overseas in marketing roles but don’t understand how to apply that experience to the US market. AI is a tool that helps them translate their knowledge and adapt effectively.
0:07:08 - Alex Shevelenko
AI—if you give the right prompts, like “make the copy as funny as Robin Williams,” it can outperform non-AI native language speakers by a wide margin. So I think it’s really creativity and a little bit of cultural nuance that’s needed now. It’s fascinating to see how the world is opening up. Well, I mean, we’ll see what happens with the latest changes in the US legal system. But it’s great that you’re creating these opportunities. Tell us about the Foundation. I know it’s a passion project for you, but so people can learn about the resources and the content they can discover.
0:07:50 - Kevin Lee
Sure. The eMarketing Foundation exists to educate marketers on best practices. That gives us a fairly wide mandate on the types of projects we assign. Some of these projects include Giving Forward, a cause-marketing nonprofit that essentially replaces Amazon Smile—but with partnerships with Walmart, Staples, Priceline, Kay Jewelers, and hundreds of other merchants. I don’t know if we’ll ever replace the roughly $100 billion Smile generated before it was shut down, but our mission is to continue iterating on the cause-marketing front.
That’s not exclusively what our volunteers work on. They work on other projects aligned with their skills and interests. For example, there aren’t really good directories of nonprofits with supplemental information. Existing directories might rate nonprofits on efficiency or provide a taxonomy, but they often lack details about board members or specific initiatives. One of our teams of technologists is augmenting IRS data with secondary sources to create a robust nonprofit directory. When it’s ready, we’ll publish it as the Nonprofit Registry. We have all sorts of fun projects that allow volunteers to stretch beyond what they would normally do in a job environment and take real ownership.
0:09:49 - Alex Shevelenko
When you focus on the broad topic of best practices in marketing, one challenge is being an expert in everything. As an agency principal, you have to be a bit more of a generalist. It sounds simple, but staying on top of all disciplines is tough. There’s this mythical “first marketer” role in a startup. Typically, you hire a demand-gen marketer who has a specialty and is capable of figuring other things out—but no one can truly master everything at once. How do you combine small teams with such technical complexity and execute tactics across multiple channels efficiently?
0:11:03 - Kevin Lee
What’s worked for us is having subject-matter experts in each channel and type of media. Broadly, we categorize as:
Earned media: SEO, digital PR, content marketing
Hybrid earned/paid media: Social, influencer marketing (looks like earned media but is paid)
Pure paid media: Advertising across Google, social platforms, display, CTV, outdoor, radio, TV, and so on. We still have traditional media buyers for some of the old-school channels.
Having experts who know more than I do is key. For example, we mail about 30 million pieces of direct mail per year. I don’t know how variable digital printing works—thank goodness my team does. I knew enough to invent our Inceptor technology, which puts custom QR codes on every piece of mail so when it’s scanned, the mailer knows the recipient is interested.
I take my “nerd brain” and combine it with old-school media like direct mail to invent new solutions. I’m a lifelong learner, so I enjoy keeping up with everything. The SEO industry, for instance, is being reinvigorated with generative engine optimization. Clients now ask, “How do I show up in Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini?” These are completely different algorithms, which keeps things fresh. Solving marketing problems is the most fun part.
0:12:59 - Alex Shevelenko
It’s funny—you remind me of Scott Brinker, the MarTech guru. His ever-expanding list of marketing technologies seems to consolidate at some point, but by the time you consolidate, new tools emerge that break everything apart. There’s a constant tension between brilliant specialist solutions and integrating them. I know you’re in a hotel room in Munich, interrupting your marketing event, looking across communications and content, and trying to streamline things into platforms that at least work end-to-end, if not all on the same platform, but deeply connected to achieve outcomes.
0:14:18 - Kevin Lee
Yeah, it ties back into lifelong learning. I’ve built an agency that’s somewhat self-sufficient, except for the business development work—having intelligent conversations with marketers, learning their problems, and seeing if we fit internally. If not, we hire or acquire—I’ve made 11 acquisitions in the last 15 years.
I’m still struggling with delegation. In addition to running DIDit, I have a nutraceutical company, the eMarketing Association, my nonprofit, and an incubator. Balancing all of that remains a challenge.
0:15:11 - Alex Shevelenko
And I know you have a girlfriend as well, so I think you’re—this is—you’re a complete man when it comes to work-life balance.
0:15:20 - Kevin Lee
I don’t know if it’s a myth or not, but it requires constant effort and energy to decide what you don’t do and what you delegate to others—and that doesn’t always work out perfectly. I’ve had some delegation challenges where I over-delegated and realized that, while I don’t want to be a micromanager, there is a proper place for that pendulum. Finding that proper place depends on the person you delegate to.
So I think everyone in management probably struggles with that balance. Maybe the perfect balance doesn’t exist, but the best we can do is strive for it.
0:16:02 - Alex Shevelenko
In terms of integrating different systems and point solutions into one deliverable, do you feel this is increasingly a core part of your value proposition for small to midsized customers, where they don’t have the bandwidth to mentally process everything you handle? It sounds like a challenge for you—you have to stay on your toes. I imagine for a CEO, COO, or CRO who isn’t managing marketing directly and just wants quality leads, it’s an even bigger mental challenge to figure out what tactic works and maintain it.
Do you, in a way, become an outsourced chief marketing officer for some of your clients? Where does that approach work, and where does it not? I’d love to hear your take.
0:17:08 - Kevin Lee
We do end up there occasionally, but rarely initially. For a CRO or CMO to hand you the keys to their Lamborghini and say, “I hope you know how to drive this,” that’s a lot of responsibility to grant a team—whether internal or external.
So we usually start by identifying the client’s biggest pain point—either their weakest internal link or the area they see as the greatest opportunity—and we solve that. The subject-matter expert on our team who is best suited to that problem becomes the point person. Once we succeed there, we’ve built trust. That initial retainer, which might have started at $7,000, can grow to $15, $18, or $20,000. Our median now is in the high teens, but we don’t shy away from tackling the problem the CRO or CMO thinks is their biggest, even if it may not be the objectively biggest problem. We focus on what they perceive as the problem rather than arguing about it.
0:18:22 - Alex Shevelenko
You don’t argue—you just fix the problem they know they have.
0:18:28 - Kevin Lee
Exactly. Once you establish that trust, you have a much better “land and expand” strategy—like a Trojan horse, if you will.
0:18:39 - Alex Shevelenko
So you take a bicycle for a spin before the Lamborghini, right? And when you’re doing that “bicycle” phase, what defines a successful initial engagement for an agency? Is it about leveling expectations, winning trust through your initial approach, or setting KPIs at the time of sale? Is it more about hand-holding and direct reporting? I’m curious because we’re starting to work with agencies as a distribution channel, and often customers bring their agency partners to use our technology. So what’s the pattern or outline for a super successful initial engagement?
0:19:50 - Kevin Lee
KPIs tend to be foundational because marketing and business development teams sometimes use oversimplified KPIs that don’t reflect long-term profitability. Understanding the difference between an average customer and a “power” customer is key because it changes your KPI. For example, ROAS might be a good intermediate KPI for an e-commerce client, but LTV is more valuable. A power customer disproportionately impacts future profitability, so you don’t want to treat all customers equally.
The same applies in B2B. Many don’t do real-time lead scoring, so they treat all leads the same, using a simplified CAC or cost-per-lead metric. One of the first things we do is determine whether they have backend business intelligence that provides insight into their best customers versus the average. This often becomes a huge win, especially across paid media—search, social, programmatic, CTV, direct mail—because knowing your best customer helps you find more of them.
0:21:32 - Alex Shevelenko
That’s what moves the needle—not just new customers, not just dummy leads that might be interns or students.
0:21:39 - Kevin Lee
Exactly. It’s not just about budget; it’s about the type of customer that ends up being a long-term win-win. Whether B2C or B2B, no relationship survives without mutual benefit. The price has to reflect value—whether you’re selling Truth Nutrition Nutraceuticals, one of my companies, or a SaaS platform. There needs to be a value exchange.
0:22:14 - Alex Shevelenko
Well, speaking of that, let me share one of my pet peeves in B2B marketing and get your reaction. You can probably guess what it is. I was fortunate to have one of the founders of the whole email marketing and lead-gating industry on the podcast—the CEO and founder of Eloqua.
Most people in B2B marketing know Marketo, HubSpot, and similar tools. There’s a tendency to gate content in the B2B space. There’s a lot of evidence that gating something causes a huge drop-off in leads—people don’t fill out the forms. But when someone does get through and gives their details because they really want the ebook, white paper, or case study, then they get a notification like, “Look for an email to validate your subscription.”
Sometimes they can immediately download the PDF; other times they have to wait and click again. Then they’re taken to the file and have to leave their email, open their PDF reader—say, Adobe—or scroll through a long document on mobile. Let’s say it’s brilliant content, but 30 pages is a lot for someone to get to the parts they care about, especially on mobile. Often, they make a mental note to read it later, but sometimes they never do.
Even if they do get through it, there’s usually no call-to-action like on your website to book a meeting, move further down the buying funnel, or dive into a particular case study. You could almost have an interactive experience where they ask questions, drill into certain sections, or click video links. But then they might get taken offsite to YouTube, where they see an ad, and they’re gone. They might never come back.
It feels like we’re putting brakes on the Ferrari we’ve just built for engagement, creating artificial boundaries that reflect non-modern consumption habits. I’d say 80–90% of gated collateral is still like this. Some companies experiment occasionally, but these efforts typically fizzle because it’s too time-consuming and expensive.
You’ve been in B2B for a while. Do you see this as an accurate observation? Is it changing? Are there positive trends? If not, what prevents marketers from applying modern approaches to educational content?
0:26:43 - Kevin Lee
Yeah, I think marketers need to remind themselves—and this applies in B2B—that you spend a lot of time on conversion rate optimization, removing friction. Arbitrarily adding friction often has the opposite effect. You’re basically saying, “The person who has the time to fill this out is the person I want,” when in fact, it may be someone junior, like the assistant to the assistant in the mailing department.
I’m not a huge fan of gating unless there’s a unique quid pro quo. For example, if someone participates in research and, as a result, gets an enhanced report, that could be valuable. But even then, I feel like information wants to be free, now more than ever, because there are LLMs crawling everywhere. Even if you lock content down, it’s likely to spread anyway. For instance, SaaS companies sometimes think no one knows their pricing—but you can usually find it somewhere, like on G2 or through an analyst.
0:28:13 - Alex Shevelenko
You post it on G2, an analyst posts it, and it’s out there.
0:28:17 - Kevin Lee
Exactly—it’s somewhere.
0:28:20 - Alex Shevelenko
It’s funny to see people gating content and forgetting it’s already exposed because it’s searchable. We look at a lot of marketing PDFs, and it’s embarrassing. So, you’re not a big fan of unnecessary gating anymore?
0:28:44 - Kevin Lee
Yeah, there was a time for ebooks—I’ve done it too, having written books and put in all that effort. We felt there should be a quid pro quo for access. But I’ve shifted my thinking, especially in B2B: focus on the “gives” rather than the “asks.” Information wants to be free, and if you make it arbitrarily difficult, it creates a negative branding experience.
0:29:22 - Alex Shevelenko
So that’s point one: gating. But as I explained earlier, there’s more than just gating. A downloadable document feels psychologically credible, which is why people still like it. But that form factor can be worse than gating because it gives the impression of being easy or modern, while actually providing a poor user experience.
0:30:30 - Kevin Lee
Exactly—it’s paradoxical. But imagine applying rudimentary AI to this.
0:30:39 - Alex Shevelenko
Yeah.
0:30:39 - Kevin Lee
Say you have a 56-page PDF on best practices—maybe email marketing, Marketo, Klaviyo, etc. The chances that someone reads it fully are low. But now you have their PII and business identity. It would be trivial to build a small AI bot that extracts the most relevant information from the PDF—essentially converting it into a personalized summary—before it even reaches the reader.
0:31:15 - Alex Shevelenko
Just for them, based on their LinkedIn and whatever other information, exactly.
0:31:20 - Kevin Lee
And then, if you choose to go the route of giving them this substantial PDF that they didn’t read, a week later you could send a follow-up email saying, “By the way, you may not have had a chance to go through our PDF, but we extracted the most relevant sections for you—specifically, Alex, because of the business you’re in.”
0:31:41 - Alex Shevelenko
Yeah, that’s beautiful. It’s funny—we find you can do this in a single document, but sometimes a content hub works better because not everyone wants to consume a PDF all the time. Some people, if they’re really interested and deep in the sales cycle, want the longer document. But to get there, they may need a string of short-form videos. Bringing the right short-form videos together in one place helps create a journey: here are all the relevant snippets, and if you want, you can see the source.
I’m curious about your view here, because you’re building foundations. To me, marketing is really about engaging in actions while building trust. Oftentimes, everyone is making big claims. There’s value in these longer-form assets because they build trust—they show where data comes from and provide context. In an age of TikTok and information overload, consumability and trust are almost juxtaposed. Our thoughtful B2B clients are trying to combine consumability with trust—showing that they’re not afraid to provide details, but they’re also not hiding behind the small print.
What have you seen as some of the most interesting innovations in this—either in B2B or in regulated B2C use cases where compliance requires providing a lot of information?
0:33:50 - Kevin Lee
I think it’s almost a return to human authenticity as a subject-matter expert. Trust is built when folks engage with content via video or audio. They may learn to trust one of us more as a result of that single touchpoint.
0:34:09 - Alex Shevelenko
My mom would love you, Kevin.
0:34:10 - Kevin Lee
(Laughs) My mom, yes. But over time, trust builds because big brands like to think people are buying a brand, but they’re really buying an aggregation of people. Brand and individual trust-building is a long journey. It’s mid- to upper-funnel, not lower-funnel. It’s a return to humanity—AI-generated content won’t generate that trust.
0:34:59 - Alex Shevelenko
You know.
0:34:59 - Kevin Lee
Companies that say, “I’ll have an LLM create content and leave the human out”—where is the trust built? Then you read the content and notice all the em dashes. It’s not the author’s fault—they may like em dashes—but ChatGPT overuses them. You have to be judicious. There’s a journey of trust-building at both the individual and brand levels because, in the end, people buy from people.
Even on platforms like Salesforce or Sixth Sense, people buy from internal evangelists and thought leaders. Sixth Sense does a good job; Salesforce less so at this point.
0:35:58 - Alex Shevelenko
How do you build trust if you’re running a smaller organization? Sixth Sense has bigger budgets and has been around longer. Salesforce did its job early. Mark is back on the podcast circuit, which is entertaining.
The challenge is: how do you stand out when many people are doing this, but you’re a relatively small organization in the larger scheme of things? Do you need to break through the noise, or just be present? When people check and see that you’re real—authentic—they notice. They see your smile, they feel like they know you, and that builds trust.
Do you think it’s really as simple as that, or does it also require snappy soundbites, videos, or other presentation tweaks? I’m trying to stay authentic, but I wonder how effective that is in a noisy environment where we’re competing with B2C attention for B2B audiences. How do you think about this?
0:37:52 - Kevin Lee
Yeah, I think about it in layers, right? You don’t need to make noise for everybody—you just need to make noise for the people who you could help the most, and who could help you the most, because they have the highest LTV and might be willing to pay a little more. You’re not trying to boil the ocean. You’re really trying to identify your ICP—in B2B language, your ideal customer profile—figure out who those people are, and how to talk to them.
As it relates to you as an individual subject-matter expert, that’s where interesting collaborations can happen. If there are collaborations between you, myself (with one of my hats on), and somebody else who’s non-competitive—or even slightly competitive—my philosophy is to let the buyer choose. If Did It isn’t the right choice, or Truth Nutrition isn’t the right choice, let them find the best match for them. That opens up collaboration opportunities, content co-creation, and more.
I also think about it from a push perspective versus serendipitous discovery. Push is great for email newsletters, LinkedIn content—you’re pushing content out there. Simultaneously, a lot of that content, particularly content generated by a human and transcribed, has unique information. It will be ingested by Google, Bing, and also by Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Claude. That increases the odds that our subject-matter expertise bubbles up in a relevant search and shows up in results.
0:39:58 - Alex Shevelenko
That’s why I think it’s increasing. I notice the pattern: the more we put out there, the higher the quality of what we get back when we do a little digging. Even before our meeting, I was thinking about collaboration—my brother runs business operations at Perplexity—and that led to a great discussion. Producing a lot of content allows us to connect dots that would otherwise be harder to connect.
I think you wanted to talk about GEO, as one of the innovation pillars that everybody’s trying to figure out—what’s next.
0:40:46 - Kevin Lee
Yeah. You’re kind of the SEO OG. I started in SEO in ’94, long before Google existed, and started Did It in ’96, still before Google existed. Content has remained king the entire time, but the queen to that king is location: where is the content? That’s where GEO becomes important. Your content plan isn’t just what you talk about—it’s where it lives. You can even see from searches on Perplexity or ChatGPT which sources are trusted; it doesn’t trust everything.
0:41:30 - Alex Shevelenko
It doesn’t trust low-value backlinks that were historically used to trick Google.
0:41:40 - Kevin Lee
We never engaged in black hat, thankfully.
0:41:44 - Alex Shevelenko
Yeah, we were black hat before.
0:41:46 - Kevin Lee
It was black hat when it was first formed, before there were any rules. Once the rules existed, we took the high road. My point is really that understanding when Wikipedia matters, when Reddit matters, and when other platforms are important is key. These can act as tiebreakers for LLM-powered chatbots. It’s not a guarantee, but all these things have value in and of themselves. Being active in a relevant Reddit or subreddit makes sense, even if it doesn’t directly impact LLMs.
Being active on LinkedIn or creating content on YouTube makes sense, even in a silo. The fact that it also contributes to generative engine optimization is a bonus that may or may not manifest fully. But to not do it because you think, “I’ll never show up, forget it,” is like giving up on marketing. Don’t give up—just do a better job.
0:42:58 - Alex Shevelenko
Don’t give up on marketing. Find Kevin Lee. Kevin, where can people find you to get more of your insights and learn about the great causes you support?
0:43:07 - Kevin Lee
LinkedIn is probably the best way. Various Ventures is the handle, but search for Kevin Lee. I’m one of the Kevin Lees in there—you should be able to find me: the authentic, handsome Kevin Lee.
0:43:22 - Alex Shevelenko
I love it.
0:43:23 - Kevin Lee
Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn or other places.
0:43:28 - Alex Shevelenko
Kevin, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for all the nonprofit work you’re doing with the foundation and for advancing the art and science of marketing.
0:43:40 - Kevin Lee
Thanks, Alex, I appreciate it.