As part of the Morning Lazziness series about empowering women who encourage and do incredible things with their ideas in society, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kate Dench.
Kate Dench is the founder of Diverse Articulation, a digital marketing agency pioneering the remote content creation landscape. A Cambridge University graduate, Kate’s extensive career experiences across various sectors prompted her to confront the stark disparities in opportunity for women in freelancing. Driven to address this issue, she established her agency to empower a global team of talented women writers. Diverse Articulation is dedicated to supporting and developing its members’ skills while delivering high-quality, impactful content for clients across various industries.
Operating from the UK, Kate has successfully directed her company’s focus to important services such as SEO, social media strategy, and copywriting. Under her guidance, the agency prioritizes creative and distinctive content that resonates with target audiences, hence increasing brand engagement and online visibility.
Kate’s approach to business is deeply rooted in her commitment to professional growth for women, providing them with mentoring, flexible work arrangements, and opportunities to upskill in the competitive field of digital marketing. Clients routinely commend the agency for its professionalism, responsiveness, and ability to approach complex issues with clarity and understanding.
As Diverse Articulation continues to grow, Kate stays committed to her purpose of combining entrepreneurship with meaningful social impact, ensuring that every project embodies the agency’s core values of integrity, innovation, and excellence.
Here’s what we found out about Kate’s daily routine, followed by an exclusive Q+A.
What inspired you to become an entrepreneur, and what sparked the idea for your business?
The story of my business started in 2018. Not long out of an abusive relationship, I was a single mother working on a low salary for an NGO and struggling to make ends meet. I decided to see what skills I could use as a freelancer to bring in some extra money, and I noticed there was a lot of demand for English editing and writing. Within days, I had more work offers coming in than I could manage on my own, and decided to bring on an assistant to help with some of the research.
When I started looking for freelance assistants, I discovered two things. Firstly, women were hugely under-represented on these platforms, outnumbered 10 to 1 by men. Secondly, the women who were there had far fewer contracts in their profile histories than the men – despite many of them having university degrees, engaging profiles and low advertised hourly rates.
I quickly realized that when it came to work offers on freelance platforms, my excess and their lack had nothing to do with talent and everything to do with privilege. Being from the UK, I am a native English speaker – not an achievement so much as a coincidence. I am also a graduate of Cambridge University, and while I won’t downplay the effort that entailed, it would not have been an option for me if I’d been born in any other country. And in an environment where there is not yet equal opportunity between the sexes, those two privileges helped me win contracts that other women – who, just like me, were trying to build their financial independence – were passed over for.
I was determined that my contribution should restore some equity to the system, and so I focused on hiring women who were equally qualified, intelligent, and creative but less privileged in securing contracts. Through a system of feedback and upskilling, my research assistants quickly evolved into writers, each with their own areas of experience and expertise, and we brought on native English editors to help perfect the final outputs. As the community grew, members of the team took on additional responsibilities related to coordination and workflow, handling orders ranging from ad copy and SEO articles to journalism and white papers. Diverse Articulation was formalized as a company in 2022.
As a woman navigating the business world, what challenges have you faced, and how did you overcome them?
One of the biggest challenges that I believe all working mothers face is managing the unpredictable, such as when your child is sick and you simply can’t work. Even with remote work and flexible working hours, knowing you might not meet your work targets or deadlines exacerbates an already stressful situation. One of the things I love about the culture in Diverse Articulation is the strong sense of community – when something like this arises, other members of the team simply step in to take off the pressure.
How do you balance the demands of running a business with maintaining a healthy personal life?
Flexible work hours and the ability to work from home have definitely made it easier to find a balance between work and family. But I believe the key here as a business owner is a combination of team development and strategic delegation. I try to identify the innate strengths of different team members, provide opportunities for those strengths to be applied, and train on specific skills. While I’m always available to advise if there is an issue, the team runs with very little input from me.
Which networking strategies have most effectively built meaningful connections within your industry?
My primary networking strategy has been based around building strong relationships with our clients. These relationships provide valuable insights from the client’s perspective, enabling us to improve our services and the results we achieve for our client base. Direct interactions like these also often lead to word-of-mouth recommendations and new clients.
How do you approach mentorship, and how has it shaped your entrepreneurial path?
My mentorship approach is rooted in the belief that all skills can be learned if a person is honest, willing to learn, and unwilling to settle for mediocrity in their own work. Our training program spans all aspects of content writing, from topic research and authoritative citations to tailoring the tone of voice to the audience while incorporating SEO practices. We also adapt our training to individual needs; when a team member expresses interest in learning a new skill, we make every effort to facilitate that growth.
I am also grateful to the many mentors who have influenced my path. One pivotal moment came from a client at a larger enterprise. Beyond the usual feedback, she pointed out that our services were underpriced. She adjusted her contract to reflect what she believed was a fairer value, about 40% higher than my initial quote. As well as boosting our revenue, this taught me to value our services more accurately, which has been crucial in subsequent negotiations.
What strategies have worked best for selling your products and reaching your ideal customers?
In a content marketing business, getting to grips with who the client’s audience is makes all the difference. We start with deep research into the end customer – what are their needs, what is their pain point, and how can the client’s product or service solve those problems? We also spend a lot of time getting the tone of voice just right and backing up our statements with solid research. This careful attention to detail leads to happy clients who come back for more and bring others along.
Which marketing techniques have been most successful for your business, and how do you track their performance?
Since we’ve relied heavily on organic growth through word of mouth, formal marketing techniques haven’t been a focus for us. We measure success through client retention rates and feedback, and use that to make any necessary improvements or adjustments to our services.
Can you share a significant setback in your business journey and the steps you took to overcome it?
One of the big challenges we face is the unpredictable nature of content marketing contracts. Clients’ needs change, and sometimes, even though they’re happy with our work, our services don’t fit their new priorities anymore. Take a recent example: we worked with a client for an entire year, and during that time, we helped boost their organic website traffic twentyfold. Our content routinely landed them in the top three spots on Google search results pages. But after achieving these goals, they felt they had enough content and decided to cut back. This kind of shift has taught us to stay adaptable and keep proving our value, as client needs can evolve quickly.
What’s the most important advice you’d give to women just starting their entrepreneurial journey?
To make your business the kind of place you want to work, build it on your core values. For Diverse Articulation, our values of integrity, honesty, perfectionism, and a relentless pursuit of improvement have guided every decision – from who we hire to the clients we engage with. Whenever a team member or client has not aligned with these values, it’s been a clear indicator to reassess those relationships. Staying true to your values allows you to create a business you can be proud of, while attracting and retaining like-minded individuals who will help it thrive.
Is there a mantra or quote that guides your actions and decision-making as an entrepreneur?
‘Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.’ – Maya Angelou
