From USA to Australia: A Conversation with Marketing Strategist Johnna Ehmke

In this episode of Content with Humans, Leonie speaks with content marketing strategist Johnna Ehmke from Kaleidoscope Marketing & Events. Now a fully-fledged Australian citizen, Johnna began her career in the USA, and was sent to Australia by her employer to help establish the AU marketing team and introduce their software to the Aussie market. Leonie speaks with Johnna about the cultural differences between the USA and Australia, content localisation, her marketing career, the challenges of managing stakeholders, creating thought leadership content, and marketing creatively on tight budgets. Great tips for companies planning to enter the AU market, and advice for junior marketers just starting their careers.

Transcript

From USA to Australia - a conversation with Marketing Strategist Johnna Ehmke

LEONIE: Welcome to Content with Humans Episode 4. My guest today is Johnna Ehmke. Johnna has been involved in corporate marketing for over 20 years and began her career in the United States of America before arriving in Australia in 2015. Just this year she's become an Australian citizen.

We've worked with Johnna on many content projects during her roles at several companies including Cornerstone on Demand and CoreLogic. I thought it would be very interesting to hear about Johnna's career journey across the two countries. So Johnna, welcome to Content with Humans.

JOHNNA: Hi Leonie, thank you for having me. Very excited to be here. 

Getting to Know Johnna

LEONIE: I'd love to start by hearing about your last role in the US and what brought you to Australia.

JOHNNA: Sure, sure. So my background has been across a number of things. I started out in the ad agency business for the first seven years and then the rest has been on the client side.

I was in technology for most of that, also in telecommunications. But just before I moved to Australia about nine years ago, I was working for Cornerstone On Demand, living in Los Angeles where they're headquartered. At the time I was managing the vertical marketing team. The business was looking at growing and expanding into the Asia-Pacific region. So it had been reaching out to some of us on the corporate headquarters team to be a part of helping to build the processes and just starting to build up the structure around having marketers outside of the US. And as soon as I found out that there was headcount in Sydney, I raised my hand. I had been here before on holiday and fell in love with the city and the country. So two months later I was living in Sydney. 

LEONIE: Wow, excellent.

Johnna’s Love of Australia

LEONIE: So tell me what are one or two of the things that you wish you could buy in Australia but you can't? 

JOHNNA: Interesting. You know, I can't think of anything specific off the top of my head. I've been here long enough now where I've already replaced it with all of the things I got in America. It was really interesting though to see that even the global brands didn't have the same products here. Whether it was makeup or clothing brands or something, you'd come here thinking that they would have the same products and they don't, which was interesting. So I wouldn't say that I'm really missing anything anymore. Everything's been substituted. I think the one thing that I do miss is just having a lot more variety. It's not a bad thing because in America maybe there's too much to go spend your money on.

But now everything, I'm all Aussie. 

LEONIE: And what do you like most about living in Australia and what do you miss even just a little bit about the U.S.? 

JOHNNA: Well the obvious thing that everybody would say is they miss their family and the friends living in the U.S. I guess besides just the people, I miss Mexican food if that doesn't sound really silly. I haven't been able to find my Mexican food joint here. The flavours are just a little bit different. They're not as authentically Mexican, but we make it at home and so I've kind of been filling that gap. 

But there's too many things probably to list about why I love Australia, which is why I did complete my citizenship. Looking forward to my ceremony at the end of this month. I think it's just the people. I think that our priorities are just more in line with me personally here than they were in the U.S. I've just been warmly welcomed and was made to feel right at home. It was really easy to make friends and there's just a million things to do. So the list of why I love Australia is very long. 

LEONIE: That's good to hear.

Interesting Cultural Differences

LEONIE: There are definitely some big cultural differences between Australia and the U.S. despite the fact that we all speak the same language. So what are some of the interesting cultural differences that you've noticed, especially any that surprised you? 

JOHNNA: Yeah, well, personally and professionally, I probably, well, professionally, definitely the work-life balance. It's definitely more in line here in Australia than it felt like it was in America.

Personal and professional, probably communication styles. People here are just a lot less formal, more casual. I had to get used to, actually, what is called ‘taking the piss’. That was a little bit difficult for me. I didn't know when to take things seriously and when not to take things seriously. But now I've become pretty proficient at ‘taking the piss’ myself.

But yeah, work-life balance, which has been just a great shift for me personally. I was one of those people that was very accustomed to those 50 to 60 hour weeks, working weekends, after hours and things like that. And that's part of the work culture that's in America. Here, it's just more balanced. People have boundaries. People are better at saying no.

And it doesn't really seem to harm anyone's career mobility, which in the US, you work those kinds of hours to move up. So here it just seems like there's just that balance is much, much better for your quality of life. 

LEONIE: Excellent.

US Content Localisation

LEONIE: So I've had a couple of content marketing managers tell me over the years that convincing a marketing head office in the US that some of their content doesn't resonate in Australia can be quite a challenge because they don't really understand why it wouldn't resonate here. Is that something that you experienced? 

JOHNNA: 100%. 100%.

Probably when I look back at my career, that might've been one of my biggest mistakes. Whenever you're in an interview and they ask you a mistake…was just making that assumption that yes, it's English speaking…it should just…change some S's to Z's, add a couple of U's and a couple of words and you're good to go.

Not the case at all. I was sent down here with just that kind of charge, like look at what's performing for us in the US and then just go and kind of translate it for the British language. And it didn't work. It just didn't work. Found out that content formats, we do them a lot lengthier, longer eBooks, things like that. They weren't resonating here. People want to get in and get out. The language again is a lot less formal. You don't have to use a lot of those big fluffy marketing words to really make an impact. In fact, it kind of does a disservice to you as well. 

So yeah, there was a lot of things that just didn't work. And so I did have to basically not convince them, but demonstrate to them why it wasn't working. So it prompted me to spend a lot more time with my salespeople that were Australian, learning what the pain points were of the customers here. What do they care about? How do we talk to them? Where do we engage with them? So yeah, getting really close to the salespeople, knowing my competition, competition was a lot more different than what I was used to as well. 

One of the things too that I really recognised was that some clients saw it as a benefit, if you were from a global company. They saw it as a lot of resources and a lot of technology and innovation that might come from that. But then there was a lot of Australian organisations that didn't really want that. They thought they might just be a really small fish in a big pond. So it was just really kind of shifting and knowing how to message. I did a lot of testing basically to demonstrate how things worked and didn't work. I A-B tested as much as I possibly could because then I had the data to prove that it was different.

Johnna’s Marketing Experience

LEONIE: So you've had some really interesting marketing roles and developed quite a broad range of experience. Have you developed a preference for particular roles or different areas of marketing? 

JOHNNA: Yeah. As marketers know, you can either specialise in something or you can do what I chose to do, which was to be a generalist. So I have B2B, B2C experience across a number of different industries. I've been a one-person team and I've been a member of large corporate teams. I actually went the generalist route just simply because I like getting my hands dirty and being involved in everything and not just owning one little bit because not just one little bit makes the difference. It's actually the whole that does. So it's enabled me to go into those one-person team kind of roles and be able to do not only the strategy side of it, but also the execution side of it, which not a lot of strategist level people like doing that execution, but being a part of it really intimately with what's going out into the market really makes you that much more savvy and strategic. 

Marketing During COVID

LEONIE: So from our perspective, the last few years in marketing have been quite a rollercoaster. When COVID arrived, we saw a whole lot of marketing people laid off and then it turned and suddenly there was an abundance of marketing roles available. And we saw a lot of movement as people took the opportunity to advance their careers by moving on. And now we've got the economic climate sending things back the other way. So what did the time from COVID to now look like from your perspective? 

JOHNNA: Right. Well, I was one of those people that did get made redundant. The pandemic did have an impact on the business that I was in at that time. And since then, you know, the obvious things have shifted. Consumer behaviour has shifted. We've all started to do more online.

Digital, the digital space has become a lot more predominant way to reach your audience. So I see roles in that area obviously have grown and becoming a lot more digitally savvy. And that's not even just knowing how to do digital marketing or better UI on websites, but it's also on the data side. So we have all these more data driven abilities. Now you have to become a lot more data driven on the reporting side as well, which has been good for marketing because it does, we have so much more access to the data and reporting to become smarter marketers. 

And I think too, with that digital shift, which isn't saying that all the traditional methods are left behind, they still have a really important part in integrated marketing. But there's, it's going to continue to change. You're going to see, you know, AI right now, as everyone knows is huge. And then where does it go from there? Does it go into virtual reality and creating more immersive experiences? It'll continue to grow and we just need to grow with it.

AI’s Impact on Marketing

LEONIE: So what's been your experience of the impact of AI so far and how do you see that panning out over the next year or two? 

JOHNNA: Oh yeah, I'm still finding my way as well. I mean, having my own agency now, I have, you see it get, I hate to say abused, but while it's enabled us more to get, you know, content out there quickly, it doesn't mean that the content is better. I think everyone's still trying to figure out how to use it.

I've seen it horribly abused and hopefully that'll get better. I wanted to be careful, like not to completely throw it under the bus, because I'm still learning as well. Yes, it is easier to generate tailored content, but you just need to be really, really careful about still making it personal because what happens is you just get a bunch of whitewashed content out there and your audience really, it's not going to resonate with them after a while. It's just going to sound like your competitor sounds. 

Looking ahead, AI isn't going to go away. We just need to work better with it. I think marketers need to bring in their own skills and voice into what they're able to use AI for. I think everyone needs to keep an eye open for, you know, ethical considerations as well because you never really know how much is real and you've got to be really careful about putting repurposed content out there and could it negatively impact you. But I do think that there's opportunities moving forward. We just need to figure out how to use it and not abuse it. 

Thought Leadership Content - Challenges

LEONIE: We've been talking a lot lately about thought leadership level content, but in the larger organisations, harnessing the insights of internal subject matter experts isn't always smooth sailing. What are some of the challenges and roadblocks when it comes to turning the insights of internal subject matter experts into usable content? 

JOHNNA: Yeah, a problem that I've had for a number of my work situations, not being the subject matter expert, as you said in the marketing role, you do need to rely on translating that technical knowledge from your subject matter experts into marketing that resonates with your audience, marketing that stays on your brand. And that can be a little bit difficult because you have somebody that maybe is more techie in mind and doesn't understand how you're going to translate that into something that's going to resonate. 

One of the things that I probably struggle with the most is just time constraints. So I think it's important to have really good relationships with your thought leaders to make sure that they. What I found is they are time poor and they might not understand the value of what they're contributing to. So I just took a step back and started being really clear about how it fit into the bigger picture because then it all became very real to them and they understood why we were doing that. We weren't just doing it for the sake of taking up their time. So being really clear on what the impact is, how it's being used, communicate. 

The timeframes are really important as well because as we know, we can go through multiple rounds of reviews, especially if they're not really fully engaged at the beginning. So I just found it best giving them forms to fill out. I know everybody hates a form, but it really does work when you're doing your creative briefs to have something on paper. Leonie, as you know, you've seen many of our creative briefs and it's really important that you get that buy-in from everybody, that everyone understands what the goals are. Then it just becomes a little bit easier to invest the time and to see that the outputs are really adding value.

LEONIE: Yeah, it's very tricky, isn't it? We've had situations where there's been multiple stakeholders involved and if it's not clear where things are going at the briefing stage, sometimes what happens is that a couple of those stakeholders will disagree about which direction the content should be going in or what should be in there to start with. Then you can just end up with a bit of a few egos involved and a bit of a merry-go-round as they keep wanting to change what the other person's wanting to add in, they want to take out. 

JOHNNA: Yes, I have seen that happen. You can go round and round. If everyone's not clear on those business objectives and what it's meant to accomplish, you will run into a lot of conflict and it will take a long time to get it done and get it done right. 

Advice for the Junior Marketer

LEONIE: Yeah, so I mean it's all important when it comes to creating content that the stakeholder management is spot on. So if you were giving advice to a junior marketer on stakeholder management, what would you tell them are the most important things? 

JOHNNA: Yeah, I mean all of us marketers know how important our relationships are with our stakeholders and you brought up, Leonie, before that because we have so many different areas of the business that we're trying to please, it's really important, especially in content creation, to have good relationships and being able to bring into play those negotiating skills. I guess I would probably just advise them to first identify who your stakeholders are. Do know if it's one or two or three people that need to play a part in there. Start at the beginning with just conversations on making sure that everyone's clear on what the objectives are. Know everybody's personal interests as well because you might have a product manager that's into the tech side of it but the salesperson has a different strategy about going to market with that. So just making sure that everyone's on the same page will really set you up for success. 

And again, with those objectives and really clear communications and everybody knows what the bigger picture is, it does make it a lot smoother. But I think ultimately just stay flexible, be open to negotiating because ultimately that collaboration and alignment really is what's going to make you successful. 

Tracking ROI on Thought Leadership

LEONIE: Another question that comes up often - How do you track the ROI on thought leadership when at least part of the value in that approach centres on the perception of brand? 

JOHNNA: Yeah, it's a really good question and it's a fine line because thought leadership, it has to be balanced between your qualitative and your quantitative measurements, right? So you can put a call to action on a thought leadership piece like a blog and drive them to an enquiry page. And so you can measure it based on the direct metrics like your lead generation, your sales accepted leads, marketing qualified leads, all of those. But then there's the qualitative side of it as well that really is that soft brand stuff. And it's hard to measure. It’s, you know, how do you measure brand perception based on a thought leadership blog? But you can do surveys, social media sentiment analysis has worked for me in the past. And then again, getting feedback from customers really is kind of where I've seen the most takeaways and then ways to improve on any kind of thought leadership or content creation.

Marketing Budget Challenges

LEONIE: Right now, a lot of company marketing budgets have been cut due to lower sales and the poor economic climate. So often that means that some marketing people are made redundant. But for the ones who were left behind, what are the challenges of working in that low budget environment? 

JOHNNA: Right. It's a good question. A lot of my customers are, my clients sorry, are small organisations that have low to no budgets. And so it does really force a marketer to become really creative and really efficient as well.

I sometimes feel like I could do actually more creative with smaller budgets. You just need to get really clear at prioritising your initiatives. So understanding what's going to get you the highest ROI, if that's what your business objective is, and that's what most business objectives are.

But being really clear, set out those objectives so you can then define the strategies and the channels that are going to get you there the most cost effectively. I think leveraging people within your business, leveraging if you're a nonprofit, leveraging your board, leveraging everyone's own channels, you just start getting yourself into a more creative space when you don't have money to throw at problems. And it makes really reporting that much more important because you have to be really, really smart using your data to make decision making when you don't have a lot of or a bottomless bucket of money.

Did that answer the question right? Did I? 

LEONIE: Yeah, I think it did. 

JOHNNA: Okay. 

From Junior to Senior Marketer

LEONIE: So in the corporate environment, very junior marketing roles are often heavy on implementation activities like writing and don't seem to offer much opportunity to get involved in the strategy and planning. Is that the main thing that changes as you progress in a marketing career - that the more senior you become, the more responsible you become for strategy and planning? 

JOHNNA: Yeah. And I want to encourage younger marketers to really enjoy that time in your career because that execution work really is what you're going to bring into all of the strategy work that you do. And it comes with time, whether or not you chose a path like I did, which is a generalist, where doing a lot of the execution work really does play into your being a senior level thinker.

And sometimes the execution part of it can be, can be fun. But again, as you move into the senior roles, you're going to be doing a lot less implementation, but you're going to be able to think and act a lot smarter having done it. And take, with that time as well, you're going to be bringing in all of those new skills that you're going to be learning all of your leadership skills.

Your analytical thinking, you know, looking bigger picture. It's going to be looking beyond just what you're executing and big picture. And that just is something that just happens over time. So I actually would encourage you to enjoy it, especially right now with everything changing so much. Yeah, anything can happen. So you want to be prepared.

Marketing Skills for the Future

LEONIE: I know you're a big fan of continuous learning. If you were in a junior marketing role in 2024/2025, and your goal is to progress into more senior roles, what are the skills or areas of knowledge that you would be prioritising right now? 

JOHNNA: Probably the obvious one would be mastering data analytics, really being able to interpret and leverage marketing data effectively. So you're making good decisions. I mean, that's always going to be a big part of it. Just now our data is just so much more robust than what we had when I started in my career. Dive deep into that digital marketing space, whether or not you choose to become a specialist or not. SEO, SEM, social media, email marketing, none of that is going away. It's just going to continue to evolve. So I really would keep that on your radar, whether or not, again, you specialise in it or you stay at the generalist level.

The obvious one is content. Content is king. I know that saying is old, but creation of compelling content will always have a part. And there's always going to be different platforms. So you're going to need to be really smart about how do you customise by the platform. So content is always a priority.

And then the obvious ones, which is just, we mentioned in past questions is being able to collaborate, being a leader, being a team player, just staying adaptable because the industry innovation is going to continue to change. So you just need to be really adaptable. 

Looking Back on a Marketing Career

LEONIE: So what do you know now that you wish you'd known when you first started your marketing career? 

JOHNNA: Oh, that list is long, like the list I love about Australia. But I think if I were to just make it more personal, the work ethic is a lot different in America. And I gave up a lot of my personal time. I did not have good work balance. I now do. So if I could give you some advice and whether or not you're a workaholic like I was, balance is a necessity because it actually really fuels your creativity and your productivity. I know working longer hours makes you feel more productive, but actually having that quiet time and good work-life balance really is important. I've learned over the years how to set boundaries, it was not easy for me, and prior prioritising my self-care. It really only didn't just enhance my well-being, but made me more effective as a marketer. 

LEONIE: Fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing your insights with us. 

Is there anything else that you would like people to know about? 

JOHNNA: Just how wonderful Article Writers Australia is. If you guys hadn't been such a great partner, I wouldn't have brought you along on my journey in Australia.

You've been a partner for a very long time. So thank you. You're still a partner now. So looking forward to continuing to work with you. Thanks so much, Leonie, for inviting me. 

LEONIE: We're going to put up your Kaleidoscope agency details on the podcast for people who want to contact you.

JOHNNA: Fantastic, fantastic. Kaleidoscopemarketing.au. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Facebook and Instagram, always putting up content marketing hints and tips and tricks. So yeah, please come follow. 

CONTENT WITH HUMANS is produced by Article Writers Australia, a content and copywriting agency located in Sydney.