Why audience-first content beats cranking out specs and features with John Henkel

John Henkel00:02 — stop, right? Take a second and stop just cranking stuff out.

Ben Ard00:30 — Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by John. John, welcome to the show.

John Henkel00:35 — Hi Ben, thanks for having me. Happy to be here.

Ben Ard00:37 — Yeah, John, I'm excited. This is going to be a fun conversation. Even getting to know you for a few minutes before we clicked record. I'm excited. You've got great insights, great work history. This is going to be a ton of fun. But for the audience to get to know you a little bit, if you don't mind sharing your background and all that fun stuff, we'd love to hear it.

John Henkel00:55 — I'd love to. And you know, I've got a long background. I'll give you the abridged little bit here. I probably am not a studied marketer, as most of your guests may be, but I started in broadcast television, working with all the equipment. I love operating all the audio mixers and cameras and post-production gear. I was a video editor for about 15 years making commercials and some longer form content. And then got into product management and marketing early because I went to work for the manufacturers of that gear. So I'm like, hey, you could make this stuff better.

You could have your manuals be better. So I'd got some tech writing work in there and some, that's where I learned product management, how to write a nice PRD for products and things like that. And then learn marketing along the way, of course, as well. So I'm just learned really from the user side of the equation. And then once I made that switch from editing to working for the manufacturers, I stayed in product management, product marketing over the years, a number of different AV companies.

And then when Netgear came focusing on the AV market, they're looking for somebody who knows that and knew that they were IT people and it's their different planets. So I started with them with Netgear about six and a half years ago now. Was heading up product marketing for our, Netgear has a big consumer division, of course, everybody knows Netgear, but they have a strong business division. And I was heading up marketing, product marketing for that. And now focusing really on just the AV segment of that.

Ben Ard02:14 — I love it. That's amazing. Such a cool opportunity to see how people find their way into marketing. It's a cool space. It's so fun. I love being in the space and hearing everyone's different backgrounds and perspectives and really everything they've learned along the way and what they bring to the table. Such a cool opportunity. I'm so excited for this episode. John, what we're going to talk about today, we were emailing back and forth before we recorded and we're talking about remembering the audience and the purpose.

And right when we were emailing, this is something that stood off the page. I said, I'm really excited about this. This is something that matters for everyone. So to kick things off, where do you see content drift away from the audience and the purpose most often? Like, where are you seeing this fall apart?

John Henkel02:56 — You know, great question. And I've been harping on this for years and I learned this from a manager many, many years ago. It's always in there. So it's great to be able to talk about this, Ben. I think when people, in the product company, it's going to be different for different types of services and products I sell. But for a product company, when we talk about specs and features, number one, that can help in some situations. But I think that the narrative.

for sure, and it depends on what part of the funnel. All this stuff is dependent. There's always caveats to all this stuff. But I think really when you don't realize what the problem is you're trying to solve, and you're just looking at the product only. Like engineering companies suffer from this a lot, and I've worked for several of those. Several companies, and you mentioned some startups you've worked for as well, where you're coming to market, and that's usually from an engineering standpoint. The engineers come into play now. Well, now the market has got to go. We've got to turn that story around and not make it about the product.

What the problem is that you're actually solving. And that's where you start seeing it come apart.

Ben Ard03:52 — Very interesting. So when you actually have this working, you've got a really solid piece of content that has a clear job and a defined audience. What does that actually look like in reality? Walk us through that.

John Henkel04:06 — Yeah, I mean, we talk about all these things all the time, CTAs and audience and personas and things like that. But when they all kind of gel together, when they sync up like that, you kind of understand that people are resonating with this piece of content. Again, it varies depending on the piece of content, a webinar, a white paper download, things like that. It's going to be a little bit different for each one of those. But I think in general, when people really just start asking for it and they start realizing this is something that I need,

In our case, we sell through resellers. We don't sell direct. So when our distributors and managed service providers, MSPs, they're called, and IT and some AV world integrators start asking for this stuff, then you know it's really resonating and it's really working. I'm not really analytics driven, but of course you have to look at analytics and see what's being downloaded, what's being looked at. And that's all. It just kind of comes together. I hate to be that kind of nebulous, but...

It's a feeling that you can see people are reaching out for this content. They're asking you about it and they want to find out how to get more. That's when you can find out it's working.

Ben Ard05:04 — I love that wanting to find more. They're actively reaching out. They're craving it. And when someone craves and finds something they love, they're naturally going to want more of it. They're going to want to be able to connect and do more. So I think that's super cool. Now, John, for most companies, most people listening, they think that their audience first, like we all deep down inside say, yeah, we're audience first. We care about our audience. That's the most important thing.

What are maybe some subtle signs that a team can realize and might be able to notice? Like there may be not as audience versus they once realized or thought they were.

John Henkel05:40 — Well, I think, and we just had some discussions internally with another team at Netgear about some of us making sure we're on point for all these types of content. So interesting timing, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. And these days, everybody's using some AI tools, including us, of course. And I think that's where it can kind of break down because, and also I'm kind of looking at my background and I think the value I provided is I was the user. And you've got to get people like that on board.

Because if you just rely on AI, of course, we know you have to edit that content always because number one, they lie. But they also just don't quite get it sometimes. It's going to be really hard to pick up those subtle differences in what a user really is like using your product or services as to what you think they are like. So using real people, like we go to trade shows a fair amount, and you talk to people. And you say,

how are you using our product, what's your use case, things like that. And you'll get honest feedback right then versus relying on what you think you know. Oh, it's a certain persona of a person, great. And what AI tells me or what our research group has told me, great. But are you sure that's right? You're going to validate all that work. So not just do the research, but validating that, I think, is one of the ways.

Ben Ard06:54 — I love that. So the process here, we're going through it and we're saying, okay, we know the audience. Hopefully individuals who are in the business have actually been that audience before. If not, we're going in and picking people's brains. Have a clear purpose. We're really doing all of this. Like you said, you do need to kind of test some of this though. How do you pressure test once you have everything kind of squared away, you feel like you know the audience, you feel like you know the purpose.

before you ship it, before you send it out, how do you kind of pressure test to make sure that you've hit the mark?

John Henkel07:25 — Well, a couple of ways, Ben, and I think use your sales team for sure, whether you have salespeople on staff, we have a fair amount, but again, we rely on distributors. So you use them to kind of bounce ideas off of, because I'm sitting in my office, a home office or an actual office, and I don't maybe get out enough. I think that's a problem too, that marketers, product marketers specifically don't get out enough to understand how the products are being used. But use your sales team because they're the ones who are in front of the customer presenting what you're giving them. Like, is this what you need?

Because it's the last thing, I've used this for years too, I don't want to just create stuff that you don't need or use as a salesperson. Yes, I love creating marketing materials, no question. It's some of the fun we do. But if you don't use it, then it's not worth it at all. So you've got to pressure testing that with your own sales team first. And then integrators, if you use that kind of distribution model, get it in front of some of them that you know and love. So you've got to build those relationships with.

your internal teams, but also some external partners that you can go out and find out if this is really resonating or not.

Ben Ard08:22 — Now are you sending them the content before you like widely distribute it to say, Hey, is this something you would want? Yes or no, or is this after the fact, just collecting data?

John Henkel08:32 — No, before the fact for sure. You know, I have a, we have a weekly meeting of the North American AV sales team and there's one for Europe and APAC as well. So you got to meet with the sales team first of all, and just hear what they're talking about. What are their concerns every week and what are the shortcomings? But that's a good place to then go, Hey, I'm going to send you this, please respond and give them a date. Give them a date by next Friday or whatever, and hold them to that to respond back and really get that feedback for third party.

You know, people forget you can just pick up the darn phone and call them, right? Call somebody sometime, the integrators or whoever that you have a relationship with and say, Hey, do you have 10 minutes? Can I run this idea by you? Whatever. They love that. People love being included. And then if you send something out and it's not right, they're not going to just toss it away and go, Oh no, they are invested in that. Right. They own some of that content then. And that's an easy way to get them involved and also get honest feedback then too.

Ben Ard09:24 — Now, one thing that's always interesting, I'm going to throw you kind of a curve ball question here, because I'm intrigued. A lot of times when we work with people and ask for feedback, we get the generic, sure, it looks great, whatever kind of an idea, but when we really want critical, beneficial, helpful feedback, often there's a process to get that done, to get people comfortable actually providing that. What have you done both with your internal sales team and those third party vendors, those resellers and groups you work with?

What have you done to kind of really build up that trust that it's okay to give the honest feedback that you're looking for?

John Henkel09:58 — I think that that starts, Ben, from you giving honest feedback as well and being open and not dismissive.

It's really easy to think, you know, marketing and it's a salesperson. Let's say they don't know what I'm doing. And sure, they don't know the depth of what marketing does, but they know marketing just like, you know, sales a little bit too on the product marketing side. You know, at the trade show, I'm selling even though I'm not a salesperson. I'm always kind of quick to say, Hey, I'm just a marketing guy. I'm not the salesperson or I'm not the engineer. That's different. But

But I think establishing that trust, you need to break down the barriers yourself, first of all, and say, look, I need your honest feedback. I know you're out there and cater to them and understand, let them know you understand what they're going through so that you can help them in their journey with trying to sell your products and services. And then they should be able to provide that honest feedback. I know that they're busy. Like I know our sales team is on the road a lot. So that's the tricky part. But again,

calling them, finding a time, scheduling a time and just review it with them live. Cause if you send an email and saying I need it by next Friday, half of the people or so are not gonna even just do that. So if you're able to maybe schedule a quick meeting, a quick teams meeting, whatever, and get with them for 10 minutes, that may be enough.

Ben Ard11:08 — I love that. That's cool. I love those strategies. I'm, you know, put yourself in the position of the audience listening to this episode. You're sitting there saying, yeah, I need to have a little bit more audience first content. I need to really figure out the purpose. I need to pressure test. I need to do these things. What can they do today or tomorrow or next week or in the very near future?

to actually start moving in this direction and making improvements here.

John Henkel11:35 — Great question, of course, Ben. First of all, and I've been reading more about this, I think, in general on LinkedIn and other places,

stop, right? Take a second and stop just cranking stuff out. And I say this and knowing people above me are wanting me to crank stuff out. But you have to stop and kind of look and see what we have.

And internally, I know at Netgear, we're taking this on right now. We're looking at all the content across the business divisions and seeing what do we have? Is it?

Is it focusing on the right end user, not just persona, but really the user and type of person they are, what they do for a living, the decision-making process, which I guess that's all of persona actually. But is it what we are trying to do as a team? Is that correct? Is it what's needed? But look, analyze all your content, and it can be done a couple different ways. Just make a list. Make a spreadsheet of all listed content and a couple of columns of

who the audience is, of course, and purpose, or what's the desired action. That's kind of simple. But take a moment and step back and look at everything. I think that's the key. And then start seeing what you can do with your team, how big you are. Maybe you have enough, you can have a whole plan for the next six months and articulate that. Awesome. But get the plan down, figure out where you are, get the plan down, because that's the hardest part. I know that you're buried deep. I am. I feel this all the time. And I should say,

I'm saying all these things, not that I do all these either, right? But this is what we should do. I think that's the key is just assessing where you are and then where you want to go.

Ben Ard13:02 — I love that. And I'm a big proponent of being honest about where you're currently at. There's no way to improve unless you're honest with where you're at. Now, one final question, and we're getting out of time, so this will probably be the last question for today. When you're looking at the content, say you just put it in the spreadsheet and you have all these other columns about the persona, the audience, et cetera, where does the buyer's journey stage come into the process? Is that something you're paying a role or that plays a role?

Is it something you focus on or is that kind of all rolled up into the audience and things like that?

John Henkel13:32 — Yeah, I mean, totally honestly, because that's the kind of person I am. I haven't always been focused on where in the buyer's journey we are. And that's not being a, perhaps a studied or degree marketing person. But I can kind of sense from the sales team and sales in general, you know, are we doing well? Are we not doing well? What about this vertical, that vertical? Like we're taking on more of a broadcast AV world these days. And I know that our name is known for consumer side, but not for business side.

So I know that we need less about awareness. We need some awareness, but also credibility. We've got to build that. So that's going to affect what kind of content we do. Whereas in the commercial AV for conference rooms and things like that, we're more well known. So we've done the awareness, and now it's more about the breadth of products that we have and things like that people may not be aware of. So I think those are all sort of the key elements that we start with.

Ben Ard14:21 — I like that. It's almost like getting to the why behind the buyer's journey stage to say, what is the purpose of that journey? Okay, we need to go address those things. That makes perfect sense. John, this has been incredible.

John Henkel14:32 — Yeah, there's the funnel. Everybody talks about

the funnel and that's all part of it. But it really is. If you have a big enough team to be able to hit each of those levels, great. Otherwise, you just got to kind of pick one and go with that for sure.

Ben Ard14:44 — 100% love that. John, this has been incredible. Thank you so much for the time and insights. I love your approach to content. I love how you focus on the audience with purpose. I love this process. I love how you pressure test it. All of it is so impactful, so cool. It's the right way of doing content. I absolutely love it for anyone who's listening and wants to reach out and connect with you online. How and where can they find you?

John Henkel15:07 — LinkedIn is going to be the easiest place. You can find me on there. You got the name spelled right, and that's all you need to know.

Ben Ard15:13 — Love it. For everyone listening, will link to John's profile directly in the show notes. Doesn't matter what platform you're on, scroll down, click in the notes and you'll be able to find it. John, this is amazing. Again, thank you so much for the time and insights today.

John Henkel15:25 — Appreciate it as well, Ben. It's been a real pleasure to come here and talk about our favorite topic, content.

Ben Ard15:30 — Love it.