Last week HubSpot had the pleasure of a visit from Ann Handley, one of the creative geniuses behind Marketing Profs . During Ann's tenure, Marketing Profs has become one of the biggest, most respected sources of online marketing content.
Before meeting more of our team here at HubSpot, I sat down with Ann to record an interview for the HubSpot blog. The full video is below, but here are a few highlights:
Why Marketers Should Be Producing Content
"You can't really be interrupting people any more. You can't just buy an ad in a magazine and say people are going to pay attention to me. People don't want to hear about you and your product as much as they want to hear about themselves. The best way to do that is through content -- giving your customers or your audience content that will help them solve their problems."
Create Useful Content, Not Sales Brochures
"Create content that speaks to [customers] about their problem, and position yourself as somebody who does have a solution to it, but is not coming right out and saying it."
Inbound Marketing Blog Feed
Willy Lim - Net Profit Marketing 1:27 PM on November 25, 2008
This is a great video!
People are not looking for products, rather they are looking for solutions to their problems.
Jennifer Barthe 4:04 PM on November 25, 2008
Great video. I agree that we should talk with customers as opposed to talking at them. Keep up the great content. I love this blog :)
David Patterson 11:33 PM on November 25, 2008
Some serious buzz in the background of this video.... next time use a better microphone if you can.
Ann Handley is spot on. People don't want pushy sales tactics and anything that is not relevant to them. That's why banner ads typically are not even seen by the majority of customers.
We've seen so many mortgage banner ads that you tend to tune them out. The new Start Trek movie banner ads I''ve seen on blogs are much better at grabbing your attention. This works for universal concepts like blockbuster movies but needs to be much more targeted for niche markets.
Lisa Gibbs 11:05 PM on November 26, 2008
Awesome Video! Thanks!
Eric Hoffman 3:35 PM on December 02, 2008
I love that this is a video of a conversation which is all about having constructive and positive conversations - practice what you preach. Nicely done!
PS The audio buzz was a bit distracting.