HubSpot's Inbound Internet Marketing Blog

Ann Handley Spills the Secret to Inbound Marketing: Listening

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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." 

Here are links to some of the sites Ann mentioned during our talk:

Chris Penn's Financial Aid Podcast 

Proctor & Gamble's Home Made Simple 

Ann's Punk'd blog post. 

If you're looking for more from Ann, check out her personal blog, Annarchy and follow her on Twitter.

Posted by Rick Burnes on Mon, Nov 24, 2008 @ 05:26 PM