Content Marketing: The Knowledge Hoarder

I had a prospect once in a specialized niche. His main competitor was very active in content marketing and social media.

The competitor was not “brand new,” but relatively new in the niche and….was eating my prospect’s lunch.

I explained how, where, when, and why the competitor was able to do this, and effective counter measures.

My prospect had more experience, knowledge and expertise. He could not BELIEVE these jerks were sharing all this “INSIDE” stuff with people, and THEY were listening to him.

I told him nobody is asking him to release the secret sauce, but he had to become part of the conversation on the web and in the social media. Otherwise, the JERKS as he called them were the only business from the niche “where the people are.”

Sadly, I couldn’t convince him to share ANY free information with prospects and customers. No usage tips, no “recipes,” no case studies, no “behind the scenes,” no “up close and personal,” no video, no blog posts, no white papers, ebooks, infographics, no company history, no staff interviews, no pictures of company events, no client interviews, no on site demos–all stuff those JERKS were doing and killing his business.

He just could not share anything without feeling like someone should pay for every morsel of information. I don’t think he will go out of business completely. But the firm will be a former shell of itself in 2 years.

P.S. I would normally avoid a prospect like this–was trying to help him as a favor to a client. Good qualifying questions will weed them out of your prospect list. It also shows how you can go into any niche and take over with effective marketing.