In this piece of content, you will earn what a prospector is and why it has to do anything with you.
Aggressiveness can be in terms of the risk taken, financial leverage, speed of decision making or the type of product changes and marketing strategies.
Based on the degree of hostility, strategies can be classified as Prospector, analyzer, Defender and reactor, of which the prospector strategy is the most defensive of the lot.
Let’s understand what is a prospector now:
It is usually embraced early in the life cycle of a product or the growth stage of technology or when there are few competitors in the market.
Prospector strategy involves new product development, expansion into new market opportunities, and increased market share through offensive and aggressive marketing warfare strategies.
Most entrepreneurial firms start as prospectors and work in domains where the technology and customer segments are not well established.
The risks include high leverage, chances of product failure and rejection of products by consumers and considerable capital investment in product development and marketing.
Price skimming is a common strategy adopted where the products are priced relatively higher and gradually drop. Significant investments are made in the sales promotion, marketing and advertising of the products.
Now that you know what is a prospector, let’s dive into two critical aspects of the prospector strategy.
The original use of the term "prospector" refers to the efforts of individuals to find gold by visually scanning creek beds and rock formations.
That's what modern-day sales prospectors do – sift through large lists of potential customers to try and uncover those who are interested and ready to buy.
Prospecting is the first step in the sales process, which consists of identifying potential customers, aka prospects.
The goal of prospecting is to develop a database of likely customers and then systematically communicate with them to convert them from potential customers to current customers.
To make contact with sales suspects – buyers who may or may not be potential customers for your business – there are several popular tools and tactics you can use, including:
The primary goal of these marketing efforts is to qualify a recipient as a prospect or someone who may require your business' products or services or not.
Knowing that someone does not anticipate needing your offerings – and is not a prospect - helps you refine your prospect database so you can focus your marketing dollars on those people most likely to turn into customers.
The typical examples of companies that have successfully adopted the prospector strategy include Universal Music, Cathay Pacific, Macquarie Telecom, eBay, Cisco, Acer etc.
Hence, this concludes the definition of Prospectors along with its overview.
Now that you know what prospector is and prospecting, stop reading; flaunt your knowledge in front of your friends.
