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The pitch
In my effort to reach out into corners of the technology space that may appear dark or unreachable to real estate agents, I was referred to the oddly named but sleekly designed sales and marketing software called Hatchbuck.
If Marketo is a “heavy wrench,” then the Web-based Hatchbuck is the versatile multitool for marketing automation carried around in your front pocket.
The sale
Every marketing effort, and thus successful sale, started with “a contact.” Naturally, if you can’t mine them, you can’t process them into a usable commodity.
So Hatchbuck does that by fusing with a multitude of common contact sources such as LinkedIn and Outlook. If you’re an Excel person, please stop reading.
I’m kidding.
You can import Excel contact lists, too. Actually, since Hatchbuck is targeted at small-business owners, they seem acutely aware of the fact that countless business leaders still depend on Excel to manage information. (I should just be quiet about Excel.)
Hatchbuck lets you collect a number of new contacts, as well, via its simple HTML form builders that can be embedded on your website or linked to from the email campaigns it helps you send.
In my piece on Marketo, I rambled on about the importance of segmentation in marketing. Sorry to strip the head on this nut, but it’s that important. The real estate agency that perfects what messages go to what prospects is the one that will win more listings.
Hatchbuck takes the segmentation effort almost completely out of your hands, demonstrating not only a solid example of automation but of marketing know-how. The software automatically sends “List A” content that’s related to List A. The same for List B. You get the idea.
Thus, if you have a list of people interested in single-family rentals, they’ll receive dripped content about being a landlord and how to set market rents. Or why they should hire a property manager. The folks behind Hatchbuck deem this “personalized automation.”
The emails you can build are easy to do and include everything you can do with any other email marketing solution. You can build a number of templates.
Like Realvolve, Hatchbuck lets you “tag” prospects according to interest, viability, ZIP code, what have you. I like this a lot because it enables users to interact on their own terms. The success of a software solution depends heavily on how employees not involved in the decision choose to embrace it.
As many of us know, in software training scenarios, nomenclature can be a hindrance to effective adoption. Tags can improve engagement, assist in prospect tracking, and, ultimately, better your return on the technology investment.
Hatchbuck does more than email market, though. You can keep real-time tabs on the veracity of your prospects. Those that are better will be scored higher and made more prominent. You can produce reports to track revenue, daily interactions and email effectiveness.
I should add that Hatchbuck looks great, too. If you haven’t noticed yet, I will always upvote technology solutions with compelling, user-friendly interfaces. I believe it to be a critical component of effectiveness and programmer concern for the solution.
The close
There are always a few features and nice touches I can’t fully cover. However, Hatchbuck’s unique small-to-medium business model is appealing, and so is its start-to-finish email integration model.
This is a much more reasonable solution for real estate agent teams. The highest-priced version is only $299 per month for unlimited users and 25,000 contacts. I find that to be the best option, especially on a month-to-month agreement.
If you’re interested in streamlining marketing efforts or, at the very least, looking for a way to control your message, give Hatchbuck a serious look.
Do you use Hatchbuck? What do you think? Leave a comment and let us know!
Do you have a product for our tech expert to review? Email Craig Rowe.
