- Texting is becoming the default form of business communication.
- Confusing personal and business texts can lead to trouble. Heymarket tactfully separates the two and increases customer engagement.
- The app is currently available for iOS, while an Android app is available for beta-testing and a desktop version is also being developed.
Have suggestions for products that you’d like to see reviewed by our real estate technology expert? Email Craig Rowe.
Heymarket is text-based communications app for sales and marketing professionals.
Platform(s): iOS
Ideal for: Agents and small teams comfortable with mobile communications and tech-savvy clients
Top selling points
- Easy to learn
- Assembles images into linked web page
- Intuitive calendar integration
Top concerns
- May replicate mobile features on existing agent CRMs
- Agents not comfortable with texting and mobile tech may not adopt
What you should know
Heymarket lets mobile-savvy real estate agents send custom broadcast text messages to lists of contacts.
Using a connection to Gmail or an iPhone contact list, users can segment their buyers and quickly distribute a message advertising listings that may match their needs.
To make it easier to learn and use, Heymarket was designed to mimic user interfaces common to the iPhone (and eventually Android phones).
It also has a series of text templates so messages can be populated and sent in seconds.
Links and images can be included and when multiple pictures of a house are wanting to be sent, Heymarket automatically builds a custom image galley and instead sends a link to the page.
Recipients don’t realize they are on a group text because Heymarket uses only their name in the “To” field and in the text itself.
Responses come only to the sender, and your contacts don’t need the app for it to be used.
It’s also easy to add team members into a text. When a new person enters a chat, they can only see messages from the time at which they joined.
Heymarket also uses the common swipe left/right command to set reminders, archive a message or chat.
The app has a basic metrics dashboard where users can see who’s opened a message and viewed pictures.
Your contacts don’t need the app for it to be used.
Assuming a chat leads to a showing, Heymarket links to calendars as well.
Sample appointment times are sent to recipients as links that when tapped will confirm the showing within each person’s calendar.
Should that showing result in an offer and eventually a closing, entire chats can be emailed as .txt files for archiving in an existing CRM or office transaction management tool.
Heymarket fits into what I see as a growing category of sales efficiency apps. I include tools like Avenue, AgentPair and ListReports in this vertical.
For example, Heymarket is not a wholesale enterprise system for 100-agent offices; rather, it’s a nimble, highly-specific tool for fast-moving agents who can juggle the transaction expediency today’s mobile buyer is demanding.
These are the apps that make up the SEAL strike force to our larger military enterprise. It’s a competition to balance simplicity and effectiveness.
There are alternative uses for Heymarket. I was told one customer uses it broadcast listings to agent contacts. Sounds like a cool thing to put into a listing presentation, no?
The Android app is available for beta-testing and a desktop version is also being developed.
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe.
