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Happy Grasshopper is an email marketing solution for the real estate industry.
Platforms: Browser
Ideal for: Agents, teams and brokers
Top selling points:
- Recruiting programs
- Well-written custom content
- Relationship focused
- Strategic email sequences
Top concern
This is a stand-alone solution that can work with multiple lead sources and CRMs, but may have trouble in some brokerages supplanting existing email efforts that come with larger systems.
What you should know
Happy Grasshopper is all about email, which means that the people behind it carefully study how people react to email. This is messaging software that goes beyond the fundamental metrics of open rates and click-throughs to determine what resonates with recipients and how that content leads to stronger relationships. To summarize, the sales philosophy is embedded, this isn’t email for the sake of email.
I recognize in Happy Grasshopper my very own standards for writing effective emails.
When I was heading up marketing for a commercial real estate firm, which often relied on earning the attention of a single, C-level executive in a big company, my team and I would spend hours thinking about words, the order of arguments, subject line content and delivery times for a single, 10-line message. It always paid off.
The Happy Grasshopper experience can be largely automated, but all the opportunities for input, personal editing and strategic involvement are there, which starts with what the company calls its Success Coach program.
There’s an initial call with customers to go over goals and business approach, and to chat with the copywriting team — all of which are full-time in-house staff. Ultimately, this is for agents to become familiar with what Happy Grasshopper is all about, from the software out.
The dashboard can be completely white-labeled for brokerages and teams if they want, an increasingly common software feature I think always helps with adoption. These screens offer looks into messages that are being prepared for sending, notes on upcoming client milestones, and the array of other outreach messages you can use, like ringless voicemails, texting and even postcards.
Voicemails can be recorded in a couple of clicks using provided scripts. And don’t worry if you mess up, just delete and start over. When it’s tight, send it off.
There’s a cool integration with Revaluate for scoring listing lead value. If you’re not familiar, Revaluate has a system for analyzing when someone may sell by putting social and public data to work.
The Chirp program is a year-long effort that pulses emails, texts and voice drops to relevant contacts, but not necessarily active leads. It can be up and running soon after your database is uploaded. This is key stuff, as not every email you send has to result in a sale, but it should show that you’re active and synced with the market.
Happy Grasshopper’s blending of strategy and execution could work in multiple business scenarios. After all, it’s a really terrific sales tool. Brokers then, should look to it as a recruiting advantage, because isn’t that sales, too? I would love to see this company partner with Echovate in this arena.
The Happy Grasshopper Academy is built in training mechanism that shoots out new material every couple of weeks. This could be a nice bit of programming in lieu of weekly sales meetings, or in addition to them.
Agents who work with this company will find that what they teach you is almost more valuable than how they execute on their promise. They understand sales, and how to engage curiosity without satiating it. In other words, they give the recipient something of value, and promise more is on the way.
I guess I’m saying that once I understood what Happy Grasshopper offers, the less concerned I became about the software, or physical user experience, which is very good, by the way. The value in working with Happy Grasshopper will come from learning why email marketing, when done right, is so effective.
But hey, go learn for yourself.
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe
Craig C. Rowe started in commercial real estate at the dawn of the dot-com boom, helping an array of commercial real estate companies fortify their online presence and analyze internal software decisions. He now helps agents with technology decisions and marketing through reviewing software and tech for Inman.
