The Buzz Effect: Jeremy Butler Grasshopper.com

Jeremy Butler is the Director of Marketing at Grasshopper Group. In that role he is responsible for anything from UX design and development to “buzz”, search marketing, social and new product launches. Jeremy especially enjoys A/B and MVT testing as it allows him to understand user behavior and optimize marketing efforts accordingly. He is extremely passionate about our newest product Spreadable, so if you want to talk about anything marketing, WOM or referral related get at him on Twitter @jeremyrbutler.

Mike: Your service, a virtual phone system designed for entrepreneurs, is packed with useful features. I can see this being very beneficial to small and medium businesses as well as single person operations. What kind of feedback do you hear from your clients?

Jeremy: There is tons of positive feedback, but what I love to hear the most is when entrepreneurs express that Grasshopper allows them to stay connected to their business. We understand entrepreneurs have hectic, non structured lifestyles so to allow them to sound more professional and always be connected to their business…that is powerful.

Mike: How did you decide to name the company Grasshopper and the website Grasshopper.com?

Jeremy: For starters, its easy to spell! Which you may laugh, but is very important. With our old brand “GotVMail”, we would have to spend nearly half of a 30-second radio spot spelling out our domain name. So wasteful, we learned our lesson second time around! We also needed to make sure the name (the brand term) wasn’t heavily saturated in the marketplace…in this case the only other real company named Grasshopper was a lawn mower company. Lastly, grasshoppers have an uncanny ability to take large leaps, do really well for their size, and are always on the move – just like entrepreneurs

Mike: What process did you go through to acquire the name Grasshopper.com? Are you willing to share what you paid for the domain name?

Jeremy: Unfortunately I can’t share what we paid, but it was more than $25,000 and less than $500,000! In terms of actually acquiring the domain name, we speak very highly of Sedo.com, and would definitely recommend using a domain broker for this type of purchase.

Mike: While Grasshopper is a generic term, I understand it is not highly saturated in the market place. How have you leveraged this advantage?

Jeremy: When we transitioned from GotVMail to Grasshopper we knew it would be a challenge to have such a generic term as our company name but we were actually pretty fortunate. The only other “Grasshopper” brands out there were a mower company and local vegan restaurant. Plus, with all the great press we got during the re-brand campaign (both online & television) and our marketing team making sure we were everywhere we could be (Social networks, Google, etc), it made it pretty easy to take over as “Grasshopper”.