Trade shows have always been an invaluable platform for businesses to showcase their products, forge new connections, and explore potential partnerships. However, one major drawback that has plagued trade show attendees for years is the outdated and inconsistent methods of capturing leads and lead data. The traditional pen-and-paper approach to converting leads has been a bottleneck in an otherwise dynamic and fast-paced environment. But fear not, as technology has come to the rescue with automated trade show lead capture apps, revolutionizing the way we gather and manage leads. In this blog, we will delve into the benefits of a lead capture app and explore how it can transform your trade show experience.
The Pain Points of Manual Lead Capture
Picture this: You're at a bustling trade show booth, engaging with numerous prospects, answering questions, and exchanging business cards. As the day progresses, you find yourself surrounded by a mountain of business cards, brochures, and handwritten notes, making it challenging to organize and prioritize potential leads. Manual data entry is not only time-consuming but also highly prone to errors, leading to potential missed opportunities and lost revenue. So what is the best method to capture leads?
Lead Capture Solutions Comparison
There are many methods to capture leads at trade shows. So how do you know which lead capture tool is right for you? Well if you're looking to do lead collection and avoid manual entry of lead data after a show, an intelligent lead capture app like iCapture is the way to go! See a full comparison of lead capture tools in our Trade Show Lead Capture Shopping Guide.
Enter the Automated Trade Show Lead Capture App
An automated trade show lead capture app provides your sales professionals with an elegant solution to the challenges of manual lead collection and entry. These user-friendly lead capture applications leverage the power of modern technology, such as smartphones and tablets, to streamline the lead capture process. They allow your team to capture and qualify leads instantly. Every rep in your booth that has a smart phone, has a lead capture tool in their pocket. Here's how they work:
Instant Lead Data Collection
With a trade show lead capture app, all you need to do is scan the prospect's badge or business card using your device's camera. The app instantly captures all the relevant contact information, puts them through a lead scoring process that your team puts in place, and then send them to your CRM and/or marketing automation platform for immediate follow-up.
Real-time Lead Scoring:
Say goodbye to post-trade show chaos! The lead capture app categorizes and organizes leads in real-time, allowing you to prioritize and follow up with the most promising prospects immediately. The leads are sorted based on the lead capture forms and your teams criteria of who would be a "hot" lead, and who will go into a marketing nurture campaign.
Customizable Qualification Criteria:
Each business has unique lead qualification criteria. A lead capture app enables you to set custom qualifiers, ensuring that only relevant and high-potential leads are captured. This is a sure way to know that qualified leads are being captured.
Seamless Integration:
A good trade show lead capture app seamlessly integrates with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, such as Salesforce and HubSpot, eliminating the need for manual data transfer. This ensures that your sales and marketing teams have access to accurate and up-to-date information at all times.
Data Security and Compliance:
Worried about data security? A leading trade show lead capture apps often come equipped with encryption and robust security measures, ensuring that sensitive lead information remains protected. Additionally, they comply with data privacy regulations like GDPR, safeguarding both your prospects' data and your company's reputation. iCapture takes security very seriously which is why we achieved SOC 2 Type 2 Compliance.
The Benefits of Automated Lead Capture
Time and Cost Efficiency:
By eliminating manual data entry, your team can focus on more critical tasks, such as engaging prospects and closing deals. By using an integrated lead capture app, you eliminate manual entry post-event, ensuring that you are the first company to follow-up with those potential customers. The reduced administrative burden translates into significant cost savings and increased productivity.
Enhanced Lead Quality:
With a customizable form, qualifiers and real-time lead management, your sales team can concentrate their efforts on leads with the highest potential. By collecting more qualified leads, your sales team will have increased motivation to follow up with those potential customers.
Faster Follow-ups:
Prompt follow-ups are crucial in converting trade show leads into customers. With automated lead capture apps, you can instantly reach out to prospects while their interest is still high, leading to higher conversion rates.
Insights and Analytics:
When you lead capture solution consists of physical business cards and CSV files, it can be hard to gain insight into the success of events. A lead capture app often comes with real time analytics features that provide valuable insights into lead behavior and event performance. Analyzing this data can help refine future trade show strategies and optimize marketing efforts.
Seamless Integration:
The integration with CRM and marketing software ensures a smooth handover of leads to your sales and marketing teams, fostering collaboration and reducing the chance of leads falling through the cracks.
How does this apply to trade shows and events?
For anyone that is responsible for trade show lead capture, it’s easy to pinpoint those areas of your job that are incredibly time-consuming. Manually entering leads from hundreds of trade shows probably tops the list, whether it be formatting and uploading a CSV file or inputting data to convert leads one by one into your CRM system. This is where automation becomes your best friend. Through a mobile lead capture software solution like iCapture, you will never need to manually input a lead into your CRM system again. Yes, you read that right. No more manual entry ever again. Instead, you can spend your time on your many other, and likely higher-value, projects.
How does it work? Instead of using rented lead scanners that vary from event to event or collecting business cards and hope they all make it back to the office, iCapture allows you to use your smartphone or tablet to scan badges and business cards using a lead capture app. Those scans instantly process and sync more leads to your integrated CRM system, bypassing the tiresome part of manually entering each lead. Not only is your life better, but sales and marketing can go straight to work post-show and follow-up with leads.
How does it really work?
In most cases, iCapture uses API requests to send data to your CRM or Marketing Automation Platform, including Marketo, Salesforce, Eloqua, Pardot, Hubspot, to name a few. When the initial integration of lead data is created, we receive an access token and a refresh token (depending on the system). These are used to authenticate into your marketing automation CRM system.
Since we are using the API requests, there is nothing to install or configure within your CRM instance.
We understand that every company’s workflow and sales funnel is different. Our team of specialists works with your marketing and sales teams to ensure compatibility and consistency depending on your tech stack and trade show process. During the launch process our Client Success Team partners with you to ensure the data flows into your system as it applies to your workflows. Each launch plan is customized specifically to meet your team’s needs and processes.
This automation not only creates efficiencies, but it also provides sales and marketing teams with a consistent solution for trade show and event lead capture. With this consistency, companies are able to gain a better understanding of the quality of leads captured at each event and take a more strategic approach to their trade show lead processes.
Conclusion
In the fast-paced world of trade shows, manual lead entry is a relic of the past. An automated trade show lead capture platform or app empowers businesses to efficiently collect leads, manage, and nurture leads, transforming trade show experiences into a productive and seamless process. By embracing this technology, your business can stay ahead of the competition, maximize lead conversion, and unlock the true potential of every trade show you attend. So, why wait? Embrace automation and elevate your trade show game to new heights.
Learn more about how iCapture's intelligent lead capture app can save you time and money, while maximizing your results from trade shows.
