Written by Sofia Troutman.
For many exhibitors, mobile apps are rapidly replacing rented badge scanners as the preferred means of capturing leads on the trade show floor. These apps put customer data instantly in your hands, rather than having to wait to have information routed to you days later. The ability to reply to leads quickly and to automatically integrate the information with your CRM makes these apps an efficient option for busy trade show managers.
Below are a handful of apps we’ve cherry-picked as being especially useful to event staff. We’ve specifically limited our list to those that integrate with at least one of the popular CRMs, and to those that are available for both iOS and Android devices:
iCapture is somewhat unique in that when you use it to scan a badge, the capture is automatically transcribed and verified by actual people, to ensure the highest level of accuracy. The verified data can then be integrated with a variety of popular email providers such as Constant Contact and Mailchimp, as well as with popular CRM such as Salesforce, HubSpot & Marketo. Any data captured offline is securely stored on your device until an internet connection is re-established.
atEvent is specifically designed for trade shows and related events. It allows managers to monitor the productivity of their sales team during events with its employee tracking tool, which provides a leaderboard of which salespeople are generating and interacting with the most leads. To help marketing teams capture insights during events, atEvent provides tools such as customizable fields for data integration with marketing or CRM systems, real-time synchronization, campaign workflows, and reports on metrics such as cost-per-lead, productivity, follow-up actions, and more to assess event success. Event planners can also benefit from atEvent by providing booth staff with the tools to track attendees and scan badges, and generate reports on event trends and ROI.
momencio is more than a badge scanner; it provides context around a scanned badge and potential lead, and allows trade show staff to start facilitating a relationship with that attendee. Users can scan attendees’ badges or business cards to register leads, or search for contacts in pre-existing customer lists. Digital marketing materials can be stored in momencio, giving users immediate access to marketing collateral whenever they are interacting with leads. Tradeshow attendees are automatically emailed by momencio after presentations, with emails containing a link to a personalized microsite. The dashboards in momencio’s event portal provide insights into unique booth attendees, repeat attendees, leads acquired, lead qualification insights, brand assets requested, follow-up emails sent and opened, landing page visits, and more. Users can set sales and lead acquisition goals before events, then track performance for individual salespeople or the entire company, and measure event spend against benchmarks. momencio integrates seamlessly with major CRMs.
Eventdex is specifically designed for people who organize trade shows, conferences and expos. Key features include online registration, event ticketing, attendee management, mobile-check-in, lead scanning, business matchmaking and networking, as well as customized analytics dashboards and reports. Eventdex provides a user-friendly platform to create and design event registration pages with online payment collection and automated post-registration emails to attendees for confirmations, invoices, orders and badges. Using the badge tool, users can design unique badges with QR codes or barcodes for scanning. Exhibitors can use a socket scanner or their phone’s camera to scan the attendee’s badges for leads, and follow up with them later. Users can rate their leads on the spot, take notes on prospects, and access them offline via their mobile device. Eventdex integrates with Zapier and Salesforce, as well as multiple payment gateways including Stripe, PayPal, and Authorize.net.
QuickTapSurvey allows for fast lead capture via the use of custom survey questions. It allows you to build branded mobile forms and surveys that include your logo, brand colors, etc. Once the survey is submitted, you can quickly identify quality leads versus dead ends. Each response is automatically tallied to create an overall score for each lead. You can export the leads instantly to Mailchimp, Salesforce or via APIs, and can even use the app offline.
Many of the mobile lead capture apps are available only via monthly subscription, so they may not be the most viable option for infrequent exhibitors. As will all software, some packages are better for the small business, while others are specifically designed for organizations with large sales teams. But by doing your homework and finding the app that works best for your needs, you might just be able to say goodbye to badge scanner rental fees.
About the Author
Sofia heads up Skyline’s marketing efforts in digital marketing and product innovation. Sofia is an experienced marketing professional with branding, innovation and product commercialization expertise.
