17 Opportunity Costs of Not Having a Universal Lead Capture Strategy
It’s easy to look at the price of something and consider it a “cost”. But, is it really an additional cost or should it be considered an investment? Is making an investment something that will either save you money or make you more money? What if the investment could do both? Would it be worthwhile to make the investment?
Universal Lead Capture is a Strategy, not Software
Universal lead capture is often confused as being a software solution; instead, it’s a business strategy. Strategic decisions should be made based on true return on investment along with the overall benefits that any investment would give your company. Universal lead capture puts your business in control of your data and gives you the opportunity to execute your business process in a repeatable fashion, from one trade show to another.
Although, when using a universal lead capture strategy you cannot scan the barcode on a badge without purchasing a developer kit, sometimes referred to as an API or API key. Should this be a deal killer? Should this deter you from implementing a strategy? Is this a cost or an investment?
This shouldn’t affect your strategy at all. The price of a developer kit usually equals the cost of equipping 2-3 team members with the show’s default lead capture. This results in a wash between buying the show’s default lead capture and the developer kit. Of course you’ll save money when attending events that have more than 2-3 staff members vs. purchasing the show’s lead capture for each of them; although, that’s not the right mindset.
A universal lead capture strategy requires a paradigm shift in thinking. We need to shift the conversation from looking at things like the “cost” of a developer kit to an “investment” in doing business strategically. To help you with this shift, consider the opportunity cost of not having a universal lead capture strategy; in other words, the cost of not buying the developer kit. Without a universal lead capture strategy you risk:
17 Opportunity Costs of Not Having a Universal Lead Capture Strategy
- Missing leads without a kiosk capture when booth staff is busy
- Missing leads without a QR code capture option
- Missing leads you connect with outside show floor hours
- Missing leads from manually exporting/importing from the show’s default lead retrieval solution (human error, it can happen)
- Missing leads from not having everyone on your team equipped with lead capture on their phones.
- Missing leads from business cards not finding their way back into your system.
- Missing leads from not being able to create competitions and incentives amongst your booth staff (Captello goals)
- Additional time spent learning a new system every time you exhibit
- Additional time spent training staff every time you exhibit
- Additional time it takes to set up, configure, and digest a different lead capture system every time. How much are you paid per hour, do you work for free? What if the setup could go from hours to minutes and become second hand to you? What’s the price of peace of mind?
- Losing leads because of incomplete follow up information? Using the show’s default lead retrieval is like passing a business card to other people for follow up. It lacks notes, meaning, and quality information.
- Not being able to segment and communicate with your leads as you’re not able to ingest data that’s meaningful to your business on a consistent basis to feed your marketing engine with comprehensive lead qualification information.
- Wasting your sales teams time as they cannot differentiate leads using subjective and objective lead qualification resulting in every lead looking the same.
- Not being able to show your management team a centralized dashboard of trade show leads and make comparisons from event to event?
- Not having the opportunity to scale your lead capture strategy and pull more people into your booth (Captello digital activations)
- Not being able to book meetings right there on the show floor and resort to traditional approaches of chasing leads
- Not being the first responder to new leads while your competition beats you to the punch.
What if you could take control over your lead capture? What if you could own the process? What if you could establish your own process? Wouldn’t that save you time and money? Wouldn’t it make your job easier?
Do you want to be the rockstar or the person setting up the stage for the rockstar?
Assuming your company’s total spend every time you exhibit is $8,000 to $50,000, is it really worth not investing another .8% to 5% of your total exhibit spend to invest in a universal lead capture strategy? Consider the difference you’ll make in your company by having:
- More leads
- Shortened sales cycles
- Closing bigger deals
- Better, more responsive follow up
Your investment will pay for itself.
To learn more about employing a universal lead capture strategy watch this video on the 10 Best Practices for Lead Capture.
Captello is a multifunctional event platform that provides: Universal Lead Capture, User Customizable Gamification, Marketing Automation, CRM, Lead Management, Sales Enablement, Leader Boards, Point Rewards & e-Gift Cards, Waypoints for Sessions & Scavenger Hunts, Player Profiles, and more with over 3,000 integrations for all common CRM and Marketing Automation platforms.
To see how Captello’s growing library of digital activations (games), universal lead capture, and reward-based solutions can help your company generate more leads at your trade shows, contact us today!
