12 Reasons You Should Never Settle for a Default Lead Retrieval Solution

Having the right lead retrieval solution is paramount to achieving your goals. Here are twelve important differences between Universal Lead Retrieval and the default solution your trade show provider offers:

1: Real-Time Data Transfer to your CRM / Marketing Automation / backend system
Follow up with prospects before the competition. Show prospects that your company cares about their needs and communicates in a timely manner.

2: Use a system you can use at every event to take control
You want to be in control of the process. Don’t give that to someone else just to learn you won’t get your data when you want it. Universal Lead Capture solutions like Captello guarantee you get access to your lead data, and can begin responding to and communicating with leads long before users with the trade show default solution.

3: Collect Custom Data
If you’re using a show appointed app, the type of data you can collect is very limited. Being able to ask more questions and collect more data increases dialogue with prospects, and helps you qualify leads and follow up in a more effective manner.

4: You can capture more leads using a universal lead capture app – anytime, anywhere

True story, some of our best leads and our clients have captured the best leads just by speaking to people in the hallway in a trade show. I remember one event that we went to, one of our staff members was out getting some pizza and they had a great conversation with somebody in the line. They were able to fire up this mobile app on their own personal device and scan the badge. That actually led to business and further conversations down the road.

Lead capture isn’t just fro the trade show floor. You wanna be able to use your universal lead capture app wherever you go.

At Captello, we have a flexible business model. We want every single person in the companies that we work with to be using our universal lead capture app. When you’re using the show appointed app, they want to make money off of every user. So if you’re a large enterprise or you’ve got big events and you’re sending 30, 40, 50 people to your events, get ready to pay for it because you’re gonna pay $200 to $500 per user just to have the trade show designated lead capture app in their hands.

5: The second benefit here is measuring return on investment

Most companies can’t do that. If you’re using the show appointed app, it really is not a holistic system. It does not connect to your CRM where you might be capturing your leads or sending your leads.

In your CRM, you’re closing deals, you’re closing opportunities, you’ve got to tie that revenue back to the leads that you capture anywhere, or capture at your events. You need a really nice dashboard to measure other ROI items like CPL or cost per lead. The trade show appointed apps won’t have those very sophisticated analytics and that dashboard for you to work with.

6: Using a universal lead capture app, you will realize lower total cost of ownership or TCO

We have thousands of events that our clients attend using our app. A research study from the data we’ve collected indicates the following average costs, assuming an average 6 staff members per event:

Average cost per event for trade show provided lead capture solution: $2,346

Average cost per event using Captello Universal Lead Capture solution: $866

To use a third party app, you need to have what we call a developer’s kit. You integrate that kit with our application and we have 30 plus different developer kits and providers that we integrate with.

So what does that mean to you?
You will spend, on average 171% more by using the trade show appointed app.

Keep in mind other items:

The cost of having to wait to download your leads before you can act on those leads.

The cost to train your team on all of these disparate platforms as you go from trade show A to B to C, and so on.

Using all these different systems is not consistent. You can’t be efficient. You can’t scale very well.

7: You want to use a universal app that is able to execute your business process

So after you capture the lead, one problem is that if you’re using that basic rudimentary app, you’re not going have a workflow, an automated process, in place to be able to qualify your leads, distribute your leads, alert team members about your leads, and get those leads immediately into your back end system. Having that workflow makes the process hyper-efficient for every event you attend.

8: Broader adoption

If you have one universal app (universal is the key operative word here), that means it is the same app, customized for you, at every single trade show or marketing event that you go to. Every staff member, every employee uses the same interface. They don’t have to learn anything new.

That means you’re gonna get broader adoption. It’s going be easier for you to invite people to use this app, to download the app, and to manage the app. Overall governing of the app is going be a lot easier.

9: Centralized data

One universal app means one centralized place to access your data. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like dealing with spreadsheets or manual lead data import. That’s a nightmare. Everything now can be digital. It can be automated.

The data can flow from the trade show floor right into your back end systems. But more importantly, you have the ability to have a 360 degree view, a holistic view of all of your trade shows for the entire year and beyond. If you are using a variety of different apps, all that data is gonna be spread out in separate spaces. You are in charge of centralizing the data, it won’t be done for you.

Universal lead capture apps like Captello provide a really great dashboard that pulls all of that together and keeps track of your leads across all events. Bottom line, use a universal lead capture app.

10: Universal Lead Capture Apps are highly customizable.

Why does that matter?

With a trade show appointed app, it is very difficult to put in custom qualifiers and ask things that might be very unique to your business. Maybe you’re providing a service. Maybe you’re providing a product. Every company is different. Every company is unique. And different data might mean different things for you.

You wanna make sure that in addition to just scanning a badge, you have the ability to collect the data that is meaningful for your business.

So, make sure your lead capture app and it forms are customizable.

11: Building brand awareness.

Most trade show appointed apps are not flexible and cannot be fully branded.

Perhaps you want to use a lead capture app in kiosk mode. Most trade show appointed apps can’t operate in that kiosk mode.

Universal Lead Capture apps can provide additional customization for enhanced brand awareness, such as custom screensavers, rotating advertisements, or important calls to action right there in front of your booth. Customization includes logos, color schemes and more, because building brand awareness is important for you.

12: The final point, which is very, very important, and that is security.

In today’s age with things like GDPR and privacy laws in California and data privacy issues across the globe, it is very crucial that you work with a provider who is vetted, who believes in security and has all the mechanisms in place to make sure that your data is safe and protected for every event that you go to where you wanna have a common system to use at all your events. You can’t rely on the trade show appointed app which could be good, could be bad, might have security holes or issues. You don’t know show provided lead capture solutions are doing with your data.

Take the time to make sure that you protect your data, your leads and your company. Make sure everything is protected behind layers of security.