When was the last time your team sat down and counted the number of missing event leads resulting from busy staff, delayed follow-up, manual entry, and human error? Probably never. Truth is: It’s kinda hard to count what you don’t have. Every lead your company loses is a hit on the bottom line — a missed opportunity for growth and profits. A prospect might be ready to make a deal, but if you lose the lead or are too slow to respond, your company is giving that money to another company who’s faster, but might offer an inferior product. That’s not only a hit on you; It’s a disservice to your customer.
It is well known that the first company to follow up after an event is most likely to land the deal. Immediate and consistent follow-up is critical.
What if there was a lead capture system that could provide lightning-fast follow-up, capture leads, and sort quality leads, help you generate leads, gain new customers, increase your profits — and you could OWN the entire lead capture process from start to finish?
That would be a game-changer.
You may not be able to count the number of leads you have lost — but you can count the cost of not owning your lead capture system.
Here are 10 ways you may be losing money by relying on an outdated lead capture system.
1. Purchase Costs
Get out your tally board and see how much you’ve paid to purchase new event lead capture solutions at every event. Rented badge scanners alone can cost as much as $600 a day per scanner. That can add up fast, especially if you have a large team and a long event. Why rent when you can own your event lead capture solution?
With iCapture, an intelligent lead capture app, there is one annual fee that includes unlimited users AND unlimited events. Forget purchasing a lead capture solution at the event!
2. Time Costs
The old adage is true: time really is money. When you have to pay your team to learn a new lead capture solution at each event — not only is it frustrating — but it’s expensive. How much in salary are you paying to train your employees to use someone else’s lead capture system — when they could be spending that time capturing leads?
With a consistent lead capture form across all your trade shows, room for error or pushback is greatly decreased. Owning your own system means their lead capture forms and strategy training is one and done. Very good for the bottom line.
3. Adoption Costs
Chances are that you want your event representatives to enjoy the trade show and make a good impression on your future clients. Having to learn a new system at every show can be demotivating for reps, at best. At worst, it can lead to errors, missing data, lost leads, and less profits.
iCapture not only reduces the frustration of learning a new system, it also reduces the learning curve. Every one of your reps is on board and working on one unified lead capture software.
4. Scalability Costs
As your business grows, your lead capture solution should grow with you. Old lead capture systems can grow, but the costs grow right alongside them. When you own the right lead capture solution you can scale up without shelling out.
With iCapture, you don’t have to pay any extra whether you attend one event or a thousand. Plus, there’s no limit to the number of reps who can use the lead capture app. No matter how large your team, your event lead capture scales seamlessly and infinitely, saving your company heaps. All your people need is a smart device. iCapture does the rest.
5. Busy-ness Costs
No matter how good your team is at capturing leads at trade shows, there will always be times when they are engaged with other potential customers, taking needed breaks, or talking with the home office about an important issue. It is important to diversify your lead capture modes to capture more leads.
This is where iCapture shines. With our kiosk mode, trade show attendees interested in your amazing product or service can provide their contact information on their own — even when everyone in the booth is busy. That’s a win-win. Missing leads add up fast. Learn more about adding a lead capture kiosk to your trade show strategy.
6. Follow-up Costs
As mentioned before, the first company to follow up on a lead usually gains a new customer. Whether your product is best in class or best in price, if someone else gets the sale because they followed up faster — you just lost a customer. Words you don’t want your sales rep to hear: “I sure wish you had called one day sooner. We just signed a contract with another company.” Delayed follow-up due to waiting on lead capture lists from show organizers and then manually entering leads is a price you don’t want to pay.
With iCapture, you control your leads from the start — you create them and automatically sync them with your CRM or Marketing Automation Platform. You can follow up with your trade show leads on speed dial, even sending a relevant email while you are looking at the whites of their eyes or waving goodbye. That’s the power of lead capture ownership.
7. Entry Costs
Human error cannot be avoided in life or work. Whether you’re using a paper system or a badge scanner owned by event organizers or another entity — eventually those leads need to be manually entered into a spreadsheet or CRM. Every human touch point increases the chance of error. Perhaps your paper leads or business cards accidentally get thrown in the round file. Or you switch one number in a phone number or one letter in an email — and the lead is useless. Even if you can find the right information later, it might be too late. Not only is your team again losing time, but they are losing leads that can affect the bottom line.
With an intelligent lead capture app, leads are entered one time — at the trade show. Immediately, your sales team anywhere has access to those leads and lead data. No double entry. Less room for error. Owning your lead event capture streamlines processes saving time, money, and profits.
8. Sorting Costs
Every potential customer your sales team meets at an event is at a different stage in their buying journey. One business might be ready to sign up for a deal, others have questions, and some may just be lookie-loos with no intention of making a purchase, ever. Reps can usually gauge where their prospect is in the process. But if all your leads are dumped into the same pot — how will you know which ones are qualified leads? If you start with all the browsers and postpone the buyers — you are putting big money on your competitor’s table.
With iCapture's lead scoring capabilities, you automatically qualify leads on the spot with customizable metrics that your team decides on. You’ll never again lose a deal because of faulty follow-up.
9. Insight Costs
Not only does iCapture collect insights on your future customers, with customizable lead forms and voice-to-text notes capabilities, but it also provides insights that can help you make informed decisions about which shows are worth their salt. If you are attending trade shows that are not converting to revenue — you might want to rethink attending that event in the future. Maybe that’s not the right target audience for your product or service.
When you own your lead capture solution, you can track your leads from capture to sale, measure your conversion rate and your ROI, and find out which trade shows are filling up your bank account and which ones are draining it.
10. Compliance Costs
Data security is a hot topic that if ignored can hurt your business like nothing else. According to IBM, the average data breach in the United States is $9.44 million. That’s not a number to scoff at. iCapture takes your data (and ours) seriously. We demonstrate our commitment to data security and compliance by achieving SOC 2 Type 2 security certification. Our users can feel confident that we will protect the interests of their organization and the privacy of their clients. When you own your event lead capture — you can rest assured that your trade show lead capture data is safe.
Capture Leads On Your Own Terms
iCapture is a consistent and seamless solution for reps in and out of the booth that will save you time, money, and face. Trade show lead retrieval has never been easier! By having your own lead capture tool that you can use at every event, you can kick those unnecessary opportunity costs to the curb and enjoy the freedom of ownership today.
If you want to learn more about the benefits of iCapture's lead retrieval app, Request a Demo.
Your team will thank you — and so will your P&L.
It can be overwhelming when trying to choose which trade show lead retrieval tool is right for your business. If you want to learn more about the different lead capture options and their features, check out our Trade Show Lead Capture Shopping Guide.