Tag Archive for: Lead Capture

Lead Liaison

Lead Liaison, LLC Celebrates a Decade of Innovation in Sales and Marketing

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Lead Liaison, LLC Celebrates a Decade of Innovation in Sales and Marketing

Lead Liaison, LLC proudly commemorates its 10-year anniversary, reflecting on a remarkable journey that has established the company as a global leader in sales enablement, marketing automation, and event management solutions.

Since its inception in 2013, Lead Liaison, LLC has consistently pioneered innovations that cater to the diverse needs of SMBs and enterprise businesses alike. The company’s suite of offerings, including the acclaimed OneFocus™ CRM, Website Visitor Tracking, and Lead Management Automation (LMA), underlines its commitment to enhancing sales and marketing processes.

Founder and CEO, Ryan Schefke, commented, “A decade in this dynamic industry has been an exhilarating journey. From the launch of our LMA platform in 2014 to the recent introduction of EventGen, our event management platform in 2022, our primary focus has always been to offer scalable, integrative, and innovative solutions. It’s deeply gratifying to see our vision transform businesses worldwide.”

One of Lead Liaison’s most notable achievements is the introduction of Captello, a trailblazing lead capture and engagement platform optimized for large enterprises. Captello’s award winning universal lead capture app, event engagement offerings, and integration with over 5,000 marketing automation and CRM platforms have set new industry standards, validating its six-season streak as a G2 Lead Retrieval category high performer.

Brad Froese, Director of Marketing, remarked, “Captello embodies our philosophy of continuous innovation. Its integration capabilities, paired with an unwavering commitment to data security, showcases our dedication to providing clients with a seamless, trustworthy experience. We’re proud to be at the forefront of driving transformative changes in the event industry as well as sales and marketing domains.”

The company’s recent 64% year-over-year growth rate, the introduction of industry-first end-to-end event lead capture system, and the unveiling of a truly unique integrated sales and marketing suite are further testaments to its prowess and vision.

Schefke further added, “Reflecting on the past 10 years, it’s our relentless pursuit of excellence, dedication to client success, and the hard work of our talented team that have brought us here. We’re deeply grateful to our clients for their trust and partnership.”

As Lead Liaison, LLC marks this significant milestone, the company looks forward to the future with renewed passion and commitment, setting its sights on many more decades of innovation, growth, and unparalleled service.


Lead Liaison, LLC is a global leader in sales enablement and marketing automation solutions. With a focus on innovation and customer-centricity, the company offers a comprehensive suite of tools that empower businesses to streamline their sales and marketing processes, driving growth, engagement, and success.’

Lead liaison 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 5,000 integrations for all common CRM and Marketing Automation platforms.

To see how Lead liaison’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!

Lead Liaison

Modern Day Lead Capture for High Performing Exhibitors and ROI Calculator

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Modern Day Lead Capture for High Performing Exhibitors and ROI Calculator

Events are a great opportunity for businesses to connect with potential customers. However, traditional methods of collecting leads at events can be time-consuming, inefficient, and prone to errors. In this article, we’ll examine some older, more generic event lead capture methods typically offered by event organizers, and contrast them with newer, more efficient methods like Lead liaison’s Universal Lead Capture app.

Older event lead capture methods include renting apps and scanners from the organizer, collecting business cards, manually completing online forms, and taking notes on paper. Let’s take a closer look at each of these methods:

Old Method: Disparate Systems

Renting Apps and Scanners from the Organizer

Often times, event organizers rent out expensive apps and scanners to help exhibitors capture leads. However, these apps and scanners are often difficult to use, restrict the number of users who can capture leads, host generic forms that may not collect the data exhibitors need to qualify leads, and require team training at every event. These generic forms of lead capture typically only capture a limited amount of data, making it challenging to get a complete picture of each lead.

Waiting for lead data, whether just a few days or longer, also creates delays in the vital follow up process, and usually results in a spreadsheet that has to be painstakingly culled, edited, and curated before it can be imported (manually) into your CRM or Marketing Automation platform. This process demands countless work hours that should be spent accomplishing other tasks.

Collecting Business Cards
Many exhibitors still rely on collecting business cards as a primary method of lead capture. However, this method is time-consuming and may lead to errors when manually entering the data into a CRM or marketing automation platform.

Manually Completing Online Forms
Some exhibitors require attendees to fill out online forms as a method of lead capture. This method can be tedious and time-consuming, leading to lower engagement rates.

Taking Notes on Paper
Exhibitors that still rely on taking notes by pen and paper to capture leads are disengaging with the prospect during conversations, and sending a signal that their business has antiquated processes. This method is also prone to human error and may lead to incomplete or inaccurate data.

New Method: Dedicated Universal Lead Capture

In contrast, a Universal Lead Capture app like Lead liaison offers a myriad of more efficient and effective ways to capture leads. The app enables teams to capture leads by scanning badges and business cards, using self-service kiosks, gamification, QR codes and more for capturing critical lead data and conversation detail from voice notes that are automatically transcribed and sent to your CRM or Marketing Automation platform.

With Lead liaison, exhibitors have full control over customization of their forms, allowing them to capture more data points including attendee preferences and interests, allowing for better lead qualification and follow-up.

Lead liaison’s Universal Lead Capture app integrates with over 5,000 3rd party platforms including all major CRM and Marketing Automation systems, making lead distribution and follow-up easy. By automating the lead capture process, teams can save time and focus on engaging with attendees, increasing the likelihood of converting leads into customers.

To help businesses understand the benefits of using a Universal Lead Capture solution like Lead liaison, we have created a free ROI Analysis tool.

Discover Your Event ROI Potential with the free ROI Analysis Tool

This tool compares generic methods of lead capture with the performance that could be achieved by using a Universal Lead Capture solution. The ROI Analysis tool uses the data you enter to produce hard comparisons that will help your businesses understand the difference Universal Lead Capture can make to your event ROI.

In conclusion, while older event lead capture methods may have been effective in the past, they are no longer the most efficient or effective way to capture leads. Lead liaison offers a more efficient and data-driven approach to lead capture, helping businesses to better engage with attendees and convert leads into customers.

Lead liaison 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 5,000 integrations for all common CRM and Marketing Automation platforms.

To see how Lead liaison’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!

Lead Liaison

17 Opportunity Costs of Not Having a Universal Lead Capture Strategy

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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

  1. Missing leads without a kiosk capture when booth staff is busy
  2. Missing leads without a QR code capture option
  3. Missing leads you connect with outside show floor hours
  4. Missing leads from manually exporting/importing from the show’s default lead retrieval solution (human error, it can happen)
  5. Missing leads from not having everyone on your team equipped with lead capture on their phones.
  6. Missing leads from business cards not finding their way back into your system.
  7. Missing leads from not being able to create competitions and incentives amongst your booth staff (Lead liaison goals)
  8. Additional time spent learning a new system every time you exhibit
  9. Additional time spent training staff every time you exhibit
  10. 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?
  11. 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.
  12. 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.
  13. Wasting your sales teams time as they cannot differentiate leads using subjective and objective lead qualification resulting in every lead looking the same. 
  14. Not being able to show your management team a centralized dashboard of trade show leads and make comparisons from event to event?
  15. Not having the opportunity to scale your lead capture strategy and pull more people into your booth (Lead liaison digital activations)
  16. Not being able to book meetings right there on the show floor and resort to traditional approaches of chasing leads
  17. 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.

Lead liaison 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 Lead liaison’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!

Lead Liaison

6 Ways to Generate More Leads at Trade Shows

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6 Ways to Generate More Leads at Trade Shows

We’ve compiled 6 of the best ways to generate leads at trade shows based on our own experiences, our customers’ experiences, and feedback from the market. Here they are:

1: Equip Every Staff Member with Mobile Lead Capture

Exhibiting at a trade show, is when show organizers provide exhibitors with what’s commonly called “lead retrieval”. For the most part, the show appointed lead retrieval system will be very basic, lack customization, and not support integration with your sales and marketing system(s). Moreover, they usually charge per person. Costs can range anywhere from a few hundred dollars up to five hundred dollars per person. 

Restricting use per user limits your company’s ability to collect leads.

Instead, get a solution that allows you to put lead capture in every staff member’s hands. Industry leading solutions work online and offline (so you can collect leads anywhere on site or off site, or heck – in the basement) and capture leads in different ways. Popular mobile apps can scan business cards, badges, and manually collect leads through form fill. These solutions are commonly referred to as universal lead capture apps. Regardless of where you’re at, and who you are, you should be able to collect leads for your company and have them funneled into one centralized database and instantly sent into your CRM or marketing automation system. 

2: Stand Up a Kiosk Inside Your Booth

This self-service approach is a great way to not only advertise your services but complement mobile lead capture. There might be times where all your staff members are tied up in meaningful conversations with show attendees. A kiosk allows attendees to enter their information and/or scan their badge to fill out a kiosk form. The kiosk can be locked so attendees don’t get lost in the lead capture app or start messing with your tablet settings.

Another neat benefit of using a kiosk is advertising. Retailers commonly refer to this feature as an “attract loop”. It’s essentially a screen saver that can rotate through images and calls-to-action on your kiosk. When the attendee taps the screen, they’ll see the lead capture form to fill out, request literature or more information, and be on their way.

Instead of missing leads because nobody is there to help them, use a kiosk and maximize lead capture!

3: Host a Game

Instead of hauling large, expensive, physical activations to your event, use digital activations that you can run on a tablet. I know, you might be a bit perplexed by the word “activations”. It’s essentially a way to engage your audience. An example activation would be a Spin the Wheel game. Instead of bringing the physical wheel to the event, bring a tablet and customize your own wheel game. The concept of gamification will help draw in your audience. 

4: Hold a Competition

Innately, everyone loves to compete. It’s a quality we all inherited . The thirst for competition doesn’t curtail at trade shows. In fact, competition is usually heightened at live events as attendees typically travel with coworkers or friends. Who doesn’t like to compete with their friends or look awesome next to their fellow cohorts! 

Industry leading event gamification platforms also have prizes and leaderboards to help you build a competition. When your competition is solidified, market it with your pre-show efforts. This will help drive more leads to your booth. Also, gift card rewards and prizes provide a reason for your sales team to follow up – resulting in more touch points with your leads. Run your leaderboard live at your event by mounting a small TV in your booth. As attendees play your game, their scores will populate on the leaderboard. 

Want to take the competition to a new level? Have a team-based competition where teams are automatically formed around an attendee’s company. For example, every attendee that works at Microsoft would be on the “Microsoft” team. This will help your company capture more leads as participants will recruit their coworkers for you!

5: Create an Experience

Another way to generate more leads at trade shows is to hold an experience, such as a photo booth or treasure hunt. These interactive experiences help attendees have fun while collecting lead data. This puts your prospect in a better mood and primes them for a good conversation. The attendee also wins as they get a souvenir, can share their photos with friends and colleagues, and have a chance to win something – should you go that route. 

6: Touchless Lead Capture

Touchless lead capture technology was a neat innovation that came from the pandemic. With touchless, or contactless lead capture, companies can set up a custom branded QR code on display inside their booth. Attendees scan the QR code with their personal cell phone. Once scanned, a lead capture form opens up on the attendee’s device. They can fill in their information instead of touching anything, getting close to a staff member, or shaking hands.

Combine games and experiences with custom QR codes to deliver a unique touchless experience that drives lead capture!

Lead liaison 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 Lead liaison’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!

Lead Liaison

Dear Show Organizers… Here’s What Exhibitors Need

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Dear Show Organizers… Here’s What Exhibitors Want Need

We speak with exhibitors daily and learn about their challenges and why some hesitate to invest in events. With virtual events having low satisfaction ratings and live event attendance being uncertain… exhibitors are carefully evaluating each event to decide:

  1. Which events they will or will not participate in (Top performers only, new markets, etc)
  2. In what way do they want to participate (Exhibit, Speaker, Attendee, other)
  3. How much they want to invest (Booth, staff, tech, marketing, sponsorships, private meetings, etc)
  4. With events now being virtual, live and hybrid, what should they change, improve, automate, streamline and make more efficient to set up their team to handle any type of event and get highest ROI

Exhibitors want SERVICE

Each exhibitor from every industry has their own story/experience to share. Some stories are amazing, about organizers who really understand the exhibitor and set them up for success. Other stories are about their frustrations of not being treated as the customer or getting the ROI they expected. Many will be making their decisions based on their relationships with each event organizer and how much they care to hear about their challenges and offer solutions that set them up for success.

Solution: Deliver concierge style service 

Exhibitors want EXPOSURE

Every exhibitor we speak to is asking organizers to make connecting to their target audience easier. They want their brand to be seen, their prospects to find them, and their new products or services to be showcased. Event organizers who build some basic brand exposure opportunities into their event will provide added value to exhibitors on the fence.

Solution: Offer unique engagement experiences that drive attendees to take action

Exhibitors want to STREAMLINE

With every event offering a different lead capture solution, how much time and energy does the exhibit manager spend on training their team for every single event to ensure no lead is missed and everything flows nicely into their sales process? How many leads are not captured because they have one scanner to share among their team? How many leads don’t receive follow up until days after the event or not at all? How does a company close deals if the next step of the sales & marketing process is not integrated into their lead capture workflow? The challenge is real!

Solution: Do not restrict their ability to capture leads. Now more than ever, exhibitors are seeking a Universal Lead Capture (ULC) provider so their sales team can use the same lead capture system with automated follow up and sales analytics everywhere they go. Event organizers who offer an option for exhibitors to plug into their Registration API will see exhibitor ROI soar and attrition decrease. Organizers who use unfriendly platforms that restrict API access for scanning badges will find push back from exhibitors who will find those events less valuable or friendly to their company.

Exhibitors want ENGAGEMENT

Ask any exhibitor…if you put them in front of a prospect…they will take care of the rest. That is why gamification has become so popular. Exhibitors who use an exciting activation or game in their booth are seeing up to 3x to 5x more leads captured than booths who do not. Plus, it is a known fact that attendees who engage in a memorable experience are 22% to 35% more likely to remember the brand and engage in a next step. Ask any marketing person, this is a dream for any brand and a goldmine for salespeople seeking to build new relationships.

 Exhibitors who know this are asking organizers for ways to promote their games and incorporate them into the event experience. Show organizers need to be prepared.  Exhibitors are on the hunt for engagement solutions and want to incorporate them into the event.

Solution: Organizers have an opportunity to make their event more exciting and engaging!  We suggest offering gamified lead capture as a premium option, or inviting exhibitors to “bring their own game” and plug it into your treasure hunt or other event engagement experience!

 

Exhibitors want ROI

If you were to speak to the CEO of any exhibiting company, they would tell you that ROI is their primary reason for exhibiting. Exhibiting at any event must contribute to the growth of their organization and move the needle forward. Exhibitors measure ROI in different ways depending on their goals. If brand exposure is the goal, they might track email and banner ad views, click thru’s, open rates, game plays, etc. to measure ROI. If lead capture is the goal they would track leads captured, quantity vs quality of leads, and sales generated to measure ROI. The more organizers understand the goals of the exhibitors, the better chance they have at meeting their expectations.

Solution: If show organizers want to improve their attrition year over year, they need to help exhibitors see the value and results your event delivers. Example: Instead of a paper scavenger hunt that cannot be truly measured, use a digital solution (Such as Waypoints or Hybrid Gamification) that can provide detailed analytics to both the show organizer and the exhibitor with a list of leads that supplement the lead capture their sales team is using in the booth.

 

In a nutshell, as we return to live events we cannot go back to the way things were. Events are forever changed, technology just took a huge leap forward, and hybrid is here to stay. The best thing organizers can do is to listen to exhibitors as they explain their challenges, enable them to be successful, and be open minded to doing things differently.

 

 A Message for Exhibitors!

Please keep in mind that event organizers need your help too. Their biggest challenges right now are re-negotiating contracts, managing logistics, and trying to organize speaker agendas and finalize floorplans when exhibitors and speakers are waiting until the last minute to confirm. Organizers have a lot on their plate trying to fill the exhibit hall, promote the event, make people feel safe, and bridge the gap between live and virtual. Now more than ever they are stressed to bring their event back to life on tight deadlines while trying to give you the service you need to ensure you return next year. Please work with them, confirm as early as you can, be patient if they can’t get back to you right away, offer suggestions and partner with them to put on a great show. The challenge of getting our industry up and running again is real and the best thing we can do is to help each other succeed.

Lead liaison 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 Lead liaison’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!

Lead Liaison

Setting Goals & Motivating Your Team

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Setting Goals & Motivating Your Team

Lead capture is one of if not the most important aspects of events and tradeshows, and it could be argued that it is in fact the main point for driving revenue. Why else are you there, if not to create brand awareness, share your products, educate people about your offerings, and gather leads that lead to new relationships and revenue? The most successful trade show exhibitors create successful and memorable experiences that attract, engage, and ultimately convert leads from prospects into customers and hardcore brand loyalists.

How can you affect audiences positively and leave an unforgettable impression? Start  by setting realistic goals and communicate them to your team. Make sure everyone is on the same page. Managers often overlook team motivation, or they might not realize that their team lacks some motivation since they’re so focused on other things such as setting up the booth to their standards, checking up on the hardware, the kiosks, their lead capture software, making sure that everything works, stressing about time, and the list goes on. Establishing and maintaining goals for the team can easily be overlooked. In this article we will highlight the importance of 2 things:

1- Setting Goals

Setting goals and objectives is vital to track and measure the success of your company, event, booth, team, etc. you name it… And a lot of managers either set up goals that are perceived by team members as unachievable, or that don’t fit best with the situation.

When setting goals, be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely. To elaborate: Be specific so that there is no confusion. As mentioned before, you have to be able to measure specific goals to identify strengths and weaknesses. You also have to be reasonable in goal setting, placing goals within reach so your team can achieve them without them being too easy. Keep the competition spirit up, and make goals relevant to your company’s goals. Be crystal clear about deadlines to which the goals should be met.

2- Motivating Your Team

When it comes to motivation, there are 2 points we want to address. Going back to the second paragraph, I mentioned something important “positively affecting your audiences.” How do you expect to leave a good impression on audiences if your team is unmotivated, or not on their best behavior? How will you convert audiences to prospects, and prospects into leads and loyal customers? Team motivation is very important to the process, especially when it comes to dealing face to face meetings with potential customers, because in their eyes the team member that they’re talking to is the representation of your company. Ultimately, team motivation directly reflects on the brand that you’ve spent so much time and money over the years building.

Before your events, spend some time setting goals and developing a plan to motivate your team. Take the time necessary to motivate your team, talk to them, and ensure that they’re on full alert, equipped with all the knowledge they need to communicate your brand values and solutions to audiences at trade shows. Offer incentives and challenges to keep them motivated to win… which takes us to our second point:

Create corporate loyalty reward programs for team members to spark up a sense of achievement and competition between the team. Lead liaison has a rewards center with a broad selection of e-gift cards, in which Team members receive their own personalized profiles with progress reports indicating milestones they have achieved. This allows them to track their own progress and keep an eye on the big prize to fuel up their performance.

In that way you’ll make them feel like they have a bigger part in the success of your company, which they do! This also fosters a fun, competitive environment, a way for your team members to prove themselves, compete, and gain rewards which they achieve by their dedication and hard work. In the end, Loyalty & Reward programs are a win-win situation for you and your team. They will be motivated to work harder achieving the goals, engage new prospects, build relationships and leave a good impression on your audiences! Basically, everybody wins.

In conclusion

If you want to build a successful brand loyalty, gather good leads, and build a strong relationship with your audiences, start first with your team! Set SMART goals and communicate them to your team. Make sure they’re on board with all the necessary information needed. Motivate them by awarding them when they achieve goals, and give them the choice of rewards to boost performances.

To learn more about Lead liaison’s corporate loyalty reward programs, contact us today!

Lead liaison 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 Lead liaison’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!

Lead Liaison

Determining ROI on events: Why are you operating blind?

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Determining ROI on events: Why are you operating blind?

One of the biggest challenges event managers seem to have is determining the return on investment for the events they participate in. The reason for that is because they are consistently lacking one piece of crucial information. In fact, it is a piece of information that is readily available to them if they would just ask this simple question of their CEO, CFO, CMO, or owner of the company. It’s a magical question that opens up all sorts of possibilities and releases your creative energy once you have the answer. It causes all aspects of your business, and the company’s short and long-term goals to become crystal clear. So, what is this question?

 

What is the value of a new customer or client to the company? 

I am continually amazed at how many event managers from both small to medium-sized businesses, all the way up to fortune 100 companies have no idea what the value of one new customer is to their company. Now, one of the most common reasons I have discovered for this lack of information on the part of event managers is that no one ever told them the importance of the question, you can’t ask a question you don’t know you should ask.

A lot of companies view events as just another line item on their overall marketing budget, and as long as marketing is producing results, then hi-five! But, that doesn’t mean event managers and their teams don’t benefit from knowing what a customer or client is actually worth to the company. Just as the Sales team needs to know what the value of one new customer is in order to determine salaries, commissions, and bonuses, the event team needs to know this information if they want to put together an effective strategy, and/or evaluate new technologies and tools that can help them achieve their goals.

In so many cases, event teams are left to rely on the show organizer to provide them with their leads, and then it’s up to them to try and qualify them or send them onto sales to qualify and pursue. This makes it even more difficult to determine whether what you are doing at these shows is effective. But, when you know exactly what a new customer is worth, you then begin to look at your budgets differently and can make a case to those within the company who have the final say on approving your budget that investing in a more effective lead capture system will be worth it because you can justify the return on investment. Imagine no longer needing to rely on the show organizer to provide you with a lead list that is also being distributed to your competitors as well. But, because you know the value of a new customer, your ability to move your events team forward with an effective strategy for growing the company will give you the upper hand. 

As live events come back, and with the increased implementation of hybrid events, knowing exactly what you’re aiming at will make all the difference in the world when it comes to planning which events will be the most profitable for you, and creating a strategy to CRUSH IT at those events. 

We sincerely hope that this will inspire you to dig a little deeper into what each new customer actually means to your company, rather large or small, and will help you become more empowered to make impactful decisions for your team and the company as a whole.

For information about Lead liaison for your next event or marketing campaign, or to get started with Lead liaison: CLICK HERE.

Lead liaison 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 Lead liaison’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!

Lead Liaison

5 ways to increase lead capture adoption at events

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5 ways to increase lead capture adoption at events

With in-person and hybrid events coming back in full force, it’s time to think in-person lead capture again. For many exhibitors, this usually involves scanning a name badge or business card through an app or scanner. These apps are great for quickly getting contact data from your event and into your marketing automation or CRM system of choice.

But in order to get contact data from a scan, booth staff have to actually use them.

Many organizations struggle to get staff to adopt new lead capture methods. After all, taking someone’s business card and scribbling a few notes worked before, why shouldn’t it work now?

Event marketers know exactly why that doesn’t work. People fall through the cracks and don’t receive follow up, and you have a delay in processing your data. 

How event marketers can help increase staff adoption:

1: Set Expectations

This may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how many event coordinators pay good money for lead capture without setting expectations. Who should booth staff be scanning? Here are a few different responses we’ve gotten from our partners:

  • Scan everyone who comes to the booth, no matter what.
  • Only scan potential customers (exclude vendors, sales people, etc).
  • Only scan qualified potential customers.
  • Only scan potential customers with a sales opportunity.

Different people will have different opinions. Many marketers usually favor gathering as many leads as possible and qualifying later. Sales teams, on the other hand, are mostly interested in hot leads, seeing potentially unqualified leads as time wasters. Make sure everyone knows what you need from them.

2: Keep it Simple

We all know it’s important that follow up is targeted for the attendee. You can’t just send a giant email blast with generic content and expect people to engage. You can’t either send personalized content if you don’t know anything about the person.

Having said that, we’ve seen a tendency to ask a lot of survey questions. 

A while back, we had a partner who was switching from paper lead capture forms to digital lead capture. They copied the paper form which included 20 survey questions. All of them were marked required and many had follow-up questions. They left their event with only three new leads from the app.

What happened? The sales staff got frustrated. They felt like they were stuck doing data entry while lines built up at their booth. To quote one of the reps, “I look like I’m just playing on my phone or texting friends; it’s embarrassing.” 

They ended up switching back to the paper forms where they felt more comfortable. The result was that it took several weeks before all of the leads were entered into their CRM.

While it’s tempting to gather as much data as humanly possible, remember your staff are in a busy, highly interactive environment. Make the lead capture process as quick as possible by using the minimum number of survey questions you can.

3: Avoid Manual Entry

Event marketers trying to save on expenses might decide they don’t need to pay for badge scanning. After all, Developer kits usually cost several hundred dollars, and renting devices could break the bank once they add all of their users. Their staff can just type in the contact info, right?

That decision is more costly than you might realize. Just like in my example above, when staff only have manual entry as an option, you can expect them to avoid submitting data on the sales floor. They simply don’t have time to do it when face-to-face with prospects. Instead, they’re likely to collect business cards and upload them later in their hotel room.

However, if users can conveniently scan a badge or business card, lead capture takes mere seconds. Consider that next time you’re thinking of saving a buck on lead capture.

4: Stick to Multi-Select Fields

You’re probably noticing a theme here…

The key to adoption is making it as easy as possible.

The more typing there is, the more time lead capture takes, and the less your staff will want to use your capture form. 

When dealing with surveys, multi-select fields take very little time. Imagine how much longer it would take to type “Lead Management Automation” than to just tick a box.

5: Use a Universal Lead Capture System

Inconsistent experiences are one of the biggest complaints both marketers and booth staff.

Every event and every provider has their own scanners and apps. Some let you add custom survey questions, some don’t. Some only provide badge scanning, others can also do business cards. And, unfortunately, not all are very intuitive.

People are much less likely to invest their time in learning to use an app if they know they’ll probably never use it again. However, if you use a Universal Lead Capture (ULC) system like Lead liaison, users will have the same experience at every event. Most importantly, you have control over what the form looks like as well as the questions asked.

To get the most out of your next event, contact Lead liaison today for more ideas on how ULC can make life easier for your staff.

Lead liaison 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 Lead liaison’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!

 

Lead Liaison

CASE STUDY: Lead Capture for Speakers & Conferences

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CASE STUDY: Lead Capture for Speakers & Conferences

I once attended a hybrid conference. It was an opportunity for me to learn from the experts, find out what is new in our industry, and connect with colleagues I have not seen in a long time. I also wanted to see one speaker in particular (a client) that was using Lead liaison lead capture games to engage the audience. Here is what I observed.

There were 8 sessions, which I attended over two days. Each session was 1 hour long. Of these 8 sessions, 6 of the speakers were simply talking and showing a few powerpoint slides. One speaker did send out a poll to their virtual audience and shared the results with both the virtual and live audiences to discuss. But the one speaker who was using Lead liaison engaged both the live and virtual audience in a completely different way… plus, walked away with 59 leads! Here is what they did.

  1. PREPARING THE AUDIENCE: When we entered the session room there was a slideshow running as we waited. It explained that this would be an interactive session as well as to have our phone ready and that prizes would be awarded to the most engaged participants. It also gave us a QR Code to scan to play a fun game while we were waiting and get comfortable using our phone. (I crushed this game by the way!)
  2. ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE IN LEARNING: The speaker’s presentation was broken down into 3 parts. Each part had 1 image on the screen when the speaker was teaching, followed by a QR Code for us to scan. The QR Codes led us to different learning games designed to test how well people were paying attention to the content and reinforce the key takeaways.
  3. CREATE A COMPETITIVE ATMOSPHERE: We were sitting at tables so, before we played, we were asked to identify which table we were sitting at. (This was great as it created a competitive atmosphere AND anyone who would normally not participate would have to jump in and not let their team down! The virtual audience was put on teams too! Our table played a total of 3 educational games.
  4. REWARD YOUR AUDIENCE: Towards the end of the session, the speaker announced that they would be giving away prizes to the top 3 individual players with the highest combined score from all 3 games AND the team with the highest combined scores! BUT, we had one more challenge which was a super fun game! You could literally feel the energy in the room heighten as it was “game on” and everyone was ready to play! Once we played, the speaker announced they would be showing us a Master Leaderboard that was gathering all of our individual and team scores. When it was revealed, the room cheered and celebrated the top players and team. In the end, my team did not win, but there were 3 individual winners who received $100 eGift cards (electronically fulfilled by their Lead liaison Gift Card Rewards system) and a team of 8 at table – 4 that were excited to win bluetooth earbuds! The speaker also invited everyone to visit their booth to meet their team and pick up a small gift. SMART!
  5. THE RESULTS: That last fun game we played was tied to a lead capture form where attendees could request a copy of the presentation, product information, or a meeting. When the event was all over, I met with our client and here is an overview of their results:

There were 10 tables of 8 in the room. It was almost sold out with 63 people attending in person. Online, there were another 30+ attendees attending. Of all attendees, 61 participated in person and 22 participated online. Of the 83 who participated, 59 became leads! (44 requested more information and 15 requested a follow up meeting after the show with their sales team.)

As for the attendees… We got to engage with their brand in a fun and memorable way! I could not have been more proud of how well our client utilized Lead liaison Gamification and Universal Lead Capture. They really took our advice to heart and stood out over the other sessions, created an engaging, fun and memorable brand experience, and they were the only speaker to actually capture leads! It was an amazing success story that I had to share.

Now, if only the event organizer had Lead liaison’s Event Engagement Studio setup, they could have gamified the entire event! Attendees could have scored points for engaging in every session, and earned points for meeting with exhibitors and sponsors too!

Contact Lead liaison today to learn more about how we can help your team prepare for event success by partnering with the leader in Universal Lead Capture and Engagement solutions.

Lead liaison 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 Lead liaison’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!

Lead Liaison

Demystifying APIs & Dev Kits for Event Lead Capture

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Demystifying APIs & Dev Kits for Event Lead Capture

When Event Organizers & Exhibitors work together, everyone wins!

You’ve set up your Universal Lead Capture form, your documents are ready to go, and your team is trained. Now the important question:

have you figured out how your team will actually be capturing contact data at your event? 

For most events, especially in the US, you can get contact data by scanning name badges. Universal Lead Capture apps like Lead liaison can pull in data from badges. To do this, however, you’ll typically need an API, or developer’s kit. 

This is where things go off the rails sometimes. You email the show management, and they have no idea what you’re talking about. How do you navigate these events and get your scanner up and running?

How to Retrieve API / Dev Kit Info

1: Check the order form

Many lead retrieval providers will have the API kit on their order form. This is a best case scenario. It might be listed as one of the following:

  • API Kit
  • Developer’s Kit
  • Third-Party Kit

If it’s on the form, then that’s all you need to buy. No need to rent scanners or license the provider’s app. If it’s not on the form, it’s time to contact the provider directly.

 

2: Identify the lead retrieval provider

Show management rarely has much to do with lead retrieval. You can ask them about badge scanning and APIs, but more often than not they’ll have no idea what you’re talking about. They will usually contract out to a lead retrieval provider. 

Oftentimes the provider will be listed in your Exhibitor kit. It may even be listed directly on the show’s website. If there is an order form for lead retrieval, it will often reveal who the provider is.

If you’re having trouble identifying them, contact show management. Be very careful with your wording. If you throw around terms like “API Kit,” they’re probably going to get confused. If you have to contact show management, we recommend the following wording:

“Hello, we’re trying to set up lead retrieval for EVENT NAME. Could you please let us know who is providing lead retrieval services? We’d appreciate it if you could either connect us or give us your contact’s details.”

If management is still unsure, you can ask them if the badges will have barcodes on them and who is providing the name badges. Note that this is not always the lead retrieval provider.

Contact the provider directly

Once you know the provider, contact them directly. We’ve had the most success by asking questions like this:

“Hello, we understand you’re providing lead retrieval services for EVENT NAME. We use a Universal Lead Capture app and would like to set up badge scanning. Do you have an API kit or developer kit so our app can scan the badges at EVENT NAME?”

On rare occasions, the provider might misunderstand what you’re asking. They may send you an order form for their app at the event. Make sure they understand you want to use your Universal Lead Capture app.

 

What if there is no API Kit?

In some cases, there may be situations where the provider does not or can not offer an API kit. Depending on the situation, there are still a few things you can try.

1: Ask for post-show reconciliation

With post-show reconciliation, your Universal Lead Capture app will scan and save the badge ID. Once the event is over, you can send the list of badge IDs to the lead retrieval provider. They will return a list of contact details that apps like Lead liaison can use to complete your submissions. While it isn’t instant like with an API, the end user experience is the same. Your users simply scan the lead, add notes and qualifiers, and submit. 

2: Ask for a sample badge

Sometimes providers don’t offer an API because the contact details are embedded in the badge. If you can get a badge to your Universal Lead Capture provider, they may be able to read the data without the need for an API. Lead liaison, for example, has a team of experts that check badges for you. 

3: Talk to show management

If all else fails, let show management know how important it is for you to use your Universal Lead Capture app. Many show managers aren’t even aware that these sorts of apps exist, and as a paying exhibitor, you can make a difference. We’ve had managers make changes by sending messages like this:

“Hello, we use a Universal Lead Capture app that we normally use at the events we attend. Usually the lead retrieval provider has a developer kit which allows our app to scan the badges. We understand that PROVIDER does not have this option.

Our app is configured for our needs. It has all of our questions and documents set up for our organization, and our booth staff are used to it. We would rather not have to train on a new app and figure out how to fit it within our data flow. Please consider finding a provider that offers this in the future.”

4: Take a Picture of Badges & Business Cards

Lead liaison can easily transcribe the data and send it to your CRM or Marketing Automation platform.

In some rare cases the provider may have an API kit, but show management has specifically told them not to offer it. In those cases, we suggest sending a message like this:

“Hello, we use a Universal Lead Capture app that we normally use at the events we attend. Usually the lead retrieval provider has a developer kit which allows our app to scan the badges. PROVIDER has informed us that you will not allow them to offer the kit. This is disappointing.

Our app is configured for our needs. It has all of our questions and documents set up for our organization, and our booth staff are used to it. We would rather not have to train on a new app and figure out how to fit it within our data flow. Please consider allowing this option.”

Premium lead capture solutions like Lead liaison empower teams to collect custom event data, collect and distribute that data instantly, and begin the follow up and meeting scheduling process long before the competition. Lead liaison provides event teams with resources to make every event a success such as in-app lead rating, meeting scheduling, team communications and more, and event engagement solutions that will increase activity and engagement at your booth!

Click here to explore Lead liaison’s award winning, premium lead capture and event engagement platform and view testimonials from event professionals who use the app.

Lead liaison 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 Lead liaison’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!