Trade shows involve a lot of work, time, and money. However, participating in one can significantly boost brand awareness and sales for both big and small businesses. They are an opportunity to connect with potential customers and strengthen relationships with existing ones. Since a successful trade show requires hard work, you’re going to need all the help you can get.
Mobile apps are really helpful during expo events as they make processes faster and more secure. Here are some of our favorites:
1. Zoho
Zoho is a customer relationship management (CRM) app that lets you use various applications under one account. These include Workplace, Finance Plus, CRM Plus, People Plus, and IT Management. Under these categories, you can find partnered apps that can be useful during a trade show. For example, under sales & marketing, you can use Contact Manager, SalesInbox, Survey, and Campaigns.
Apart from sales and marketing, other tools are applicable in various areas, such as help desk, finance, business process, email collaboration, human resources, and more. Through Zoho, you can specify buying intentions and particular questions of your leads you meet during the event. You can then pass these details to your team so they can work on them right away before the trade show ends.
2. Viber
Viber is a free calling and messaging online app that lets you communicate anytime and anywhere. When you and your team are in different places, you can easily send essential information through your group chat, which allows up to 250 members.
Other features of this app include:
• International/long-distance calling
• Instant video messaging
• HD video calling
• Secure conversations through end-to-end encryptions
• Manual authentication of contacts
• Fun stickers to keep conversations fun and lively
3. Square
When in a large crowd, such as in an expo event, carrying cash, especially lots of it, is not a good idea. This means you must expect people to pay for their purchases through credit cards. Square is a leading mobile payment app that accepts credit card payments to help consumers pay faster and more conveniently.
Purchasing the Square POS (Point of Sale) contactless chip reader ($49) lets you connect wirelessly. This way, you can receive EMV chip cards and NFC transactions, like Google Pay and Apple Pay. However, you can still use the magstripe reader that comes with your Square purchase for traditional card swiping.
Don’t worry, the reader is still compatible with Android and Apple devices. What’s more, it comes with a partner app that allows you to manage personnel, customers, and products. Take note though, you have to pay 10 cents plus 2.6% for each swiped, tapped, and dipped payment.
4. CamCard
Business cards may seem old-fashioned but they are effective marketing tools, especially in trade shows. They allow you to be in contact with as many potential clients as possible. It does sound inconvenient collecting them one by one and this is why CamCard is a handy app. It is a business card app that allows you to trade information in a much simpler and modern way. Source: CamCard
The features you can enjoy in CamCard includes the following:
• Scan and store business cards
• Add notes and reminders to your contacts
• Trade e-cards with clients and other companies
• Receive contact updates
• Access contact details from different devices
• Enhance your profile to give people more information about you or your company
CamCard both has a paid and free version. If you opt for the free one, you can scan 200 e-cards. To add, it recognizes multiple languages, including English, Chinese, French, Spanish, Japanese, Swedish, Russian, Italian, and more.
5. Expensify
Participating in a trade show event involves a lot of expenses. For instance, you need to pay for the exhibition design company, graphics & printing, travel documents, airfare, lodging & meals, etc.
With Expensify, you can collect and track all of your expenses’ time, mileage, and reports. With the built-in SmartScan OCR, you can do the following:
• Take photos of receipts
• Note entries with further information
• Link credit cards to the app to match payments with specific products
For bigger companies, the app lets users handle the following:
• Automatic credit card settlements
• Next-day reimbursements
• Coordination with different HR and accounting software packages
• Company cards
6. QuickTapSurvey
QuickTapSurvey is an effective tool for collecting important data from potential and current clients. You can use this while offline and online and can be accessed from an iPhone, iPad, and any Android device. This app lets you create forms for online research, get feedback, and generate leads.
More importantly, you can conduct surveys in real-time during trade shows through this app. QuickTapSurvey allows you to brand and set up surveys through categorizing questions, capturing signatures, pulling analytics and reports, and exporting leads to Zapier, SurveyMonkey, Mailchimp, Infusionsoft, and Salesforce. Other features of this app include:
• More than 35 types of survey questions
• Unlimited survey responses
• Mobile-friendly surveys
• Automated alerts and notifications
Conclusion
Whatever industry you are in, trade shows are essential in your marketing endeavors. However, you must plan accordingly, prepare all resources available, and train your team. These are just a few you need to attend to when participating in an exhibition event. With the mobile apps included in this list, you can be assured that your work can be more organized.
