Comments on: Go Beyond The Back Of A Business Card: Creating A More Complete Trade Show Lead Management System

By: Mike Thimmesch

Mike Thimmesch — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 17:51:13 +0000

Thanks for the insight, Bruce. You are a man of many talents.

By: Bruce Jones

Bruce Jones — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 17:48:18 +0000

I was a Goldmine CRM Database Administrator among other things for 9 years at a Skyline dealership. When I started my own company I could have had Goldmine for free because of my business relationships with VARS. I chose to pay (good money) for Salesforce because of the ease of web integration, ability to access from anywhere and the scalability of the product. Recently I have discovered Zoho CRM, it is an inexpensive Salesforce alternative and even has a free version for up to 3 users. Whatever you use to collect up leads it is imperative to collect and add in details so you can segment your list and follow up effectively after the show.

By: Mike Thimmesch

Mike Thimmesch — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 19:23:41 +0000

Louis,

Sounds like you could just use a printed lead card to complete your system. You already have your own digital system that gets the contact info into your database. But with a lead card, your staffers can also record what they learn about their booth visitors in terms of their wants, needs, pains, time frame, existing vendors, and more.

By: Louis Torrans

Louis Torrans — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 16:18:10 +0000

The lead systems we’ve used like those from The National Harware Show are nice but the cost is outstanding! And, nearly all my leads were backed up with a business card. For right now it makes you wonder what the benefit is? We use CardScan so the data from the card goes right into our data base in the office. It’s going to be very hard to replace the business card with anything that is simpler, easier and as cost effective.

By: Tom Anderson

Tom Anderson — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:45:53 +0000

Salesforce.com cannot be beaten. It is not merely a CRM or SFA system – it is a business application development platform.

We have been using it since 2006, and have built a number of custom applications that allow us to manage marketing projects, manage trade shows, booth resources and shipping logistics (we do 100+ tradeshows per year.) In addition, we manage our marketing, sales and service entirely out of salesforce.com. The key is to have a good administrator that is knowledgable in relational database and development.

By: Marina S

Marina S — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:45:31 +0000

I have worked with ACT and Salesforce.com and prefer Salesforce.com by far. Very user friendly, great GUI. Includes features such as campaign building, etc.

By: Mike Thimmesch

Mike Thimmesch — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 17:37:16 +0000

Leon and Bob,

Thanks for answering Jordan’s question! I’m also interested to hear what cloud-based CRM systems trade show marketers are using. Anyone have experience with Salesforce.com?

By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:57:39 +0000

Jordan
I have used ACT for years. I have worked with other CRM’s but have always come back to ACT.

By: Leon

Leon — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 14:34:22 +0000

We use Highrise it is very affordable and a pretty good system.

http://highrisehq.com/

By: Jordan

Jordan — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:43:40 +0000

I am looking for a good, fair-priced, cloud-based CRM database. Does anyone have any recommendations?