The Must-have Mobile Apps That Will Save Your Life During a Trade Show

It’s a digital world. It’s a digital life. No professional goes anywhere without their smartphone and a tablet, and while smart devices can be a great distraction when it comes to real life interactions, we can’t completely discount them as working tools. Because when you use them smartly during a trade show, you stand to optimize your time and experience to the fullest potential.

We have stressed how important it is to be present and in the moment during trade shows. It seems a little bit counterintuitive to introduce apps to the mix, when you should be meeting with people and earning their trust through in-person conversation. Hear us out…

Mobile apps, when selected carefully and used smartly, allow you to do just that and more of it, because you’ll have everything else under control. Digital technology makes planning such an easy task to accomplish. What should you and everyone else on your company team have to install on their phones?

Compatible Messaging Apps

Viber and Facebook Messenger are not your friends, when you’re trying to manage a team and get your foot in the industry better. Skype is out of the question as it will burn through your battery. You need to install texting apps that are built for bigger conversations, safer communication and better organization. Telegram is an excellent app that allows the transfer of large files without any difficulty and offers good group chat interface. Slack gives you the opportunity to create different channels for different subjects and keep conversations separate. Depending on how involved you are in the trade show and how big your team is, you can make a decision between the two.

Intuitive Scheduling Apps

As we’ve mentioned, trade shows are hectic. If you’re smart, you’re not just anchored at your trade show booth, but making appointments, attending the program and keeping track of guided tours. The more on your itinerary, the bigger the risk you’re going to forget something and although we like Google Calendar, it can’t help you with everything. You need the right scheduling app that’s accessible by all your team members.

Apps like Calendly and When I Work give you control over your team’s schedule during the trade show, your own schedule, meetings and appointments and any other details surrounding your travel plans and accommodation. Make it a priority for every team member to look at their app for any changes, and you’ll save yourself countless hours texting individuals with changes and risking information getting lost in the shuffle.

Efficient Lead Apps

Speed is the best possible attribute to adopt at your booth, because you want to introduce company products and strengths to a wide as possible audience and taking down leads is time consuming, if you do it by hand. We love pen and paper as much as anybody, because you always have physical paper trails to follow, but in the 21st century – it appears dated, and somewhat unprofessional. You want to optimize the process when handling prospect buyers on site and work on branding through something that doesn’t have anything to do with the product directly.

Lead apps is where to invest! QuickTapSurvey and GoCapture make it easy to capture leads with as few taps as possible and you can even operate without the need to be online. All you need is to provide a tablet and you’ll be fine.

Branded Company App

If your clients can buy from you online and you have a rich catalogue of wares, why not invest in developing your own app. The future is mobile and ordering through a mobile app is easier than through a mobile website, which even when done right is clumsier. The investment will pay itself off in the long run and save you time during the trade show as you can easily introduce your whole product catalogue digitally without paper. Not only do you appear more forward-thinking, but you also benefit from being green.

Small businesses might not have the budget to develop their own app, but there’s a solution! Just install a product catalogue app, which at least saves you the trouble of having to print out heavy paper catalogues. Apps like Onsight allow you to organize your products in a way that makes ideal sense for search and display.

Do you see how just four apps can reduce the time and energy you’d otherwise expend talking to your team and managing them throughout the day, and reduce overall costs for transportation of unnecessary materials like product catalogues? Smooth out the trade show experience so you can focus where it matters – building valuable business connections!