What exhibition capture does
Exhibition capture turns booth conversations into pipeline before the follow-up window closes. At trade shows, exhibitions, and offline sales moments, it captures each prospect — badge scans, quick-entry forms, business card details — as a CRM record on the spot, tagged with the event as its source so attribution survives the chaos of show week.
The default alternative is grim: a stack of business cards and a badge-scan export that someone types into a spreadsheet the following week, by which point the warm conversations have cooled and competitors who followed up on day one have the meetings. Worse, nobody can later say what the event actually produced, so next year's exhibition budget is a guess.
How it works in HelloGrowthCRM
Exhibition capture runs as a lead-capture workflow inside HelloGrowthCRM, built for speed at the booth: a rep captures a prospect in seconds from a phone or tablet, with the event stamped as source context on every record. Captured leads land in the same queue as your other sources, ready for routing and same-day follow-up rather than a post-show spreadsheet exercise.
From there the normal machinery takes over: routing assigns owners, sequences and WhatsApp handle the first follow-up wave, and analytics reports event-sourced leads through to revenue so exhibition ROI is reviewable. It is included on all paid plans, not the free plan.
Try exhibition capture — scan, qualify, and sync leads fast
How this capability is packaged by plan
| Plan | Availability |
|---|---|
| Free Forever | |
| Software Only | |
| Growth Engine | |
| RevOps Partner |
Setting it up — step by step
- 1
Create the event as a source
Set up the exhibition as a tagged source before the show so attribution is automatic.
- 2
Prepare the capture form
Keep it short — name, company, phone, interest — because booth conversations do not wait for long forms.
- 3
Brief the booth team
Train everyone to capture during the conversation, not from a card pile afterwards.
- 4
Pre-build the follow-up sequence
Write the thanks-for-visiting message and touch cadence before the event starts.
- 5
Route and review daily during the show
Assign each day's captures to owners that evening and check follow-up completion next morning.
Who uses exhibition capture
Field sales rep
Captures prospects at the booth mid-conversation from a phone, adds a one-line note about what the visitor wanted, and starts show-floor follow-ups the same evening while the conversation is still fresh for both sides.
Marketing manager
Owns event attribution: sets up each exhibition as a source, watches captured volume daily during the show, and reports leads-to-pipeline-to-revenue by event when the annual exhibition budget gets debated.
Sales manager
Routes each day's captures to owners overnight, tracks follow-up completion in the fortnight after the show, and makes sure hot booth conversations get calls in days — not whenever the spreadsheet finally circulates.
Exhibition Capture in practice — industry examples
Jewellery stores
A jewellery house exhibits at a regional wedding show and captures three hundred visitors with notes on occasion and budget range. Bridal enquiries get a WhatsApp lookbook that evening and a showroom-visit call within two days, and the owner can trace the season's showroom bookings back to the show.
Automotive
A dealership runs a stand at an auto expo, capturing test-drive interest with model preferences on a tablet. Captures route to the showroom team nightly, booked test drives appear as deals with the expo as source, and three months later the GM knows exactly what the stand produced.
Travel agents
A tour operator works a travel fair, logging each visitor's destination interest and rough travel dates. Honeymoon enquiries get itinerary suggestions by WhatsApp within a day, longer-horizon prospects drop into a nurture sequence, and follow-up completion is tracked instead of assumed once the fair ends.
Common mistakes to avoid
Collecting business cards for later entry instead of capturing live, losing half the leads and all the conversation context.
Skipping event source tagging in the rush, making post-show ROI review impossible when budget questions arrive.
Writing the follow-up messages after the show ends, burning the two or three days when booth conversations are warmest.
Treating every capture identically instead of noting interest level, so hot prospects wait behind casual badge-scans in the queue.
What teams usually care about here
Helps teams turn booth traffic and badge scans into usable pipeline faster
Captures source context so event ROI can be reviewed later in reporting
Reduces spreadsheet-heavy follow-up after exhibitions and conferences
How this fits the buying decision
Buyers usually do not evaluate exhibition capture in isolation. They want to know whether it improves execution, reporting, handoffs, and accountability inside the broader CRM workflow. That is why this capability matters most when it is connected to records, ownership, activity history, and manager review rather than living in a separate point tool.
The real decision is often less about whether a box is checked and more about how much depth the team needs. Lower tiers may be enough when the workflow is simple or the volume is small. Higher tiers become more valuable when teams need governance, faster response expectations, specialist execution, or a repeatable operating cadence around the process.
If this capability is important to your rollout, compare it in the context of the whole plan. That includes related workflows, support level, reporting expectations, and whether your team will manage the motion itself or rely on managed RevOps help to keep it consistent.
Frequently asked questions
Is exhibition capture included in the free plan?
No. Exhibition capture is available on all paid plans — Software Only, Growth Engine, and RevOps Partner. If events are part of how you generate pipeline, the Software Only plan is the entry point for capturing them properly.
How much setup does an event need beforehand?
About an hour: create the event as a tagged source, build a short capture form, and pre-write the follow-up sequence. Do all three before the show opens — the teams that struggle are the ones improvising capture and follow-up during the event itself.
Does it work on phones at the booth?
Yes — that is the designed use. Reps capture prospects from a phone or tablet during the conversation, in seconds. No laptop station, no paper backlog; the record exists with source context before the visitor has left the stand.
How does follow-up happen after capture?
Captured leads flow into the normal lead queue, where routing assigns owners and your pre-built sequence sends the first touches — WhatsApp works particularly well for same-evening follow-up with brochures or lookbooks. Hot prospects get called via the dialer, with every touch logged on the record.
Can I measure what an exhibition actually returned?
Yes, because every capture carries the event as its source. Analytics can then report that event's leads through qualification, pipeline, and won revenue over the following months — turning next year's exhibit-or-not decision from a hunch into a numbers conversation.
Related Pricing Capabilities
Dashboard (overview KPIs)
A home view for pipeline health, workload, follow-up priorities, and top-line KPIs so reps and managers can start the day with context.
Analytics
Reporting surfaces that help teams inspect conversion rates, stage-to-stage movement, rep activity levels, and overall funnel performance — so decisions come from data rather than gut feel.
Leads
Lead records that hold qualification context, ownership, source, and follow-up state in one CRM-native workflow — so no inquiry slips through the cracks between first touch and handoff.
Accounts
Company-level records that organise contacts, opportunities, activity history, and account context in one place — built for B2B teams selling into multiple stakeholders at the same organisation.
Deals
Pipeline objects that track opportunity value, stage progress, next steps, and forecast contribution across every sales motion — the working surface where reps move deals and managers inspect risk.
Activities
Calls, meetings, notes, tasks, and logged touchpoints that give teams a usable timeline of work completed on every record.