5 iPhone Apps For Your Next Tradeshow

The iPhone has opened numerous doors for increased productivity on the go and as apps are introduced with little end in sight, there are seemingly more possibilities to shuttle that productivity to the tradeshow industry – as an exhibitor or attendee. Here are a few that you may want to consider before your next big event.

Business Card Reader

The name & image about says it. Take a photo and the text recognition software built into the app will import your contact’s details into your address book. Also, a built-in browser makes it possible to import LinkedIn profile details, without ever leaving the app.

Ustream Live Broadcaster

For exhibitors, Ustream Live Broadcaster can allow you to run live demos & announcements to be viewed by other app users as well as non-attendees. For attendees, it’s a great resource to share live information with off-site team members and colleagues.

Whiteboard Capture Pro

This handy app can easily be employed during event meetings and can be utilized as a simple organizer for written notes from you or others.

2Do

One of the overlooked functions of the iPhone is the calender. Seemingly unchanged since the device was launched, your meeting organizer gets a big boost with the addition of push notifications for tasks and synchronization with this app.

DC Scanner

Relatively new, Digital Collateral is an intriguing app for a Green tradeshow. Simply scan a barcode from an exhibitor, and all product information (brochures, etc.) are digitized to your iPhone, creating a paperless environment and alleviating shipping and printing of materials. Look for the first official DC-enabled event at Go Green Expo, January 22.

1. 

   @DQtweets says:

   January 8, 2010 at 8:39 pm

   Great apps here. Especially like the idea of moving towards Digital Collateral for print ads and exhibitor marketing materials. Besides it being “green”, attendees would be more inclined to scan the info and read the info when they’re back in the office versus picking up a flyer and reading it.

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2. 

   Traci Browne says:

   January 9, 2010 at 7:18 am

   Thanks for the post Eric, can’t wait to check them out. I already use the card reader and have no idea how I or anyone else can live without it now. Very interested in digital collateral. I tend to like reading the physical (old fashioned that way…or perhaps it’s the marketer in me) but I’m finding the more I explore digital versions the more I like them…I’m almost converted.

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3. 

   Jeff Hurt says:

   January 9, 2010 at 10:07 am

   Great list Eric. Thanks for sharing.

   I’d add Bump to you list. Bump allows you to exchange contact information with a kunckle bump. You and a contact open the app, then while holding the iPhone, you bump knuckles. Your contact information is automatically exchanged on each other’s iPhone.

   And many tradeshows are offering their own mobile/iPhone specific event apps, like a2Z’s chirpE and core-apps. These mobile solutions offer ways to attract and engage attendees with everything from customized shedules to tradeshow floor layouts to exhibitor profiles.

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   • 

     Karina Zimmerman says:

     February 1, 2010 at 9:50 am

     Thanks for the mention, Jeff! We at Core-Apps are very proud of the features our tradeshow app Follow Me offers. Benefits to all: the attendees, the organizers and to exhibitors. Our app lives on long after a tradeshow and with good participation can become a valuable industry/association reference and promotional tool.

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4. 

   Richard Hughes says:

   January 10, 2010 at 3:02 am

   Hi Eric,

   Brilliant list and like the rest the digital collateral scanner looks great, I produce a lot of shows in the UK for BT (British Telecom) or as we naughtily call them “Bring Ten” as one piece of collateral is never enough !!

   This will save me time, money and a sore back….keep up the great work.

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5. 

   Eric Lukazewski says:

   January 21, 2010 at 2:25 pm

   Many thanks for the comments. I apologize for the delayed response:

   @DQtweets, Traci & Richard- Digital Collateral is a personal favorite of mine, in terms of the intrigue. It opens up a number of possibilities: Saves the exhibitor money in printing and shipping of papered materials, provides a better system for metric and lead tracking and most obvious and important, saves on the environment. DC is being launched at Green Expo this weekend in Los Angeles, and I’m excited to hear the response. Thank you both for your comments.

   @Jeff Hurt – Definitely should put Bump on that list. I’ve used it a number of times and is a quicker, more convenient solution than the business card exchange.

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6. 

   Lew Hoff says:

   March 25, 2010 at 11:41 am

   I think the iPhone is ideal for the tradeshow business. In fact I am the president of a company that is betting its future on it. After forty years of success, it can be a challenge to see your business change. We realized the future of any company boils down to innovation and differentiation…In our case that meant imploding on purpose.

   We took a good, hard look at what the iPhone and Salesforce.com mean to business and we set out to offer the next generation of lead retrieval. The result was the development of a first-of-its-kind iPhone App for tradeshow lead retrieval.

   As an app, iLeads allows businesses to confront a huge problem they face each time they exhibit : lead follow up. iLeads lets you do it instantly.

   By using the iPhone and iPod Touch in conjunction with cloud computing, iLeads also eliminates the friction (shipping costs, staffing, capital investment, maintenance and availability) generated by dedicated lead retrieval terminals – the core of our business for nearly two decades.

   Why did we choose the iPhone? We looked for a readily available, consumer-friendly handheld device to serve as the hardware platform. Just one device stood out: Apple’s iPhone. It meets the criteria established by our focus groups and more. Unlike some other popular handheld devices, the iPhone’s two operating systems are very stable and are compatible with one another. Blackberry, in contrast, has seven operating systems; there are compatibility issues, making it challenging to provide a system that will run without problems on every Blackberry model. Another big plus is that iLeads can run on Apple’s iPod Touch, a $200 device, which does not require the user to subscribe to a wireless plan. Another factor in the choice of iPhone/iPod Touch is the huge number of applications that are available already, including those that do the following: record expenses; book hotel, restaurant, car rental and airline reservations; trace shipments; take dictation, integrate with salesforce.com, Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, Google and more.

   We are anticipating integrating iLeads with Salesforce.com. This project is under way using a Salesforce-recommended third-party developer. The combination of Salesforce.com and iLeads is compelling for exhibitors and the reaction to iLeads introduction has been enthusiastic.

   The iPhone is ideal for business. For ours, it is the necessity we’ve been waiting for.

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7. 

   Travis says:

   September 8, 2010 at 8:55 am

   Thanks and just posted to an Event Peeps Group thread on LinkedIn where some people were asking about tradeshow apps etc. Came here awhile ago via the #eventprofs chat and is a great resource. Hope some of the Event Peeps groups swings by as well. Thanks,
   -T

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8. 

   Smash Hit Displays says:

   December 23, 2010 at 11:16 pm

   What a great list of apps! As a trade show display supplier, many of our clients are looking for ways to drive more traffic to their booth. These applications in combination with the use of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, I predict that trade show attendance will explode in 2011. Thanks for sharing!

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9. 

   Ralph says:

   February 17, 2011 at 9:49 pm

   These are good apps and I plan to check them out. I just returned as a trade show exhibitor from the NY Toy Show where we accepted orders from visiting customers. Is there an Iphone app that will allow us to scan bar codes to build an order, price it, and then wirelessly print it. Mostly a way to speed up entry. Our orders often have 30 or more line items.

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10. 

    tradeshow banner says:

    January 7, 2012 at 5:10 pm

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    reply
11. 

    Kevin McNeese says:

    January 30, 2012 at 2:59 pm

    Also check out iPrizeWheel for the iPad. A great solution for tradeshows. Check out http://www.iprizewheel.com.

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