Events play an important role for many marketers.  According to Lead Liaison (another overseas company in this space), 58% of marketers have used an event lead management solution or lead capture tool at a live event.  Despite this only 34% of marketers use new referrals, quality of leads and sales closure to measure event ROI (Marketing Charts 2013).
 
In addition, over 80% of marketers cannot quantify the data they collect during events, yet 46% of marketers view generating leads as the main reason to attend events and trade shows.  Most damningly of all, some sources suggest 75% of all leads are never followed up with after an exhibition.
 
When you consider that some exhibitors are using paper forms to capture their potential leads at events these figures start to make sense.  Inevitably it’s a lot of work to type out all the details on the form into a spreadsheet, and then distribute that spreadsheet out to their dealer network – not to mention chase up individual dealers and salespeople to see where they got to following up their leads.
 
In the last few years AutoPlay has been working with a number of brands to improve the efficiency of their lead capture at various events, and more importantly making their follow up considerably easier.  There are several approaches on how AutoPlay can be utilised at events to help capture more leads;
 
1.  “Cold walk ins, light touch approach”
WHAT?
Collect leads via a very simple web form that feeds leads into your Sales Pipeline Dashboard
PROS
+ Can design your own custom form especially for this event – making it as simple as you need it to be
+ Web form is a one-way push to Sales Pipeline and as such can work much better when internet is patchy
+ Don’t need the Sales Pipeline on-site.  Can access the web form on any device that has an internet connection
CONS
-  Doesn’t allow for any customer lookup – meaning there is no opportunity to prequalify event attendees
- Cannot link a database to pre-event marketing activity
 

2.  “Pre-qualified, integrated marketing approach”
WHAT?
In conjunction with marketing activity prior to the event you can pre-qualify leads that are likely to attend the event.  These leads can be sent from a CRM to AutoPlay Sales Pipeline – allowing salespeople to lookup pre-qualified leads during the event.
PROS
+  Ties in with pre-event marketing to ensure ROI tracking is linked from start to finish
+  Pre-qualified customers are further down the decision channel and this streamlines the experience during the event
+  Minimises chances of duplicate customers or duplicate leads
+  Enables salespeople to use built in tools such as database lookups, business card and drivers licence scanning
CONS
-  Looking up a database of thousands of leads can require a reliable internet connection – something that is not always guaranteed at events and trade shows
-  More pre-event work required to pre-qualify leads
-  No ability to provide customers with a simplified lead capture form – leads entered manually at the event must be manually entered to the Sales Pipeline
 
Why capture leads with AutoPlay during events?
The most obvious answer is in order to track ROI of how many potential leads are generated during the event.  However, it goes much further than this.  By capturing leads via AutoPlay dealerships and OEM’s benefit greatly in the weeks and months following;

• Distribution of leads post event to dealerships/salespeople is made easy as all data already exists within AutoPlay
• Follow up of leads is made easier for salespeople as the lead is immediately visible within their own Sales Pipeline Dashboard
• Event leads are mixed right in with their normal day-to-day leads – making ongoing follow up over the coming weeks and months part of their natural day-today routine
• Users don’t need to double handle data – meaning less duplicate leads and customers
• OEMS and managers gain a fuller picture of success from events as they are not just able to see Sales and Test Drives from the event, but also Appraisals or just a measure of activity via Progress or Calendar Events
• Many leads that would likely fall through the cracks are all recorded – further increasing the pool of leads the dealerships have to remarket to

 
If you are interested in using AutoPlay for events talk to matt@autoplay.co.nz about the approach that would be suitable for your dealership/brand.

The latest version of AutoPlay is now available for download from the App Store.  Make sure to grab the latest version to take advantage of all the changes listed below.  Additionally, if you use the Desktop Studio make sure to log out, close the browser window and reopen the application to apply the latest update.

• Automatically clear notifications after 7 days to improve loading speed
• When Vehicle Appraisal Manager Approval is enabled lock down the Appraisal Form after creation so that the valuations cannot be changed.  In addition managers now have the option of telling AutoPlay to send SMS notifications as well as the standard email notification when there is a waiting Appraisal
• When Closing Leads As Won users are now able to add a follow up date via a ‘Post Sale Follow Up Date’ field within the Close Won popup.  This will close the lead, but also create a calendar event on the specific day labelled “Post Sales Follow Up”
• Force users to choose a Type when creating Loan Car Forms instead of defaulting to None
• On iPad now prompt a message asking user “Do you want to send this assistance request?” when completing an Assistance Request.  This brings it into line with the Desktop
• When sending Appraisals to wholesalers from iPhone via SMS in addition to the 3 images embedded in the SMS we also automatically generate a google shortened URL to a website with the rest of the Appraisal images
• Added a disclaimer to the Appraisal Form and Write Up Forms “Vehicle trade price will be confirmed once any outstanding airbag, recall or campaign work is verified to be completed”
• When using Test Drive Kiosk mode, we now refresh the listings every time the listing popup is opened
• Added a BACK button to Sales Pipeline Reporting to assist users getting back to the app after using the EXPORT function
• Fixed ‘Clear Signature’ option in iOS app within the Write Up Form
• Individual notifications are no longer sent when bulk closing leads and bulk closing now occurs in the background to minimise disruption to the user
• Closed Leads with no outstanding calendar event are no longer classed as Stalled when viewing on the Dashboard
• Fixed issue with ‘Manual Load’ tick box not appearing under certain accounts
• AutoPlay are now able to set up individual Test Drive T&C’s for any “brochureware” yards
• Middle Name is now weighted in the customer database search that happens when a new lead is loaded
• When duplicating a Fleet Quote Builder email the Accessories are now copied across to the new email
• New Role Management setting to give dealerships greater control over who can and cannot Delete Leads.  This is for accounts where users are set up as System Admin but should not be able to delete leads
• When Notes on a lead are edited by an external CRM or DMS integration this triggers a notification to the lead owner that Notes have been added to their lead
• Improvements to how searching for customers in the Address Book screen works to gain more accuracy in search results
• New Role Management setting to enable dealerships to hide the Wholesale Quotes section from users they don’t want to see wholesale quotes
• When dealers are in an Assistance Request record they are now able to duplicate the record using a ‘Create Duplicate’ button.  This is useful if the request has been declined as a new request can be made with minimal effort
• Added ‘Next Action’ field to Print List function on the Sales Pipeline Dashboard.  This column shows the whether the Next Action is Overdue/Stalled etc.  Additionally, the Overdue Days field will display negative numbers if the event is in the future
• On Prospect & CRM Follow Up screen users can now either click the Complete button, or tick the on-screen check box to mark the record as complete
• When a Wishlist has matching Appraisals, these are now displayed by the most recent Appraisal first
• Added a filter for Model within the Morning Meeting Report, Email Allocation & Response Time, Overdue Lead Report
• Preferred Name field has been added to Lead Audit Report
• Upcoming category added to the Overdue Lead Report
• Added a column for Dealership Name to the Overdue Lead Report when logged into group/brand accounts
• Restricted Lead Source pie graph to show no more than 15 labels for lead sources. This has been done to ensure graph remains readable.  Full list of lead sources still available within data table.
• Closed Notes added to Export Report function within the Closed Lead Report
  
• In Market Leads – see /playbook/introducing-in-market-leads-making-buyer-matching-easy