Scan the card at the fair, push the lead into the trade fair CRM
Sighthem turns the exporter's busiest lead-finding moment, the trade fair, from a pile of business cards lost in a drawer into a working pipeline. Scan the card at the booth with the mobile app, turn it into a lead in seconds with OCR, and tie the conversation to the related customer card. Every contact you collect at the fair continues in the same system, from post-fair campaigns and follow-up through proforma, shipment and collection, with no re-entry of data.
Business card OCR: scan the card, the lead appears while you stand at the booth
Business cards collected at a fair carry the hottest interest, yet they often turn into a pile waiting for manual entry. With the Sighthem mobile app you hold the card up to the camera and the lead appears while you are still at the booth.
- Hold the business card up to the camera and read the name, company, title, phone and email fields automatically with OCR, typing nothing by hand
- Create a lead instantly from the scanned data, drop the contact into the pipeline at the PROSPECTING stage, and remove the bulk-entry day after the fair entirely
- If you collected several cards from the same company, link the contacts under one company card and keep purchasing and decision-maker people separate
- Add a quick note at the booth, record which product they were interested in alongside the card, and keep the conversation context before it cools
Mobile PWA: use your phone like an installable app on the fair floor
A separate device or an unstable connection on the fair floor slows your selling pace. The Sighthem mobile PWA turns your phone into an installable app and adapts to the conditions of the floor.
- Add the mobile PWA to your phone as an installable app, and give the whole team the same tool without carrying a separate device
- Scan a card quickly in booth traffic, queue it, and let leads flow in once the connection recovers, so you miss not a single card
- Work with the phone camera, collect leads throughout the fair without going back to a desktop, and create them on the spot rather than at the hotel that night
- With an installable app experience, put no extra training load on the team; the sales rep simply scans and saves
Tie the conversation to the customer card: who, when, what was discussed
You hold dozens of conversations at a fair, but which contact discussed what is usually erased a few days later. Sighthem merges every contact and channel onto a single customer card.
- Attach the conversation note to the lead the scanned card created, so which product, what quantity and which market was discussed stays on file
- Record your call with a foreign visitor, transcribe it and attach the conversation automatically to the related customer record, then break the language barrier afterward with transcript translation
- Connect WhatsApp through the official business API, and keep messaging the buyer you met at the fair from the same card
- Mark the next step on the pipeline, record the sample, quote or visit you promised, and preserve context even when the team changes
Post-fair campaigns and follow-up: act on warm interest before it cools
The real value of a fair shows up in the follow-up done after it ends. Sighthem moves the leads you collected into segmented campaigns and makes the follow-up measurable.
- Segment the leads collected at the fair by market, sector and product interest, and send the right thank-you and catalogue message in bulk to each group
- Confirm the email address before sending with the discovery and verification service, so you reach the right inbox even when the address on the card is illegible
- Track opens and clicks, see in numbers which visitor from the fair list is genuinely interested, and hand the warm ones to sales
- Start the follow-up flow before the fair ends, keep the send history on the related customer card, and never lose which message went out when
Report the fair cohort: which fair actually brought winning customers
A fair budget is large, and when you cannot measure its return you make the same decision blind every year. In Sighthem a fair is marked as a source and its outcome is tracked end to end.
- Tag every lead with the fair it came from, build a fair-based cohort, and see it in one pool instead of scattered spreadsheets
- Track a fair lead's progress all the way to proforma, order and collection, and measure which fair turned into real sales
- See which fair created interest in which country with market- and product-based reports, and plan next year's fair calendar with data
- Defend a high-cost channel with numbers or cut it, managing the fair investment by measurement rather than gut feeling
One flow from booth to shipment: the fair lead stays in the same system
Collecting cards at a fair alone does not create value; that contact has to turn into a quote, an order and collection. In Sighthem the fair is the first link of the foreign trade flow and moves forward without re-entering data.
- Link the lead you scanned at the fair to a proforma with one click, without retyping the company and contact details read from the card
- Move from an approved proforma to an order, and on to shipment, packing, lot binding and partial shipment on the same record
- Produce the export COMMERCIAL INVOICE and UBL-TR e-invoice from the same customer record, completing the relationship that began at the fair down to the document in one system
- Open the fair lead pool to your sales team with stackable permissions, preserving tenant isolation so data never leaks across workspaces
Set a source tag before you go to the fair and link every card you scan at the booth to the same tag. That way, when the fair ends you segment that fair's cohort with one click and send the thank-you campaign, keeping the warm list from scattering.
When you scan the card at the booth and turn it into a lead with OCR, you remove the classic post-fair manual-entry day entirely. That means the follow-up email goes out while the visitor still remembers you, and the first-reply rate rises noticeably.
Entering business cards days after the fair lets the hottest interest cool. If you do not scan the card and start the follow-up flow before the fair ends, a competitor follows up before you do; move the lead into a campaign the same day.
Frequently Asked Questions
What exactly does a trade fair CRM do?
It lets you scan a business card with the mobile app and create a lead instantly with OCR, tie the conversation to the related customer card, follow up with segmented post-fair campaigns, and report which fair turned into real sales. Sighthem brings all of this into one flow; every contact you collect at the fair continues in the same system through proforma, shipment and collection.
How do I turn a business card into a lead, is manual entry needed?
With the Sighthem mobile PWA you use your phone like an installable app. You hold the card up to the camera, OCR reads the name, company, title, phone and email fields, and a lead is created while you are still at the booth. No manual entry is needed; you save yourself the hours of manual data entry after the fair.
Does it work on a fair floor with a weak internet connection?
Yes. The mobile app works by scanning the card and queuing it; it scans quickly in booth traffic and the leads flow into the system once the connection recovers. So even on a weak connection you collect without missing a card and create on the spot, not at the hotel that night.
How do I record and follow up on a conversation I had at the fair?
You attach the conversation note to the lead the scanned card created, so which product, quantity and market was discussed stays on file. You can record a call with a foreign visitor, transcribe it and translate the transcript to a target language, and keep messaging from the same card through the official WhatsApp business API. You mark the next step on the pipeline and preserve context even when the team changes.
Can I measure which fair brought in more customers?
Yes. You tag every lead with the fair it came from and build a fair-based cohort. You track those leads' progress to proforma, order and collection, and see with market- and product-based reports which fair turned into real sales in which country. That way you plan next year's fair calendar with data rather than gut feeling.
Do I need to give card details to get started?
No. You can try Sighthem free for 14 days on the PRO plan, with no card required. During this time you can test business card OCR, mobile lead capture, conversation linking and the post-fair campaign flow with your real data, and move your fair process onto a single platform.
End the hours of manual data entry after the fair: scan the card, create the lead instantly, and start the follow-up flow before the fair ends. Try Sighthem free for 14 days on the PRO plan, no card required.
Start a 14-day PRO trial · Export CRM · Best foreign trade software · See pricing