Digitize Business Cards with a Phone App

 

Organize and digitize your business card data more efficiently with a phone app

Networking events are great for making connections and building relationships that can eventually turn into leads for your sales team. The trouble comes with finding a way to keep track of all the business cards you collect at these meetings. Do you store them in a 3-ring binder for future reference or type the contact information into your computer?

If you want to follow up with people on a timely basis, it’s important to have an easyway to retrieve their contact information. Relying on a 3-ring binder is not very efficient. Having that info stored on your computer is a major improvement. But if you’re manually typing that information into your contact management system, it’s going totake a long time to do.

You’re not just typing in a name, address and phone number anymore. Most professionals include their company website URL, e-mail address, and even a Facebook page or Twitter id on their business cards. You need a quick and efficient way to store that information, so it’s readily available at your fingertips when you need it.

Luckily, if you have a Smartphone or Blackberry, there’s an app for that!

Several companies provide apps that will allow you to take a picture of a businesscard and then automatically transfer that information into your phone’s address book. CamCard offers a free “lite” version for the iPhone, while Shape Services’ Business Card Reader for iPhone costs 99 cents. WorldCard Mobile for iPhone costs a little more at $5.99, but it was chosen as best business card scanner by Macworld.com. For Droid users, try one of these business card readers CamCard, WorldCard, scancard, Abbyy or Google Goggles.

Whichever app you choose, you’ll save a lot of time and frustration – since it will be much easier for you and your sales team to stay in contact with current customers and prospective leads.

Tags: business apps, Creating Wow, marketing for small businesses, Meredith Communications, Meredith Oliver, networking, phone apps, Smart Phone, Social Media, web marketing for small business, website technology