In today’s dynamic trade show landscape, capturing qualified leads and fostering meaningful connections are crucial for exhibitors and event attendees at trade shows. Traditional methods often involve paper forms and business cards, leading to laborious data entry and potential inaccuracies. Whova offers a mobile event app designed to streamline attendee engagement and overall event experience, but lacks flexibility when it comes to being useful for exhibitors.

 This review delves into Whova’s functionalities, explores its strengths and weaknesses, analyzes its suitability for various trade show needs, and compares it to alternative platforms.

Core Functionalities

Here’s a breakdown of Whova’s key features:

Pros:

• Lead Capture and Retrieval: Exhibitors can leverage business card scanning and badge scanning (if the event host subscribed to it), and manual entry to capture attendee contact information for later follow-up.
• Messaging: Built-in messaging allows for direct communication between exhibitors and attendees, facilitating relationship building and follow-up conversations.
• Event Agenda and Information: Attendees can access the event schedule, speaker details, exhibitor listings, and booth information within the app, ensuring a smooth and organized experience.
• Networking Tools: Whova offers features like attendee search and filtering based on interests, facilitating targeted networking opportunities.
• All-in-One Event App: If you are looking for an all-in-one solution that is geared towards attendees then this one might be ok.

Cons:

• No Business Card Scanning – Since Cvents must be purchased by event hosts, it fully relies on having event badges that are compatible with the software. This makes the app less flexible for scanning other types of inputs such as business cards and digital business cards.
• Reliance on Mobile App Usage: The effectiveness of lead capture and attendee engagement hinges on a significant number of attendees utilizing the event app.
• Limited Offline Functionality: While core lead capture functionalities might operate offline, advanced features like messaging and accessing event updates require an internet connection.
• Cost for Exhibitors: Whova’s pricing model involves per-exhibitor fees, which might be a deterrent for smaller businesses or budget-conscious booths.
• Limited Customization: While some customization options exist for exhibitor branding within the app, the overall user interface and functionalities are largely predetermined by the platform itself.
• No integrations: It won’t integrate with your CRM.
• Not universal: It doesn’t work at all events like some of the other apps specific for lead capture. The event host much choose to use it. If you are looking to implement a lead scanner to use at every event, an alternative solution like Handshook.app or iCapture (owned by Cvent) might be the best for business card scanning and for badges.
• Engagement app: It boasts lead functionalities but we found them to be lackluster. It was more of an event social network.
• No LinkedIn: LinkedIn is the premier business social network. This app doesn’t have built-in functionality to connect with prospects on LinkedIn.
• No AI: With Artificial Intelligence all the rage, it would be nice to have some built-in AI capabilities such as the ability to find missing contact information.
• No Batch Scan: Trade show booths can get busy. There is no way to scan multiple cards or badges at the same time as a batch scan.

• Event Analytics: Unless attendees used the app to engage with you (i.e. send you a message), the analytics were useless.

Who should consider it

Whova presents a valuable solution for various trade show scenarios but is predominately for the event coordinator or event manager:

• Large Trade Shows: For events with a high volume of attendees, Whova’s efficient lead capture features and attendee engagement tools can significantly enhance the overall experience for both exhibitors and attendees.
• Data-Driven Exhibitors: Organizations that prioritize data-driven marketing strategies will appreciate lead qualification options and event analytics capabilities offered by Whova.
• Tech-Savvy Attendees: Trade shows attracting a tech-savvy audience are likely to benefit from the convenience and information accessibility provided by the Whova event app.

However, for smaller trade shows with limited app adoption among attendees or those requiring extensive customization, alternative solutions might be more suitable.

Pricing

Whova’s pricing structure is not publicly available on their website. Costs are typically negotiated with event organizers and vary depending on factors like the size of the trade show, the number of exhibitors participating, and the desired features.

Alternatives for Business Card Scanning & Trade Show Lead Capture

Several mobile event app platforms compete with Whova in the trade show landscape. Here’s a comparison highlighting key features:

• Handshook: Shines at scanning all types of inputs you’d find at a trade show: event badges, business cards, and even digital business cards like HiHello, Blinq, and Dot card. Plus can find missing contact information on badges and connect with prospects on LinkedIn right from the app.
• EventMobi: Offers a wider range of customization options for event apps, but might be less user-friendly for attendees compared to Whova.
• Cvents LeadCapture: This lead capture app is intended for trade show badges but not other formats.
• Webex Events (formerly Socio): This is more of an event management app platform like Cvents or Whova.

The Final Word

Whova fosters attendee engagement at trade shows through its mobile event app. However, for exhibitor related activities such as lead capture, lead retrieval, badge scanning, and business card scanning, we found it to be not very useful. Also, as a company you can only use Whova if an event coordinator decides to use it making it useless at most trade shows.  Perhaps one of the apps above might be a better fit.