CRM import (event leads)

Until leads sit in the CRM with an event tag, the show produced anecdotes, not pipeline. The import is where measurement becomes possible — every later claim about event ROI (opportunities sourced, deals won, acquisition cost) depends on leads being attributed to a campaign at this step, and attribution skipped now can't be reconstructed in six months. In practice, the work is mapping and hygiene: lead retrieval exports arrive as CSVs or API feeds with the organizer's field names, which need mapping to your objects; duplicates need merging rather than overwriting (that badge scan may be an open opportunity's champion, and flattening their record loses history); qualification notes need a field that sales actually reads; and routing rules fire on arrival so each lead lands owned. Teams that do this well build the mapping before the show and import within forty-eight hours. The common mistake is the manual heroic import a fortnight later, complete with retyped notes and lost tags — speed and structure beat completeness here. One honest nuance: badge data quality is the organizer's registration form's quality, so expect generic emails and stale job titles, and budget a light enrichment pass instead of blaming the import.