People ask this all the time. It’s a top question on many peoples minds worldwide. Below we will make the case for why Folocard Offline is the best business card scanner for iPhone and the best business card scanner for Android.
Best Free Business Card Scanner
Free is the first reason. Many business card scanner apps are limited by price and the free or lite versions are packed with limitations on the usage, frustrating users. The hope is that you will upgrade to a premium or paid app. At Folocard we believe that whatever features we place in the app that are local to the device, as in they do not require server operations – they will be free
- Free Business Card Scanner. There are no credits or limits on the number of business card scans you perform. Not 10 and not 500. Unlimited, free and forever.
- Free Email Templates. We do not limit or request payment or any action on the number of email templates you create (or duplicate).
- Free contact saving. Again this is unlimited. This automatic feature is top of mind when thinking of a free business card reader app. We also made it automatic, you don’t have to sift through menus to find the save to contact feature like with other business card scanning apps.
- Free Export. Some apps do not offer this functionality. Some apps require payment for this capability. With Folocard Offline you can export a comma separated values (.csv) file directly to your device and share from there.
Offline – No Internet Connection
Only the premium features (API and Backup) require server, and therefore, an active internet connection. When you are in a conference floor, the amount of people (devices), interference and usually the being in a foreign country limit a stable connection. All the free business card scanning features listed in the previous section are local to your device. They work always. Even when your on airplane mode. A perfect time to execute business card follow ups. Your email app will simply que the emails and send them or sync to draft folder when you regain an internet connection.
Email Follow Up
This is the main difference between traditional business card scanner apps and Folocard Offline. The workflow is designed to enable you to take action on the business card you have just collected. This person is not simply a contact you need to save and sync to your CRM / lead list. It’s a person who has given you permission to connect with. They are expecting you to contact them. Business cards are social contracts saying: Contact me!
Why procrastinate? Why delay the outreach? You can shoot a simple follow up email after you edit it lightly while it is still a draft. Adding some context to the meeting you just had. It is fresh in your mind and theirs. You remember more about what the opportunity is. Even when you do not think that the person is of high priority in your current goals, it doesn’t mean it won’t mature to be one in the future. Sending an immediate follow-up email is the most polite way of recognizing that the meeting took place.
Don’t miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity
anonymous
The major benefit of following up immediately is when the recipient replies. This can sometimes be very quick, and shows a mutual respect for the near term or future prospective opportunity. Sometimes this leads to a follow up meeting. If your are in a conference and follow up on the same day, this may lead to an unexpected cocktail party invite, a breakfast meeting and maybe another professional meeting with other members, senior or otherwise that were not present at the original business card exchange.
You don’t have to settle for nonpersonalized and generic templates. You always get the change to edit the email further, and in most cases, you should. But you can enable the dynamic first name macro, this adds another step to the follow-up workflow asking to confirm the first name before the draft is made. This results in a “Hello Steve!” opener.
Additionally, nothing prevents you from sending another, more contextual, follow up email when you are back at your laptop. Lastly, you both gain the technical benefit of having the info in your email app ready for search. As opposed to some silo
Export API
Marketing automation is all the rage. Folocard Offline supports Zapier, a leading SaaS codeless API marketplace which enables you to automate your workflow further in a customizable and simple interface that also scales. Some examples of what you can
- Business Card Scanning to Excel. While you can export CSV for free, you still need to upload or open in a spreadsheet program. You can automatically add contact info (and follow up details like template name location and time) into rows in a Microsoft Office Excel (365) or Google Sheets.
- Business Card to SalesForce. More and more business use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) as the available solutions begin to appeal to even small businesses, and not just enterprise grade companies. There are dozens of such solutions from Pipedrive, Base, SugarCRM, Zoho and the list is rather long.
- Business Card to Mailing List. Some companies setup marketing automation email drip campaigns to keep leads interested. MailChimp is one of such connections you can setup to automatically add emails to a list.
- Business Card to Database. Some companies like to manage their interactions on their own tables. Setting up a Webhook into any API is possible, as well as other common databases such as MongoDB, MySql and so forth.
Privacy
As we mentioned that Folocard Offline, is capable of running without an internet connection, it is important to know that we do not see your email templates nor the business cards scanned. Specially, we do not see:
- Business Card data, including the image.
- Template data, including the Subject, Body and even the internal Template Name.
- Transaction data, including location, timestamps, dates, etc.
- All of your personal identifiable information (PII)
We do collect this info when you enable the Backup and Zapier features, which again are Premium only. You cannot enable them by mistake.
We do collect anonymous app engagement analytical metrics that allow us in aggregate to understand how the app is performing, which features are used and why. All this in the effort to improve the app and to feed product and development functions with insights.
We do not want to spook anyone here, but some other business card apps ingest all the data you provide. They build contact databases they then further analyze and market to 3rd parties. Imagine knowing the graph of massive business contacts. They declare they may do this deep in their privacy policies and terms of service. Buyer beware. We know this for a fact as a highly publicized business card app has offered us such a database of 165,000 business cards, including images and all metadata.
No Business Card?
No Problem. This happens. They want to give you their email, but they are “out of business cards”. We have you covered. Just LONG PRESS the scanner button and a full screen, one field form appears. It is designed so that you can, alternatively, hand over your device to allow the other person to enter in the email without any mistakes. You can also access your camera roll or photo gallery to upload an image to scan, in case you have been sent a business card of someone you want to follow up on quick.
Feedback
We want it. When it’s bad and brutal. As we seek to to improve. While we thing we created the best business card app in the market, we know we can do better. We have so much planned, it’s exciting, but the plan is flexible. We want you, the user, who is on the ground, to tell us what is missing, slow, buggy and also, if possible, how awesome the best business card scanner app – Folocard Offline truly is.