Technology has allowed us to move past the days when we simply drove a prospect to our website, captured their name and email address, and started them in a drip system in hopes that at some point they would click on a link in one of our emails and buy something.

Today’s lead generation system is a fully automated lead engagement system aimed at delivering the right information to the right person at the right time – and helping the sales team spot the perfect prospects ready for further engagement. By chaining together a series of web based applications you can create a system that engages, analyzes, and even gets pretty close to thinking about how to create better leads.

Below is an example of how a system like this might flow

• Run a series of ads using Adwords and Facebook promoting a free downloadable eBook
• Create seriously interactive and user friendly landing page forms with wufoo
• Automatically test two versions of landing pages using a landing page tool like Unbounce or Google website Optimizer
• Landing page success page includes Audio Acrobat audio recorded instructions on what to expect next
• When prospect requests copy of free eBook Solve 360 CRM creates a record and sends email to Flowtown
• Flowtown analyzes the social media activity associated with email and appends CRM record with social media data
• Based on social media activity criteria Flowtown creates influencer alerts and tags records for segmentation
• Segmentation information is sent to Constant Contact to enroll prospect in one of a series of email follow-up campaigns based on social media participation
• Email series invites prospects back to a series of video landing pages using personalized URL technology from SendPepper that also creates a post card mailing with personalized data from the campaign
• When a SendPepper pURL landing page is visited the Solve 360 CRM creates a task and the appropriate sales person receives a mobile alert to call the prospect

A system like this can be created by any size small business and gives you the kind of fire power that would make a salesperson at a Fortune 100 company giddy – as long as you also monitor every aspect using a tool like Google Analytics to help improve conversion at every step.

The entire process can be designed, monitored and tuned in such a way that it feels appropriate and elegant for each prospect that experiences it. While few things will ever replace person to person contact in the world of engagement a well designed lead engagement system is the front line tool that can help you create the know, like, and trust required to get that all important first meeting.