Good quality leads are the life blood of any business, and efficient lead generation is what makes them possible. In this blog post we review 3 fresh lead acquisition tools that provide engagement and value first opportunities for the savvy Digital marketer:

Unbounce

Unbounce is a lead generation platform that enables you to create, publish and A/B Test landing pages without I.T. If you currently work as an in-house digital marketer, Unbounce will be your shining light – You’ll never have to hear “It’s on our todo list, we will see if we can fit you in next week” again. Unbounce will enable you to regain control of your landing pages, and have campaigns up and running within hours rather than weeks.

Custom URLs

Custom URLS are easy to setup in Unbounce. The only technical requirement when designing and deploying your lead gen landing pages to a custom URL is to make a simple DNS edit. You have the option of serving landing pages either via a sub domain or the root of your website. The landing pages appear on your own domain and Unbounce takes care of the hosting. Alternatively, you can host the landing page on Unbounce’s site instantly.

Lead Generation Forms

No landing page would be complete without a form! Unbounce makes form creation simple with it’s list of predefined fields within the landing page editor. Export wise you can download the data via CSV, view within the back end of Unbounce, or have them automatically sent to your email, MailChimp or FlowTown account in real time.

One Click A/B Testing

Split testing is the cornerstone of any successful online lead generation campaign. If you aren’t testing your landing pages conversion rates, you’re potentially throwing away a massive percentage of potential business. Split testing is essential and Unbounce makes it a breeze – Within the Split Testing interface you can create and manage different variations of your landing page. Not sure what to test? Check out Unbounce’s 101 Landing Page Optimization Tips for some smart advice.

AE Rating: 10/10

We like Unbounce a lot. We love the templates (video landing pages FTW!), the ease at which you can modify pages within the template editor, and the speed of which we can deploy said pages. Launching a minimal viable product has never been simpler, and taking back control of your marketing assets is now within reach.

Who do we recommend this lead generation tool for?

• Local Businesses – Launch to market within hours rather than weeks, and get leads rolling in instantly.
• Lead Generation Companies – Reduce customer acquisition costs, connect leads to auto-responders (Mailchimp) and obtain social profile information via Flowown integration.
• InHouse Marketers – Take back control. Make landing page changes on the fly and republish in real time. Get access to split testing statistics and testing facilities that will boost your conversion rate tenfold.

Snap Engage

SnapEngage is a lead generation tool that enables real-time online feedback and support on your website. It integrates extensively with third party CRM tools such as SalesForce, ZenDesk, and HighRise, and is super easy to deploy.

IM Integration

SnapEngage seamlessly integrates with iChat and GTalk (It took us a very respectable 30 seconds to hookup the onsite live chat app with the latter.) In the back end you can setup a personal picture to your live chat identity, as lets be honest, nobody wants to talk to a robot do they? Once a chat has finished SnapEngage immediately sends a transcript to your email, or directly to your preferred Help Desk, CRM or Bug Tracker. Pure Win!

Proactive Chat

Help indecisive visitors by utilising proactive chat. Simply provide the message you want to display after a delay you specify in seconds. You can use the “URL matching pattern” to define different rules for different areas of your website. You can also use the asterisk character in your URL pattern to match multiple URLs. We set analytics goals and create service provider reports in Google Analytics to generate lists of B2B companies who are potential warm leads. Proactive Chat enables you to connect with potential warm leads in real time.

Remote Page Screenshot

Remote page screenshots is a handy little feature that can be activated via IM. If a user is doing something notable or having difficulty using your website you can take a live screenshot by simply typing “/screen” in your IM. Snap Engage will then send the screenshot as well as the users environment details to your email account or CRM of choice (Try automating user error reporting to make identifying bugs easier for the development team – they will appreciate that.)

AE Rating: 9/10
We have tried many different live chat apps in the past and we can safely say SnapEngage trumps them all. If your company aims to offer remarkable customer service, you should be moving towards interactive, personalised and real time.

Who do we recommend this lead generation tool for?

• eCommerce Stores – If you are running a web store it’s beneficial to be on hand to answer sales support queries that will move the user from browsing to buying.
• Small to Medium Enterprises – Offering complex solutions or new to market products? Connect with your prospects while they are engaged with your content.
• Lean Startups – Hacked together a interesting new feature over the weekend? Deploy “Beta tester” lead generation landing pages via Unbounce,then run a SEM campaign to generate leads/potential users. Add Snap Engage and connect with your potential market in real time.

PDF Sales Leads

PDF Sales Leads is the first PDF lead generation solution that collects data from PDF readers, including those passed along from sources other than your website (potential gold if your PDF goes viral). PDF Sales Leads enhanced documents can capture lead data when you distribute your PDF’s via email, social channels, or your website.

Custom Branded In-Document Forms

PDF Sales Leads enables the marketer to step away from the walled garden approach, and enables the interested party to download the PDF without filling out a tedious form beforehand by integrating a custom lead generation form within the PDF itself. The form is 100% customisable – include your logo, a personal message, and as many fields as you desire.

Capture Pass-Along Reader Data

Social sharing is on the up – providing value first with your whitepaper/marketing content is now easier than ever. People share valuable information with each other every day via social networks, social news sites and bookmarking, as well as via the usual channels of email and IM. Enable the viral sharing of your PDF’s on these networks and capture pass-along reader data every time.

CRM Integration

PDF Sales Leads integrates with Salesforce, and is set to email all the leads it has captured once a day in the form of a CSV file.

AE Rating: 9/10

Whitepapers have been the the lead generation tool of choice for B2B marketers for quite some time, and could receive a new lease of life with this application. Enabling a value first proposition to the end user and removing the friction of an online form to download, you can provide considerable value to the user upfront and potentially setup your ‘back end’ for explosive growth. I’d give this a 10 if it wasn’t for the PDF Sales Lead URL the user sees when the reader is uploading the contact details.

Who do we recommend this lead generation tool for?

• eBook Authors – A new tool for list building and developing a connection with your audience.
• B2B Publishers – Offer your advertisers new lead generation opportunities. Create in-demand industry reports and place the lead generation form before the juicy stats and details.
• Viral Marketers – eBooks have always been a great way to develop word of mouth. Call up your favourite content development team to create a lead generation eBook for your niche, then just add a pinch of PDF Sales Leads.

Hope you found this round-up of fresh lead generation tools useful. Please take the time to test them out for yourselves – Experimentation, action and extensive testing are  key when developing new opportunities and revenue streams.

Do you have any interesting lead generation tools that you know of? Tell us about them in the comments below.

Business Owners / Digital Agencies: If you’re interested in generating more business and clients. Get in touch today to arrange a sales and lead generation consultation.