I went fly fishing for the first time in my life a couple of years ago on the Provo River in Utah. On my first and only day trying this sport I did pretty well–I caught about 14 trout. And I couldn’t help but draw some parallels to lead generation in digital marketing. Because I’m that way.

Fly fishing is by no means an easy sport and for many enthusiasts, their pursuit of mastering it becomes a life-long obsession. Wild fish are very smart. They are pretty good at detecting things in their environment that look weird or potentially threatening and they stay away from them. The only reason I had any success at all was because I had an excellent guide showing me the tricks. He taught me to cast in a way that blends in with the fish’s environment and present the fly so that it looks inviting and natural. I also learned that subtlety is key if you want to hook one of those clever trout.

Apps, apps, and more apps. There’s an app for this and and app for that. Apps are penetrating the marketplace thanks to the iPhone explosion and other mobile devices following suit. But apps (short for applications just in case you didn’t know) are not isolated to mobile phones. Custom applications for a variety of purposes have been around since the pre-commercial Internet world. Now, thanks to the combination of the Internet and smart phones, people are gravitating to apps for convenience, functionality and sometimes for just the “cool” factor. However, what is really cool is the lead generation effectiveness of apps.

Given today’s economic environment, companies are more concerned with the bottom line than ever before. In terms of marketing and advertising budgets, executives obsess over ROI, demanding to know what every dollar spent does to contribute to a positive return. While ROI is an extremely important measurement tool, there is a new term that is working its way into the marketing and advertising world called Return On Engagement (ROE). While ROE is not an entirely new concept, in the past 24 months it has grown significantly in importance as a key measurement of social media efforts. The thinking behind it is, that to leverage social media for lead and sales generation, prospects as well as existing customers must be socially engaged before, during and after the sale.

Consumers are becoming increasingly wary of traditional mass advertising. This doesn’t mean that they aren’t engaging with brands. They’re just doing it online, in what they feel is a more genuine way. Brands that have recognized this changing tide have done well to listen and engage with their followers online and build relationships with them. Once a relationship is built through social media outposts, trust and interest goes up and consumers are more likely to spend time on the brand’s main site, investigate offers, and convert to leads.