Theresa Swiggum Of Collective Measures On The 5
Proven Strategies for Increasing Lead Generation
Generating quality leads is crucial for businesses in today's competitive landscape, and finding innovative and effective ways to attract potential customers has become a top priority. In this interview series, we are talking with marketing experts, industry professionals, and thought leaders who can share insights and stories from their experience about the best strategies for effective lead generation. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Theresa Swiggum.
Theresa Swiggum, a Media Director at Collective Measures, has worked 13 years in B2B + B2C and lead gen marketing across home improvement, healthcare + life sciences, finance + insurance, energy + utilities, agriculture, and supply chain logistics. She understands the nuances of identifying stakeholders and niche market audiences in media platforms, and the subsequent difficulty of converting them to leads in tandem with large business or household purchase decisions.
Thank you for doing this with us! Before we begin, our readers would like to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us the “backstory” about what brought you to this career path?
Mystory is really a testament to the power of networking, and to the fact that careers are generally spirals, not straight lines. I worked odd jobs selling fancy furniture, painting houses, and making lattes for a while, figuring things out. At that time, I was required to chat up customers waiting for their drinks, which is not an introvert’s favorite thing. But one day, I asked a woman about her work, making small talk. Turns out, she was at a recruiting firm, hiring people with creative backgrounds. I was able to meet with her, and 6 months later, I started my first agency job, where I found that my technical skills translated really well. You never know when a connection will be just the one you need!
Can you share with our readers the most interesting or amusing story that has occurred to you in your career so far? Can you share the lesson or takeaway you took from that story?
I learned a good lesson as I started planning direct-to-publisher campaigns for B2B clients. On a medical device campaign, I was struggling to get details from one of our publishers, a well-respected medical blog. While I was trying to get information that I thought was pretty basic — like how many ad impressions we should expect — my contact could not answer my questions. I realized it wasn’t because they didn’t understand, but because they were a physician themselves. This doctor, in between practicing medicine, was keeping up on regular blog posts and selling their own ad inventory. They didn’t have time to learn pixel implementation or Google Analytics, but their blog was so highly respected in the medical device industry, I wasn’t going to pull business from them just for the sake of measurability. I found this to be true of many B2B ad reps — they are farmers, influencers, scientists, and pest control experts. While ironing out details was sometimes difficult, these were absolutely the right places for our clients to advertise, especially because it was against highly relevant, expert-written industry content. On top of that, these were the relationships we needed to grow for our clients. I came to love working with reps in trade verticals because ultimately they are well-rounded problem solvers, and together, we found the best options for my B2B clients. I also learned not to sacrifice strategy and performance for the sake of easy measurement.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
Most recently, I’ve been delving into Collective Measures’ research offering, which has been really exciting. Research has always been a foundational component of any of our client work. But as we grow our book of business, this area has become even more defined and layered. We’ve adopted new tools to further gauge competitor activity, dive into audience psychographics, build super-defined audience segments, and conduct social listening for timely industry topics and brand sentiment. Combining these insights with our keyword research and media platform learnings is a powerful way for our clients to better understand their prospects and how to reach and message them.
For the benefit of our readers, can you tell us a bit about your experience with Lead Generation? Can you share an anecdote or two that illustrates your experience in this area?
My experience mirrors the evolution of measurement. In my early days working with endemic publications on banner campaigns, any leads we could track were considered a bonus. But the easier it got to measure leads, the more they defined success, even with “awareness” objectives. We had pay-per-lead campaigns, spammy audience lists, landing pages that “trapped” users from doing anything but filling out a form, and lead-capturing banners. Leads were measurable — thus, the more the better.
But I realized that a successful end result for us meant only the beginning of our clients’ sales cycle (because the path from lead to purchase can still be quite long), and lead quality was not always achieved. Working agency-side, even with super-integrated tech stacks, you never get full visibility into the lead process.
Present day, I find the most lead gen success through upfront conversations with clients. I make it clear that digital media is meant for early-stage marketing, meaning leads will not always be qualified but we can find ways to strike a balance between quantity and quality. We get aligned on priorities, tech stack integration opportunities, and success measures to set ourselves up for success.
