Case Study: Podcast + Alexa Flash Briefing for Women-Led Wealth Management Firm
Aspen Wealth Management is an RIA based in Fort Worth, Texas. Their daily audio briefing embodies their transparent approach to financial planning with an emphasis on relationships. (Photo by Enrique Macias on Unsplash.)
Financial advice "by women, for women, and the men who love them."
Relationships are the keyword for Aspen Wealth Management. They’re a fee-only, comprehensive financial planning firm located in Fort Worth, Texas.
Aspen Wealth Management offers an honest and transparent approach to financial, retirement, tax and investment planning for individuals, families, and small businesses, with an emphasis on building relationships.
A Strong Foundation, Not Just Investing Results
Helen Stephens founded Aspen Wealth Management in late 2011. Helen has been a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional since 1993, an Enrolled Agent (EA) since 2009, and has more than 20 years of experience in the field of financial services.
Candace Scholz is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional and joined Aspen Wealth Management in 2015.
During our second planning call, Candace shared this insight about what makes Aspen unique:
Most clients will say that investment returns are key. In fact, Dimensional Fund Advisors polled the clients of other advisors who are the same size as our firm. Across the board, most clients responded that the most important factor in their satisfaction with their advisor was their investment returns.
Except for our clients. They said that their overall financial plan is key.
It is NOT just about investing, it’s the value of understanding all the facets of your life and how this impacts your finances and your future. Having a strong foundation to move confidently forward in your life - this is what our clients value in Aspen as their financial guide.
DFA cornered us and said: “You’re the only firm with these results (where clients highly valued the holistic plan).”
The Solution
We helped Aspen Wealth Management launch Purposeful Planning, a daily briefing featuring investing and retirement advice. It’s a mini podcast and is available on Alexa Flash Briefing (Alexa’s native news feature).
Candace explained, “Every member of our team focuses on making our clients and their families feel comfortable when discussing financial decisions that can potentially be stressful and could have a great impact on their lives.”
How could we translate those values into content marketing?
We help people.
What really stood out after getting to know the team at Aspen Wealth Management is how passionate they are about helping clients. This is a reason we love working with financial advisors. People in this profession really do care. You can hear it all in Helen’s emotional and touching client stories that she shared on the pilot episode “Good Cop, Bad Cop” on TD Ameritrade’s podcast, Beyond the Portfolio:
“Helen has a strong personality and no-nonsense attitude. But, more importantly, Helen knows when to play good cop and when to play bad cop.” Listen on Overcast.
Alexa Flash Briefing allows anyone with an Amazon Echo or the Alexa smartphone app to get short daily news by saying, “Alexa, news.” This is an easy way to push out helpful content in bite size chunks.
We created a content plan and specific step-by-step guidance to help Aspen launch a mini podcast.
How We Named the Show:
We went through a branding exercise together, having them team free associate with adjectives and nouns or phrases that embodied their brand. After coming up with a dozen options for show names, we settled on one of our earliest ideas.
Because the purpose behind their planning is their foundation, the title Purposeful Planning with Aspen Wealth Management was an obvious choice for meaning as well as keywords for search.
Podcast and flash briefing features:
Length: 2-3 minutes average, new episodes every weekday
Audio only: available as an Alexa Flash Briefing and as a standard podcast
Multiple voices/hosts - showcasing the Aspen team
Original sonic branding that we created with a partner musician (intro / outro music, play a sample below)
Weekly and monthly themes incorporating seasonality or current events (such as a presidential election, tax season, or handling the COVID-19 stock market and volatility)
We trained the team in best practices and tools for producing a daily 3-minute briefcast (AKA mini podcast). Play a sample briefing:
Results
328% increase in plays over past 30 days (as of August 2020)
Over 1,100 listens in the first three months with zero advertising (only organic social media promotion)
Ranking #1 on Alexa Skills search for terms like “financial advice”
Social posts with audiograms from the briefing garner 66% increased engagement on Twitter and Facebook
Aspen Wealth’s Flash Briefing skill is ranking #1 on Amazon under Alexa Skills for search terms such as “financial advice”
Hear Purposeful Planning Everywhere:
On Amazon Alexa: Enable the Alexa skill here then say, “Alexa, news.”
On Google Assistant (Google Home smart speaker, Google Assistant iOS app, or Android device):
Say, “Hey Google, play the latest episode of Purposeful Planning with Aspen Wealth Management”
How do you grow an Alexa Flash Briefing?
To organically grow your Alexa skill, optimize your skill icon, title, description, and keywords on your settings in the Alexa Developer Console following SEO best practices.
Share clips as audiograms on social media.
In social posts or emails, include clear instructions and links for people to enable the skill, play the Flash Briefing, and subscribe to the podcast. More tips here: how to grow your flash briefing.
Audiograms are still images with audio and captions that get high engagement on social media. Podcast hosts can share short clips effectively with audiograms. See this audiogram tweet featuring Candace hosting the flash briefing.
See those social posts from Tip #3 above in action: Aspen is now sharing audiograms like this and this.
By the way, you should really have a Plink if you have a podcast. It’s that 1-click podcast link we shared above.
Here’s why (video) or read more about podcast marketing tips on our blog.