As a digital marketing agency that works primarily with credit unions, our team understands the importance of crafting an engaging member journey. It’s a way to attract and connect with both prospects and members, creating a positive experience and driving consistent growth. This is why our client, Addition Financial, chose to partner with us back in 2017.
Addition Financial is a Central Florida credit union that aims to help local community members meet all of their goals through a wide range of financial services and products. Through our work together, we’ve helped them strengthen their positioning as a go-to partner for financial success and education. As their digital marketing efforts continued to develop, we decided to incorporate a podcast launch into our strategy. We’ll be sharing our experience to explore how a podcast can enhance content marketing for financial institutions.
Why Launch a Podcast?
Our initial inspiration for helping Addition Financial launch a podcast was our experience at Hubspot’s INBOUND conference in 2019. Podcasts were presented as an inbound marketing tool that can help demonstrate authority on a topic in a way that feels more personal. We attended this informational session with members of Addition Financial’s marketing team, which sparked the conversation about how it could benefit their existing marketing strategy.
Up until that point, our content marketing efforts for Addition Financial included a variety of assets. We had implemented HubSpot and were regularly creating educational blogs, monthly content offers (including guides, worksheets, quizzes, and calculators), and pillar pages. We also added a homepage banner on their site, which could be used to show the latest offers and promotions. In addition to these website resources, we incorporated email nurture workflows, organic social media, and monthly email newsletters into their content strategy.
The plan for the new podcast was to include interviews with local experts who could answer listener questions, personal anecdotes from the hosts, relevant financial news and statistics, and helpful money tips throughout. The goal was to promote their educational resources and boost member engagement along the way.
Our Approach to Making It Count
To get started with the new show, Making It Count, we worked with Addition Financial’s marketing manager. There was a studio on-site at their headquarters, so we were able to develop and put our podcast strategy to work in 2020.
Planning and Production
When it came to introducing this new digital channel, much of the work needed to be done before we could start recording episodes. We needed to choose topics, book guests, and decide on an episode length and cadence.
Making it Count sample season planning document
Since we had been producing blogs as part of the existing content plan, we started by looking at which of Addition Financial’s blogs had the best organic performance to date since that gave us a clue what listeners would want to hear about. We also wanted to incorporate relevant current events and seasonal themes, like tax season or the start of another school year.
To prepare for recording sessions, our project manager began by coordinating host and guest schedules, ensuring timelines aligned with each planned topic. We also prepared a script outline ahead of each episode, complete with financial facts, questions, and bonus resources for listeners to further explore each topic.
Once recorded, each episode would be put into an editing and publishing process, available for streaming on both Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Promotional Assets
To expand the show’s reach, we chose a number of channels to promote each episode. We started translating episodes into transcript blogs as a way to repurpose the content and add more opportunity for SEO. Plus, listeners can easily access resources mentioned in the episode through the links we add to the blog, which adds to the educational value.
We also began leveraging social media platforms to help get the word out about Making It Count. By tailoring the topic to different platforms, like Instagram and TikTok, we had the opportunity to attract new listeners through attention-grabbing, short-form financial content.
To encourage more podcast subscriptions, we added a podcast landing page to Addition Financial’s site. The page highlights what listeners can learn and encourages them to enter their information to receive emails when new episodes are released. In addition to these subscriber emails, we added a callout section to Addition Financial’s monthly newsletter, The Advisor. This strategic placement would land in front of readers who were already interested in financial advice.
Making it Count call out in Addition Financial's monthly newsletter "The Advisor"
Content Distribution
When it came to tracking the distribution, we wanted to use platforms that would allow us to gain insights into audience preferences for continuous content optimization. For editing and publishing, we chose to use Resonate, which shows the number of downloads per episode, along with where our listeners are tuning in.
Apple Podcasts allows us to see followers, listens, plays (which tracks how many listeners engage with the content online), hours listened, and listener location. On Spotify, we track starts (which is counted as someone clicking “play”), streams, number of listeners, number of followers, and impressions. This gives us a clearer picture of who makes up our audience, along with trends and preferences.
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Spotify listener data
Both the transcript bogs and landing page are published through HubSpot’s Content Hub. For blogs, we can track all-time views and fluctuations from season to season, showing us how content performs in different formats and which posts attract the most traffic. For the landing page, we see metrics like page views, form submissions, new contacts, entrances and exits, bounce rate, and source, allowing for ongoing testing and optimization.
HubSpot Making it Count landing page all time performance
We send out our emails through Marketing Hub, which helps us track interest through open rates and CTR. This has helped us understand subscriber engagement with each new episode announcement. Finally, we assess our social media efforts through TikTok insights, tracking views, new views, and top traffic sources. This helps us identify which topics spark the most interest and lead to community engagement.
Subscriber new episode alert email performance
The Impact on Addition Financial’s Marketing Efforts
Since we first launched Making It Count, the podcast has proven to be an effective addition to the credit union’s digital marketing strategy and a useful tool for brand awareness. After producing, publishing and promoting five seasons, we’ve totaled 61 episodes.
Through each episode, we’ve had the opportunity to include mid-roll advertisements for Addition Financial's product offers, and direct listeners to additional resources on their site. We’ve featured 49 internal experts from Addition Financial and 42 external experts nationwide, significantly boosting our cross-promotional efforts.
We’ve learned that our audience primarily comes from Central Florida, which shows that we’ve been successful in reaching Addition Financial’s local target market. According to Resonate, we've achieved 13,474 all-time downloads.
All-time downloads Resonate data
Through 59 transcript blogs on HubSpot, we’ve managed to attract 4,545 all-time views as of August 2024. Most notably, there was a 38% increase in blog views from Seasons 1 & 2 to Seasons 3 & 4, showing that the podcast is driving more traffic to Addition Financial’s educational resources. Additionally, Addition Financial has 233 podcast email subscribers in HubSpot.
All-time HubSpot blog page views
Lessons Learned and Final Considerations
As this case study demonstrates, a podcast can be an incredibly valuable asset to a credit union marketing strategy. Through this experience, we’ve learned a significant amount about what it takes to launch a show and just how much goes on behind the scenes. Our findings from the Making It Count podcast helped us to hone in on what worked and what didn’t – from episode lengths to the best way to schedule sessions.
When it comes to boosting member engagement for your credit union, it’s worthwhile to explore the role of your content marketing efforts. If you’re looking for new ways to expand on your financial institution’s marketing strategy, our team would be happy to help you explore your options. Connect with us today!
