Sure signs finance podcasts are part of the mainstream

Podcasts have been around for a long time now, but in finance marketing they’ve been slow to become a standard content offering and have played second fiddle to online video.

However, this appears to be changing with a tipping point being driven by a few factors. The most obvious of these is Covid-19, with finance brands finding themselves cut-off from physically interacting with customers or clients.

While for retail finance brands this isn’t a showstopper as consumers have been steadily moving to online banking services for years, for B2B finance brands like asset and wealth managers or private and investment banks it’s a major problem given face-to-face is (or was) a cornerstone of how they do business.

So, with the Covid-19 lockdown even B2B finance brands are turning to podcasts as an alternative and effective way to get their information to clients and investors.

Another factor driving uptake is financial marketers are learning where podcasts best fit. They are well suited to covering topics that are ongoing, and investment markets never stop, so podcasts are a great fit for a regular episodic series that covers news, information and analysis of investment themes.

Another more intangible issue podcasts have had to overcome was simply one of general acceptance. Long-term data trends help with this over time as can be seen by Google Trends showing global interest in podcasts continuing to rise, while Nielsen 2018 research showed that in the US alone there were 12.6 million households identifying as “avid fans” of business podcasts.

But other more anecdotal signals powerfully portray acceptance – such as a global asset management giant like Aberdeen Standard Investments having its Chairman Sir Douglas Flint involved. When a knight is podcasting it’s fair to say it’s gone mainstream.

Now while it’s one thing to say podcasts are increasingly commonplace in finance marketing it’s important to understand how they are being produced and used.

Taking two asset managers such as Aviva Investors and Aberdeen Standard Investments is a good way to do this.

Here at The Dubs we’ve been helping these asset managers with their podcasts for the past two years. The podcasts themselves cover key macroeconomic issues and market sector drivers as these are key issues for investors to understand.

Aviva Investors podcasts are woven into their overall content hub AIQ while Aberdeen Standard Investments embeds podcasts in their Our Thinking content hub.

The podcasts themselves are treated with the same production value as a radio program as this significantly helps with audience engagement and interest.

Key hallmarks are the inclusion of polished audio intros and outros and the interweaving of external sound clips from other news or media sources into the audio stream.

The audio streams are also sound edited so any low points in the conversation can be removed to keep the stream concise and moving at a steady pace.

The podcasts are scripted so they flow naturally and are relevant for the audience, but importantly they are hosted by a regular presenter who interviews the guests.

This helps with the recognition and understanding of the episodic nature of the series.

While the majority of podcast streams are played in-situ on the asset managers’ content hubs they do also centralise them all in an audio platform being SoundCloud.

Good examples of the podcasts can be found below.

Aviva Investors – The AIQ podcast

• The Psychology of Climate Change
• Climate Emergency

Aberdeen Standard Investments – Thinking Aloud podcast

• Sir Douglas Flint – Reflections on The Crisis
• Asia and Emerging Market Debt