REED has been the agency of record for Waddell & Associates (W&A), Middle Tennessee’s premier wealth management firm, since 2019. Going into 2020, our team had set an ambitious goal to increase national media hits and kick off a comprehensive thought leadership campaign. When the pandemic sent the country into lockdown, we decided to double down on the strategy.
If you’re an expert on something, be generous with your knowledge! Your community—and business—will thank you later.
Pursue an aggressive thought leadership and media relations campaign to share helpful financial advice with a national audience when people needed to hear it most. Our goal was to secure at least three hits per month.
At the onset of the pandemic, our team developed a list of relevant, educational topics to pitch to media, ensuring each would be of interest to W&A’s target demographics. As topics were picked up, we worked closely with the W&A team to flesh out the articles and position the pieces as informative rather than promotional.
As we pitched angles throughout the year, we prioritized extremely timely story hooks, which ultimately attracted the attention of top-tier national media. When future stories about similar topics gained traction, we worked with W&A to ensure their spokespeople were always ready to provide commentary or hop on a last-minute interview.
In 2020, our team secured 3+ media placements per month, including four well-received thought leadership pieces. Overall, these placements led to 152.3 million impressions. Twenty-two of the 35 media hits were with national publications, including coverage from Forbes, CNBC and CNBC Europe. W&A also received extensive local coverage from top-tier publications like The Tennessean and Nashville Business Journal.