Case Study: NEXT with TIGER 21: Top 10 Podcast for CEOs, 760% Brand Boost

Launched TIGER 21 to Top 25% of Podcasts with Titans of Business and World-Changing Entrepreneurs

About: TIGER 21 is the premier peer membership organization for ultra successful entrepreneurs, investors, and executives.

Client: TIGER 21 (tiger21.com)

Industry: Mastermind, Business, Investing.
TIGER 21 is the world’s premier Ultra-High-Net-Worth Peer Membership Group

Service: Podcast Strategy, Production, and Marketing by Beetle Moment Marketing led by voice marketing expert Emily Binder

Objective: Launch and establish the 'NEXT with TIGER 21' podcast as a premier show featuring world-class guests and content tailored to ultra-high-net-worth investors. Ultimately this content marketing will drive impressions and brand awareness about TIGER 21 to attract new Members.

Ranked in top 10 Podcasts for CEOs (Entrepreneur)

Introduction

TIGER 21 is an exclusive global community of ultra-high-net-worth entrepreneurs, investors, and executives who are focused on preserving wealth and creating meaningful legacies. As a peer-learning network, TIGER 21 facilitates deep, impactful discussions on wealth preservation (featuring portfolio defense), investment strategies, family dynamics, estate planning, and philanthropy.

Hear more about Founder Michael Sonnenfeldt’s story behind founding this flagship group for successful entrepreneurs in the 2-minute NEXT with TIGER 21 podcast trailer.

What is TIGER 21? Learn more in this video: Behind The Scenes Of The Billionaires' Mastermind (TIGER 21) | Michael Sonnenfeldt Interview

The project: In Q4-2023, TIGER 21 engaged Beetle Moment to create a strategy, podcast brand, and production and marketing plan to launch the NEXT with TIGER 21 podcast. This show is aimed at providing Members and the broader audience of investors and prospects with insights from some of the world’s most influential leaders in business and entrepreneurship — both famous moguls as well as more under-the-radar success stories (like Episode 3: “Libby Connolly Alexander: Taking a Family Business from Millions to Billions”.)

Challenge

NEXT with TIGER 21 podcast launched in May 2024, produced and marketed by Beetle Moment

TIGER 21 had never ventured into podcasting but has a strong and well-respected brand recognized in entrepreneurial and finance circles for decades from word of mouth, media / PR, and Founder Michael Sonnenfeldt’s television appearances on CNBC, and more.

As a famous brand TIGER 21 has healthy followings on social media, including 25,000 LinkedIn followers and 3.3k on X (numbers as of August 2024).

The TIGER marketing team wanted to create engaging social content to showcase their Members, featuring more video clips and Shorts with consistent sharing. They needed a partner to handle every aspect of podcast creation and marketing, from strategy and production to promotion and analysis. They also wanted fresh, compelling social media content including copywriting and effective techniques for LinkedIn and X to grow organically.

The goal was to build a show that not only attracted listeners but also established a strong brand presence across multiple platforms, including YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and importantly: social media (LinkedIn and X). The team wanted greater brand awareness, visibility online, and education about what makes TIGER 21 so special: their Members.

Solution

Beetle Moment Marketing stepped in to provide a full-service solution, leveraging our expertise in podcast production, digital marketing, social media marketing, and SEO. We designed and executed a content strategy that included:

1) Full Video Podcast Production: End-to-end management of recording, editing, and publishing audio and video clips from remote Riverside recordings with host Michael Sonnenfeldt and guests. This included tech checks and detailed guest equipment guides as well as recommended gear and guidance to ensure smooth recording experiences even for inexperienced guests joining remotely, thanks to our on-call producer.

Here are a couple screen grabs from the customized gear and recording guides we created, including links to the best user-friendly podcast mics and webcams (shop our Gear List here):

We mastered and optimized audio along with creating new sonic branding (theme music). For the video clips we follow Emily Binder’s Buffalo Marketing (use everything), featuring the best highlights from guests like Dylan Taylor, Howard Morgan, Perianne Boring, David Jaffe and more. All clips on YouTube here.

NEXT with TIGER 21 podcast home page (voice content hub): https://tiger21.com/podcast/

2) SEO and Content Marketing: Optimized the podcast for discoverability using targeted keywords like 'Howard Morgan investor,' 'TIGER 21,' and 'best podcast company.' We created a YouTube Playlist for NEXT with TIGER 21 Clips, geared for YouTube SEO featuring all the horizontal and vertical clips (Shorts). We provided copywriting, layout, and widgets to optimize and create the podcast home page: tiger21.com/podcast.

3) Multi-Platform Distribution: Ensured the podcast was available on all major platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube with cilps shared on YouTube Shorts, X, and LinkedIn along with compelling custom-written captions and post text.

4) Storytelling: We scripted intros and a Trailer to tell the story of TIGER 21 and Founder / Host Michael Sonnenfeldt. Play the Season 1 Trailer:

5) Social Media Promotion: Launched a strong podcast presence on LinkedIn, X, and Instagram, engaging the target audience with clips, quotes, and highlights from each episode as well as guest tagging and engagement.

Check out clips on TIGER 21’s YouTube playlist:

How we optimize podcast videos and Shorts on YouTube:

YouTube description tip: add links to related videos or playlists. Helps SEO and UX.

  1. Write a compelling AND search-friendly video title. Example YouTube Shorts titles with names and hashtags:

    1. "Washington bet against me." -Perianne Boring #femalefounders #entrepreneur #cryptocurrency

    2. “David Jaffe: How my dad prepared me for CEO: Dressbarn / Ascena Retail. #fortune500 #familybusiness”

  2. Write user-friendly SEO descriptions including: keyword-rich text (such as “family business” or “generational wealth” or “Howard Morgan”, add clickable timestamps / chapters, and always finish with boilerplate website, podcast subscribe, and social media follow links).

    1. Example: "After My Exit, I Became the Wrong Kind of Investor" - David Jaffe, Ascena Retail Group

  3. Bonus: we add links to related videos or playlists - see image to the right/above (example)

  4. Graphics: create custom thumbnails on horizontal videos (mid-length clips) optimized for mobile view and scrolling

  5. SEO playlist setup:

YouTube Content and Results:

Before NEXT with TIGER 21, the channel published videos periodically but was not consistently active or strategic. We dropped the audio podcast bi-weekly on Wednesdays and published six videos to YouTube at the same time (with six episodes airing over twelve weeks).

Video Content:

  • 36 video clips plus one bonus clip = 37 total videos (from six one-hour audio podcasts)

  • Published the channel’s first Shorts, opening for discovery from a much larger audience

  • Created a podcast Playlist for handy marketing, listener nav, and easy embedding on tiger21.com/podcast

Results on YouTube:

  • 760% increase in brand impressions the first week following 5/15/2024 launch

Three months after podcast launch: during 5/15/2024-8/15/2024:

  • Drove 16,618 views (a 744% increase over prior period)

  • Drove 172.4 watch hours

  • Added 167 new subscribers to total over 1,123 channel subs

audio podcast Results

These downloads/plays put “NEXT With TIGER 21” in the top 25% of podcasts (Descript and Buzzsprout benchmark source below).

Spotify Performance (since 5/15/2024 launch, as of August 13, 2024 after 6 episodes, full season 1):

  • All-Time Starts: 1,259

  • Impressions (Last 30 Days): 3,839

Apple Podcasts Performance:

  • Plays: 3.8k

  • Hours Listened: 382

  • Subscription Rate: 80% of listeners follow the show (this is very high)

We published a Trailer and six 1-hour episodes in Season 1, on a bi-weekly cadence. Compared to weekly drops, bi-weekly is a more challenging schedule to establish a new following since the episodes are more spread out. However we chose more spacing for strategic reasons, such as giving breathing room for the six video clips to have max reach without being overshadowed, and without over-posting along with TIGER 21’s other marketing content.

Every S1 episode of NEXT with TIGER 21 surpassed the Top 25% of Podcasts benchmark for downloads within its first week. Podcast stats are notoriously nuanced, but here’s the source data:

If you want hard numbers about podcast downloads, current Buzzsprout data suggests that a top 25% podcast will have 120 downloads in the first seven days after the episode is published, whereas a top 5% podcast will have 1,120 and a top 1% will have just under 5,000 downloads in that timeframe. -Descript

Most Popular Audio Podcast Episode: Howard Morgan’s episode #1 achieved over 1,400 plays on Apple Podcasts in its first few weeks, making it the standout performer of Season 1. For a brand new podcast this is a great result.

Conclusion

The NEXT with TIGER 21 podcast, under Beetle Moment Marketing’s guidance, has quickly established itself as a must-listen show for entrepreneurs and ultra-high-net-worth individuals, as the topics that Michael Sonnenfeldt tackled with guests cover the key aspects of growing and selling a business, managing dynamics of a successful family business, and living a meaningful life after an exit or liquidity event.

By combining top-tier guest selection with expert production and marketing, we have positioned TIGER 21 as a leading voice in the world of entrepreneurship and investment.

To explore how Beetle Moment Marketing can elevate your podcast or digital marketing strategy, contact us today.

Featured social media video clips we created for TIGER 21:

LinkedIn copywriting and video clips:

Samples of X post copywriting and video clips:

Summary: TIGER 21 wanted to launch a podcast to showcase the extraordinary business stories of their Members. We produced and marketed, edited, and guided the show from soup to nuts. In episode 1 Howard Morgan revealed his inimitable career. In episode 2 the world’s leading solar developer Martin Hermann shared his story from a German apprenticeship to a software exit to Intel then founding BrightNight that can power 20 million buildings with clean energy. Episode 3 guest Libby Connolly Alexander shared her story of her father’s startup in retail audit recovery growning to a retail and health tech auditing firm recovering $2 billion annually and recently valued at $11 billion after a private equity sale. Plus much more.

We were thrilled to work with TIGER 21 and host Michael Sonnenfeldt to launch this limited podcast series showcasing TIGER Members’ as the impressive titans of entrepreneurship and business they are.

Ready to launch a podcast or un-podcast (just video clips)? Reach out here.