2025 Marketing Insights & Predictions
Welcome to the UnCloned® Insider audio newsletter. My name is Audria Richmond, and I am your marketing and launch strategist. I work directly with my clients to show them how to build uncloned brands and launch profitable marketing campaigns. We are the brand that you come to when you want to become or remain the obvious choice of your industry. Hey, y'all.
Audria Richmond®:What's up? This is the last audio newsletter of 2024. Can you believe it? I have successfully published an audio newsletter every single Monday. So I know y'all like, why does she keep harping on this?
Audria Richmond®:If you are a person who has struggled with being consistent with something, like I do really well when it's time to lunch, but when it comes to being consistent with, you know, an asset, you know, developing an asset that you may not always see, you know, an immediate ROI from because this is more of a nurturing marketing, asset for us, like, it's pretty cool. Right? So, anyway, today, I wanna talk about 2025 marketing insights and predictions. So I have some predictions and insights in no particular order, but I wanna just kinda rip off of some of the things that I've been seeing in the marketplace. And it's like I said, it's in no particular order, but I did wanna, like, go over this.
Audria Richmond®:So let's get into it. So number 1 is you have to learn how to foster trust with your marketing, with your brand, with your business. Every time I go into an entrepreneurial, like, Facebook group, one of the things that I see people complaining about all the time is how they didn't get what they paid for, how somebody didn't deliver on a thing, how their package is taking forever to get to them. People are sick and tired of packages being late. They're sick and tired of people missing deadlines for sport and thinking it's funny and cute.
Audria Richmond®:People are sick and tired of people showing up to showing up late to things. People are sick and tired of people not honoring and doing what they say they are going to do, and I think what hasn't changed in the marketplace that's very unfortunate is that people haven't gotten better at being better business owners. We do not prioritize customer service. We do you know, we treat people like they come a dime a dozen, and it's not a good look. And so when I see a lot of what's going on, I always wonder, like like, wow.
Audria Richmond®:Like, I think that people don't really understand how this is going to affect all small businesses, not you know, people always say, well, it's that business. I'm not that business. But you gotta keep in mind, if I got burned 6 times or if I got burned 8 times, you gotta believe that every time I get burned, it makes me be it takes me longer and longer to make a buying decision because I'm trying to be more calculated. I'm trying to do more research. I'm trying to make sure that, one, I can trust you.
Audria Richmond®:I'm trying to make sure that, you know, this is a brand that's gonna honor and do what they say. This is why we're really adamant about how we do our customer service. We're really adamant about getting back to people in a timely fashion. We're very adamant about not delivering things that we know we can't deliver, and I think that because people are so desperate for clients and customers, they're willing to make all type of crazy promises that they can't deliver on, and it's not a good look. So one of the things that I'm seeing is that you're gonna have to get good at fostering trust with your prospects, clients, customers, and community because the moment your people stop believing you, you might as well just go ahead and close the business because this is the thing.
Audria Richmond®:You don't need to be worried about the people who publicly embarrass you and and tell people about what you're doing and what you're not doing. You need to be worried about the people who talking about your behind the behind your back in privacy. You need to be thinking about the people who who talk about you amongst their friends. There's a lot of people I've had bad, business with that I've shared with my friends and they don't do business with those people. Not because I'm me, but because they're like, well, I ain't trying to get burned either.
Audria Richmond®:Right? And so it's not just you you can't just be worried about the people who verbally tell you or the people who send you an email and report and say, hey. I don't like this. You took too long to do this blah blah blah. Like, people have options.
Audria Richmond®:Stop acting like people don't have options when it comes to their money, when it comes to business, when it comes to who they wanna do business with, and I'm starting to see a lot of people not have as much confidence around their business. And so the more and more you pierce into that, the more and more people are gonna be even more skeptical around doing business. So just know that you're gonna have to foster trust if you want to get business. The second thing that I want to address is that your marketing will have to be better and more consistent. So, normally, I would recommend that people launch, you know, once every quarter, but the truth is you're gonna have to up your frequency of launching and marketing campaigns.
Audria Richmond®:It's like you're gonna have to have a good mix of both. So the market is flooded with bad content and it's also flooded with everybody making ridiculous claims. So whether you're watching a YouTube video or seeing a Facebook ad or if you're inside of a Facebook group or a school group or any type of conference or an event or whatever, everything you do has to be above bar. Right? Because people have on their spidey senses and they're like, they're looking for you to mess something up.
Audria Richmond®:They're like, well, they didn't send the email out on time. Well, that must not be my person. Like, they're looking for any little thing to dock you on. So you need to make sure that when you're marketing your business, 1, you're making claims that you can actually deliver on. 2, you're marketing in a way that's educational and less, you know, sales y, if you will.
Audria Richmond®:Like, go to my site, buy my thing without educating people, without informing people, without showing proof, without showing case studies, without demonstrating your expertise or showcasing that you have the expertise. Just know that it's gonna be a very difficult uphill battle for you to get clients and customers because this is the thing about marketing. See, people think marketing is just about getting clients and this and the third. No. Your marketing also serve as a form of evidence that you know what the hell you're talking about.
Audria Richmond®:Because if I am trying to do business with someone and I go to their website or I go to their social media and it's crickets, if you won't put in the time and energy to show up for your marketing, I know for a fact you ain't gonna show up for my business. So I'm really big on businesses operating as a business, and I do not wanna do business with a person who do not prioritize marketing. Right? And I also do not wanna do business with solopreneurs who do not prioritize marketing, team building, or client management. Okay?
Audria Richmond®:Especially when it comes to agencies who, you know, provide services, but, you know, they have very inadequate teams and they just don't do a good job of, you know, working with people who are a little bit more established. Because what I'm noticing as I'm mature in my business efforts, it's becoming difficult for me to do business do business with small business because they don't have experience working with mature businesses. So if you can't even work with a mature business on the solopreneur side, on the small business side, you showing the hell with with crumbling in corporate. Right? And so you gotta get in the habit of knowing that, like, okay.
Audria Richmond®:My marketing is my evidence. It's my social proof. It's it's my resume to a certain extent because I'm gonna be looking at your videos and reading your articles and looking at your white papers and reading your books and things like that. So your marketing has to get better. Right?
Audria Richmond®:Because it's just too much bad content out there, and marketing is actually more expensive. That's another reason you need to get better because you don't want the cost of your marketing to be so expensive because it's not resonating. Because Facebook or any other platform is going to make you pay more cost per click and cost per lead if your marketing is not resonating and people are not clicking your marketing. Alright? Okay.
Audria Richmond®:So the next thing I wanna share is people want deeper connections. Okay? And so even if you're, you you know, you're like, oh, I connect with my people, I connect with my people, but how though? Right? Throwing people into a group is not enough.
Audria Richmond®:It's one of the reasons why we're fostering more social events within our organization because we understand that people need to see each other, interact with each other. The other reason for deeper connections is because AI is making it very difficult to decipher what's real and what's fake. And because people can't tell what's real or what's fake, they will opt for in person experiences. They will opt for live experiences, meaning like a live Zoom call, a live q and a. Anything where people can see you, a, in real life, whether it's virtual or in person, that's besides the point.
Audria Richmond®:What I'm saying is there's gonna be a need for for live content, whether it's virtual or in person. People need to be able to see you live and touch you and hug you and high five you or people need to be able to see that you're alive on camera. Right? Because people don't know. Is this is this recorded?
Audria Richmond®:Is this prerecorded? Is this are you the real you or is this a a dub you? You know? Is this your voice or am I list? Is this Arjorie's real voice that I'm listening to on this audio, newsletter, or is this AI?
Audria Richmond®:And that's the thing. You don't know. Right? And so because you don't know, people want deeper connection. They wanna know you real.
Audria Richmond®:They wanna know you understand their desires, their feelings, what's going on with them. And so if you're not fostering deeper connections with your people, it's gonna be very difficult to, you know, do anything with your business because people are gonna feel disconnected and they're gonna feel like they don't really know you like that. Alright? Alright. So the next thing that I wanna share with you is community is a great way to connect with your audience and cultivate 1.
Audria Richmond®:Right? And now this is what I'll say, community doesn't always mean you need to be a dedicated group. Right? It need to be a group in the sense of the format, but it doesn't have to be like a school group, a Facebook group, or anything like that where you gotta consistently, you know, work on it. You could, you know, there's a lot of ways to foster community.
Audria Richmond®:You might have a group where you meet them every Sunday or you might have a group where you meet them every Thursday or you may have a group that you organize where y'all link up every quarter. The community aspect is your ability for everyone to stay connected, foster relationships, and ultimately, you know, love on each other and, like, develop besties and cool things like that. And so one of the things that we're noticing with our community is that one of the the one of the top reviews that we get about our new community on school is that people are always telling us how safe the space is. And anytime we have any discrepancies, we remove people on-site. Speaking of removing people, today on December 30th, tomorrow, I will be move removing anyone who joined the community on November 14th 15th, and I wanna say even 16th, will be removed from the community if they have not come in and engaged or level up to level 2.
Audria Richmond®:And my, you know, the cool thing about it is the the community members who are active love that. They're like, great. Thank you. You know, we don't need people in the group just lurking and looking and not engaging. Right?
Audria Richmond®:It's weird. So and so people are looking for safe spaces to be themselves, to not be judged. Right? Think about the times you've been a part of community and you felt judged, like, dang. Is it safe here?
Audria Richmond®:Can I really express how I feel? Like, you know, what's going on right now? So community is a great way to faucet that trust that we talked about earlier. Community is a great way to go deeper with your people, But most importantly, people want safe spaces without the drama. Right?
Audria Richmond®:You know, every time I go on Facebook, it's somebody going off on each other or somebody did something wrong or somebody, took somebody thing or it's just always some drama. And I just love being on school in our new community because it's just drama free. Why? Because we created a culture of it being drama free. Alright?
Audria Richmond®:So the next thing I will say, our next insight and prediction is content, your content has to get 10 times better for people to stop and pay attention because there's so many content gurus teaching the same content tactics, there's so much originality that's missing in the marketplace. Like, if a song go if a if a trend pops off, you're probably gonna see that same dance or that same song or that same whatever for, like, 2, 3 weeks on end and to the point where it's it goes from, like, oh, this is cool to, oh my god. Let me close my cell phone. Right? And because there's so much duplicate, replicate, and derivative type content, people are seeking and needing original content.
Audria Richmond®:What are some of those original ideas that you have? How can you create like how can you think like a TV show producer or a magazine publisher? Right? If you've taken our 2025 annual planning workshop, I talked about that in great detail. If you own our unclown content system, I also talked about that as a bonus section, in that course where I talk about the need for original content.
Audria Richmond®:And if you're in the launch circle, we have a lookbook for you, we have a training for you, we have a checklist and a checklist for you. So log into the portal and get access to that. Alright? But content will need to be better in 2025 because one, it's too much duplicate, replicable, you know, derivative type content, and because of that, people are just like, wow, like who are you? Right?
Audria Richmond®:Think about it. If if a lot of the content is just people following each other and swiping each other and duplicating each other, then how the hell we supposed to know who you are at your court if all you doing is copy and pasting what you see? And that's another thing about copy and pasting. Oftentimes, people don't even know if it works. You could be copying something that's, like, strong or wrong.
Audria Richmond®:Right? There was this lady on Facebook and she made a comment, she made a comment about something, about a topic that I have extensive experience in. It's not marketing. And I was just thinking to myself, this lady is so wrong on so many levels. And this is the thing, when you don't know anything, you don't know what's right or wrong, and that's what makes all of this dangerous.
Audria Richmond®:This is why you have to do your due diligence, you have to do your research because people will sell you a pipe dream and if you don't go and validate that dream, you could be the next person or the next thing that get taken advantage of. Alright? So let's move on to my next insight and prediction. Long form content is still appreciated is still appreciated. Right?
Audria Richmond®:Now a lot of people are going all in on short form content and I think that's cool, But I think you're missing out on a bigger segment of the audience who don't want to watch 60 second reels to make a decision or 60 second short form content to make a buying decision, especially if you sell high ticket. Okay? Like the you know, think of short form content is like brand awareness, you know, maybe people will follow you from it, you know, building building brand equity a little bit, people seeing you over and over and over, but you're gonna have to switch your marketing vehicle when it's time to sell. Can you sell from shorts and reels and all of the things? Yes, you can.
Audria Richmond®:But for the most part, you wanna be able to change the environment in which you sell people in. This is why we talk about all of the 16 launch styles in a lunch circle. So we talk about webinars, challenges, conferences, whether it's virtual or in person. We talk about ecom sales events, automated webinars, live webinars. Like, there's so many ways that you can bring people together to make your sale.
Audria Richmond®:But if you only know how to do short form content and you don't know how to do long form content, you're doing yourself a disservice because when it's time for you to put together a slide deck, you're gonna struggle because you've you've you've tainted your brain to only do 60 second things. Right? So what happens when you need to multiply that 60 times 60? Are you really good at long form content? Whether it's, you know, creating a slide deck or creating a YouTube video or creating a tutorial or knowing how to create a course module.
Audria Richmond®:Like long form content is here to stay and if you're only prioritizing short form content, you are not really maximizing on all the opportunities that exist because buyers need more time with you and they need to see more content from you that's more than 60 seconds, especially if you want people to buy your products and services. Alright? Okay. My next, prediction and insight is that content creators can hire content creators. What do I mean by this?
Audria Richmond®:As content creators and small, if you're a small business owner, UK content, you're a content creator. Whether you identify as 1 or not, you're a content creator. Right? You're also the marketer. You're also the CEO, so on and so forth.
Audria Richmond®:Right? I'm not gonna belabor it. But the point is, as content creators, we can get hired by brands all the day, you know, all the time and be like, oh, hey, you know, brand hey, influencer a, can you create a, you know, a real using this lipstick for an example? That's cool, you know, if a brand hire you to do that, but what's keeping you from hiring creators to do the same for you? And let me take it a step up.
Audria Richmond®:What's wrong with us creating our own internal creator teams in order for people to create content on behalf of our organization that's branded and awesome? Right? That's something that we're leaning towards. If you look at Peloton for an example, you will notice that the CEO I don't think I ever seen the CEO create a piece of content to sell me on being on the Peloton. You will always see the instructors and all of that.
Audria Richmond®:They are the ones that drive the content. They are the ones that are in the social media content. They're in the reels. They're in all of that stuff. So when you think about it, it's one of those things where we always think that when brands do stuff to us, it's like, oh, that's on the reserve for big companies.
Audria Richmond®:We always underestimate the fact that we can do that too at a at a smaller scale. Even if you hire 2 to 3 content creators that could help you co create content for your brand and you all are on brand and it and it sounds really good and these people are representatives of your organization, right, when they're creating content and you're able to repurpose that content and expand your content efforts, why not do that? Right? Because I feel like because because a lot of people are creating so much of their own content, you're gonna get fatigued if you're not already tired. If you're a person that's constantly banging out, you know, 50 reels a month and you're constantly posting I mean, posting stories and and carousels and all the things, you're tired.
Audria Richmond®:You're tired. And so you need to share that effort and energy with other people. So like one of the things we're gonna do is set up, we're gonna start hosting like content days where we hire, you know, like 4 or 5 people, make sure that they know the content before the day we shoot, they come on set, they all branded in unclown merch or unclown brand colors, and they're gonna be creating content for all of my books, all of our systems, everything that we teach, they'll be creating content. So it won't just be on me. So when you come to my page or my company page, you're gonna be able to see multiple personalities, multiple pieces of content, but that still drive energy and effort towards the uncloned brand.
Audria Richmond®:Right? It's still gonna be marketing effort to get people to know about our company. And so don't be afraid to share the responsibility of content creating with other people. Right? And so I just gave you 2 ways that you could think about that.
Audria Richmond®:But, again, don't be afraid to hire content creators. Right? Like, think about back in the day, a spokesprint a spokesperson for a brand is obviously what influencing and all of that stuff is. But you can also have your own spokesperson. Right?
Audria Richmond®:Think about all the people, you know, like Jake with Jake with, Jake with the State Farm. Think about, you know, the GECO dude. Right? Think about the progressive lady, Flo. So, like, you can still develop personalities and or spokespeople that represent your brand.
Audria Richmond®:Right? Quit thinking that a lot of these big company marketing tactics is only for small you know, only for big corporations. It's not. We can borrow those those strategies as well and do them at a smaller scale and it could still pop off for us. Right?
Audria Richmond®:Because I wanna see my community work smarter, not harder. Right? And I also want us to work more strategic so we can have something that's worth something in the next decade or so. Right? Okay.
Audria Richmond®:I have 2 more things. Alright. So the next thing is personal branding. So personal branding is actually not going anywhere. However, you will start to see personal branding across multiple leaders within organizations.
Audria Richmond®:So a good example of this is if you've ever watched like an Apple event, you will notice that a lot of the Apple employees will, you know, whenever they do a launch event, you will notice that a lot of the leaders of these departments are now the spokesperson and the content creators that represent the product. Right? And so what I mean by that is if let's say you own an accounting firm, the days of it just being one person that runs the show and their their face is the only face that's on everything. If you have leaders and department leaders, people are gonna wanna see those people and not not just on your website on our company page. They're gonna wanna see those people in your content.
Audria Richmond®:They're gonna wanna see them in your advertising. They're gonna wanna see them in your marketing. They're gonna wanna see them go speak on behalf of your company. So don't underestimate the fact that personal branding is now going to be the responsibility of the entire organization from a leadership and management perspective. It's no longer just gonna be just for the CEO or just for the exec team.
Audria Richmond®:Right? You're gonna start seeing multiple leaders within organizations be required to brand themselves and build a name for themselves, so the brand can have staying power and expansion power beyond just the CEO and the founder. Right? Okay. And now my last and final one is, and this is more so on people like, you know, taking your stuff and copying, one thing for sure is that people will continue to copy your stuff.
Audria Richmond®:Okay? If you are a person who don't post and won't create and won't put your stuff out there because because you scared somebody gonna take it, it's a high probability that that will happen. But there are things that you can do to protect yourself. Number 1, get your trademarks. Number 2, get your copyrights.
Audria Richmond®:Number 3, you know, build a brand. When you build a brand, people know when people swipe your stuff. Right? Like I remember, there was someone online who took a post from somebody else that I know, And this person is just extremely petty. Right?
Audria Richmond®:They didn't wanna take the post down. And one thing that I know is that, one, this person can't own those words because they didn't say it, So they really can't even back it up if somebody was to interview them on spot about it. But 2, the person who originally made the post has a bigger brand than the other person. And so this person's audience was able to quickly identify that, like, oh, you stole that from such and such. This just recently happened to me.
Audria Richmond®:Somebody was like, Archer made a post similar to this. This person was trying to make a post without giving me credit. So it's crazy that people would just swipe your stuff, take your stuff, and just start sharing it. But this the thing, when you have a strong IP portfolio and when you have a strong brand, when you build brand culture and you build a brand that people remember that's worth talking about, that's when people will know when somebody take your stuff because people will be like, oh, you swiped that from such and such. Oh, that ain't yours.
Audria Richmond®:That's not original to you. And so because the rise of AI, because the rise of people with no substance and all they know to do is copy people, because of the rise of so many scammers and all of this stuff, we in a dire need for trust or in originality. Trust and originality. Trust and originality. It is time for you to be uncloned for real for real, like no playing with it.
Audria Richmond®:And if you haven't read uncloned life, which is my second book, it is the foundation of what it means to be uncloned. You have to learn how to trust yourself. You have to learn how to stop seeking validation from everybody, even the people you love, trust, and respect. You have to get to a place where you own your decisions. You own the direction you're going.
Audria Richmond®:You own the desires of your heart. You own what you say you want, and you show up like you never have before. Do not make 2025 the year where you get to October and you quit and be like, 2026 is my year. No. I want you to start strong and I want you to finish strong.
Audria Richmond®:Quit lying to yourself and be honest and do whatever the hell it takes to become the obvious choice of your industry. Let's bring in 2025 with the bank. Let's put some respect on your name, and let's stop playing games. Okay? Cannot wait to see you and hear from you in 2025.
Audria Richmond®:If you are inside of our UnCloned® Skool community, please come inside of the community on this post where you may be listening to this audio newsletter or wherever you may be listed as audio newsletter. Come into the community and let me know your biggest takeaway from this audio newsletter. And until next time y'all, let's go live an uncloned life and build an UnCLoned® brand. Bye y'all.
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