How to Shock & Awe With Your Marketing in 2025
Welcome to the UnCloned® insider audio newsletter. My name is Audria Richmond, and I am your marketing and
Audria Richmond®: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 going on? Before we dive into today's topic, I am just so proud of myself for keeping up with this audio newsletter every single Monday. And despite whatever I had going on on a Monday, it is really cool to know that I've been so consistent. So if you haven't had a chance to go back and listen to some of our previous audio newsletters, make sure you do that and get tapped in so you could be ready to launch like a big rocket ship, okay, Going into 2025. But nevertheless, I wanna talk to you today about today's topic, which is how to shock and awe with your marketing in 2025.
Audria Richmond®:And so if you're not familiar with the term shock and awe, it is basically a a term or a way of doing marketing coined by Dan Kennedy. And essentially, a shock and all marketing strategy is designed to send someone like, send a prospect that you're interested in this really elaborate package to wow them in a way where it's like, oh my god, like, this is crazy. Like, no one who's ever tried to do biz with me would even go to these lengths. And if you go online and go to Google and type in shock and awe, examples, so on and so forth, you will see this, you know, you'll see a lot of people who've created them over the years. Now some are very elaborate, and you can also create some that's not, you know, so, super elaborate.
Audria Richmond®:But if you're familiar with buying a product or service from us where you received a shipment in the mail, you know we'd like to have a shock and awe vibe to it. Right? We want you to open it up and be like, woah. This is crazy. Like, I don't see anyone doing this.
Audria Richmond®:Like, this is crazy cool. Right? And so what got me wanting to talk about this topic today was I met a young lady today, and and I met a young lady today, and what I really love about meeting her today, was I was able to put something in her hand. Okay? And I don't know how often you network offline or communicate offline, and you know me, I'm saying this because y'all have to know I primarily run my business from online.
Audria Richmond®:So whenever I go offline, it's like, oh my God, I'm talking to a human. But anyway, when I was offline and I was getting my hair done and I was talking to her and one of the things that I wanted to do was give her a copy of my book, not just one of my books, but all of my books. And so I asked my husband, like, hey, can you go and get some books really quick? I wanna be able to put them in her hand and give them to her, just to make a first impression and just for her to be able to give her the opportunity to familiarize herself with me. Right?
Audria Richmond®:But we also sent a package to a college, which I can't disclose the details of that yet until it's official. You know what I mean? They would have say don't count your money before you got it. Okay. But nevertheless, I recently just sent a huge package to a university, and we're still waiting on, the feedback and the response to that.
Audria Richmond®:But nevertheless, the bigger issue is I mean, the bigger opportunity here is your ability to be able to create opportunity. Right? And so I talk a lot about this, and if you have the opportunity hour system, you already know what I'm talking about. You already know what this looks like. If you're unfamiliar with the opportunity hour system and or what it means To basically conduct opportunity hour is where you dedicate 1 hour a day pitching your brand at various categories.
Audria Richmond®:But you're not limited to just virtual pitching. You can also use the the opportunity hour strategy to get offline strategies, for me to get offline opportunities. And so, being able to put my my books in her hand was amazing, and being able to ship all my planners to this university, to possibly get my, you know, my curriculum integrated into this to this school. It's life changing to be able to even be in a position to be able to do that because, you know, the reason why I'm able to have so much leverage now and I'm able to multiply myself so quickly now is because I spent the time, you know, writing the books. I've spent the time creating the courses.
Audria Richmond®:I spent the time making the investments in the contracts, in the trademarks, in the copyrights, in, you know, the the mentors and the advisors and the consultants. And so I'm ready for the yes. Right? That's what my whole first book was about. It's about being ready for the yes.
Audria Richmond®:And being ready for the yes, sometimes you're not gonna always be in a predicament to prepare. Right? So when I got when I was presented with the opportunity to be able to shift my planners to this school, I didn't have a lot of time. It was like, hey, This particular person is about to go on vacation. Can you can you go ahead and send them a package?
Audria Richmond®:Guess what? I already got the shipping package. I already got the shipping boxes. I already produced the planners. All I had to do was write a welcome letter.
Audria Richmond®:We already had the tissue paper, the stickers, like, all of the stuff, knickknacks stuff that we put inside the box. The welcome letter went in the box. And guess what? Because we have a business account with UPS, we the UPS store, we are able to go to the UPS store, get a discount on our postage, and we overnighted it to the school. That's what it means to be ready for the yes.
Audria Richmond®:That at a drop of a dime, at the drop of an opportunity, you're able to maximize that opportunity because you're ready and you're prepared. See, oftentimes when I'm talking to people and I'm telling them, like, hey. Make sure you put this together. Make sure you get your website right. Make sure you you go ahead and write the book.
Audria Richmond®:Make sure you go do this. Go make sure you go go do that. Every time someone hear me say that, for some reason, they think it's like it's only exclusive to me. Like, oh, Audrea, you're a unicorn. You don't you can do this, and I can't do this because I don't have your skill sets.
Audria Richmond®:I don't I can't do what you do. I don't need you to be me. If you're trying to be me, you're not in alignment with what the whole ethos of what unclown means. To be unclown means to trust yourself, to become the obvious choice in your life and business. Right?
Audria Richmond®:To love yourself on a on a level that people can't even understand. To be able to trust yourself in any situation whether it's personal or professional. That's what it means to be uncloned. It doesn't mean clone me and what I got going on. Right?
Audria Richmond®:The movement is about you finding you, not you finding me. And so I want you all to know that, like, next year in 2025, we're gonna have to shock and awe people. The days of just being cute with it, you no. You're gonna have to put some stank on it. Okay?
Audria Richmond®:Like, you had to go crazy with it because I coulda easily sent, you know, the person at the university, like, a letter and just showed them some photos of what I sell. But why show photos of what I sell when I can actually send what I sell? Right? Same thing with the books. Instead of telling her, hey, go and get my books off Amazon, why not just put them in her hand?
Audria Richmond®:Especially if I'm trying to make a lasting impression with the decision maker. And so I think oftentimes, we have to get we we we underestimate the opportunities that's around us. I was getting my hair done. Okay? When I got the opportunity to pitch my package to this university, I was leaving a comment in a school community.
Audria Richmond®:I need y'all to know that, like, opportunities are all around you, but they will not you will not be able to capture or or or bring on these opportunities if you're not ready. Right? So, anyway, I wanna give you some tips about how you can be very shock and awe ish with your marketing and, yes, I'm making this up. So number 1, you have to break through the noise. And this this this break it through the noise piece actually kinda is brings us back to branding.
Audria Richmond®:The only way to break through noise is to build a brand and be memorable, period. Right? We have an entire, you know, debrief video if when you take when you go and learn your uncloned brand score, which if you haven't learned that yet, you can head over to uncloned brand score dot com. But when you go and learn your uncloned brand score, we have a on demand debrief video where I break down, you know, the the uncloned brand framework and, like, what it takes to really build a brand that stands out, that people that makes you memorable. So if you're like, hey, I wanna be remembered.
Audria Richmond®:I want my brand to be popping. I want when people think about what I do, I wanna be the first one come to mind. Make sure you go learn your uncloned brand score and watch the debrief video and get the systems that you need to help increase your uncloned brand score. But nevertheless, we're gonna have to break through the noise next year. The days of just, you know, doing the bare minimum to get by just to say you check the box and you post it, it's not going to be enough.
Audria Richmond®:It's not gonna be enough. Okay? Number 2, you have to make an impression. I don't want people to just receive my things. I want people to experience my things.
Audria Richmond®:So that means you're gonna have to be more intentional with what you create. You're gonna have to be more intentional with how you package what you create. You're gonna have to be very intentional about how you present and market what you sell and what you do. Right? It's it's like people are so used to average experiences that people who go the extra mile just a little bit are the ones who stand out.
Audria Richmond®:The ones who take the time to brand their slides instead of just throwing together white slides. The people who take the time out to get better lighting just so they don't look like they're in the dungeon on the on their webcam. The people who will buy and invest in a better mic just so they don't sound muffled when they're going live. I think that there's little things that you can do that can make an impression when people come across your content because you gotta know that, like, you're getting discovered all the time. When you make a reel, you're getting discovered.
Audria Richmond®:When you make a YouTube short, you're getting discovered. When you write an article on LinkedIn, you're getting discovered. When you make a YouTube video, you're getting discovered. When you make a post inside of a Facebook community or any type of community, platform, you're you are making an impression on people. Right?
Audria Richmond®:And so you have to be very serious about how you present yourself and how you market yourself because that's gonna let people know how seriously how serious you take your own stuff. I'm a really big like, I'm really big on doing business with brands because I have had better experiences with people who value brand than people who don't value brand. And it says a lot about you as the as the business owner more than anything. Okay? The next thing, you have to have your stuff together.
Audria Richmond®:Like when you get presented with these opportunities, can you quickly whip up some documents, an ebook, a guide, something you could quickly whip together and put it out there and give it to somebody, right? Now, once you get clear on what's gonna be that thing that you wanna make an impression with and how you wanna put yourself out there in the world, the next thing you really gotta think about is we already talked about like the presentation. Right? You really gotta spend that time, energy, and money on how can I have the most elaborate presentation? And if you're looking for some inspiration, just go to YouTube and type in, unboxing experience, PR boxes.
Audria Richmond®:You can find a lot of good ideas from PR box unboxings on YouTube. Also, TikTok while it's still around. And so you could go and research on TikTok and just type in unboxing experience, unboxing, PR box, so on and so forth. And you will find a lot of companies on how they package, you know, physical goods as well as services. Right?
Audria Richmond®:Like, I literally just seen, like, I think it's, Lamborghini. They have a freaking wine set. I was like, this is crazy. Right? A freaking car company.
Audria Richmond®:So if everybody can be in the packaging game, everybody can spend the time, money, energy, and effort to create really good packaging because, again, the person who's like, no, let me get them free boxes from the UPS I mean, from the United States Postal Service is totally different than somebody who's like, hey, let me make sure that every box that we send out has our brand identity, our logo, and what we stand for. Am I saying go be frivolous with your money and go waste money? No. I'm not saying that. But if you are deciding to make a brand and build a brand, that means you need to be on brand all the time.
Audria Richmond®:And in order to be on brand, you gotta make sure that you're making the investments in the really good brand designers, that you're making the investment in in in branding yourself and how you how you communicate and how you bring yourself, how you put yourself out there in a big way. Okay? So now that we clear on, like, okay, the urgency of doing it right the first time, we've talked about the importance of building a brand. Now let's talk about, like, once you decide, like, who am I pitching? Right?
Audria Richmond®:Now if you have the opportunity hour system, we teach you step by step how to do this. And if you want to grab the opportunity hour system, it's only a $147. Okay? We literally swipe the prices on all of our uncloned marketing systems. So you can grab all of our mark uncloned marketing systems very affordably at unclonedot shop.
Audria Richmond®:Now when you get the opportunity hour system, we actually give you a planner in the mail that show you how to track each pitch. And each pitch has anywhere between 8 to 10 pages per pitch that's all about research. Like, literally every every packet of of, pages in the planner is about you essentially creating a dossier on a person. Right? So I'm not gonna get into the logistics of how to research a lead and and and put and compile that data because I already did that in the planner and the course.
Audria Richmond®:Right? So go get that if you need that. But there are some additional things that I want you to be aware of when you're doing your research. So number 1, you know, a lot of the times when people pitch me, I know for a fact they haven't done their research. For 1, they don't even know what unclown me.
Audria Richmond®:Right? They don't know the books I've written. They didn't even take the time to read my bio. Hell, they don't even follow me on social media. So when you go asking for stuff, especially if you're asking for money, opportunities, and or relationships and or connections, people do not want to be in relationship with somebody who don't wanna do their due diligence.
Audria Richmond®:Or let's say you're trying to, you know, pitch 200 people, 300 people a day, you're not being intentional. I'd rather you spend time researching 10 to 12 quality people that you can pitch than to go and try to find 30 you know, 300, 400 people that you can spam with just a bunch of messages and and hope and pray somebody respond to you. Right? It would be so many people who have pitched me would have gotten a response if they would have did the following. Number 1, if they would have read my website, they would have found a lot of information about me.
Audria Richmond®:Number 2, if they would have took the time to read my books or, hell, read the synopsis on, Amazon or read the the reviews, something. You know what I mean? Do you even know what the books I I write and what they're about? So read so reading my books will get you closer to a yes. Right?
Audria Richmond®:The next one is, have you read my social media content? And even more, you wanna put a cherry on top? Have you engaged with my content? Right? The next thing, the when you're doing this deep, deep, deep research, you're trying to do 2 things.
Audria Richmond®:Right? The first thing you're trying to do is see if the person you're trying to research, is this somebody you really, really, really wanna partner with? Because if so, you do need to take the time out to go and research that person. But number 2, you know, you're trying to figure out like, okay, now that I found this person and I'm pitching them, is do I see an opportunity? Does this look like a person that I really need to pursue?
Audria Richmond®:Does this does this can I see an opportunity with this person? Because if you're researching them, you're looking at their website, you're reading the books, you're you're looking at their social media content, you're watching the interviews that they've done. If you're getting to know them and you're like, I thought I had something for them, I really don't, Then don't pitch them. Only pitch people when you know for a fact you have something of value to give them. When you know for a fact that you are a good solution for them because you can if y'all was to have a meeting on the spot, you're able to run off 5 or 10 opportunities that can exist if they hire you.
Audria Richmond®:That's when you know you've done research really, really well. Okay? Now the next thing, you wanna make sure that you're ready to get paid like a boss. You'll be surprised how many people want really big contracts, really really big opportunities, but they're not even ready to actually receive money. So number 1, do you know how to send proposals?
Audria Richmond®:Right? Do do you actually know how to craft a proposal? There's an art and science to it. Right? Do you know how to craft a proposal?
Audria Richmond®:Do you know how to craft an engagement letter? Do you know how to present the opportunities that you have to the person you've been researching when the opportunity presents itself. Right? So when they say, yay, I wanna hire you, and you're like, yeah, this is gonna be a $30,000 engagement. Okay.
Audria Richmond®:Great. Can you prepare a proposal? Do you know what to put in that proposal? Do you know what to say in that proposal? Do you know how many pages need to be in that proposal?
Audria Richmond®:Do you know what they're looking for and what they're gonna be judging you on when they read your proposal? Do you know who they're going to compare your proposal against? These are all the things you need to be thinking about. Okay? The next thing, have your contracts ready and more importantly, have your attorney that you can dial up when you do get these big opportunities so they can help negotiate on your behalf.
Audria Richmond®:Because once you start getting, when you start getting awarded certain types of contracts, like, you need an attorney on retainer, right, that you could pull up and be like, hey. I'm about to negotiate this, you know, 6 figure deal, $1,000,000 deal, however big the deal is. Do you have 1, good contracts? And 2, if your contract needs to be changed or altered or you negotiated something new, you need to be able to have someone that you can call on demand for those types of things, right? And then do you understand all the various ways to get paid, right?
Audria Richmond®:Unfortunately, when you trying to do business with real professionals and people who who take investing seriously, they're gonna laugh in your face when they see you talking about PayPaling them or Cash Apping them or Zailing them stupid amounts of money. Right? You need to have various ways of collecting methods of payments, which means do you have a merchant account? Do you have a Stripe business account? Right?
Audria Richmond®:Do you have a way to collect payment through your accounting system? Right? Can somebody cut you a check? Can you receive checks? Can you cash checks?
Audria Richmond®:Do you know how to receive wire transfers? Do you know how to send a wire transfer? Right? What if a prospect wanna use a credit card? Do you use only a certain type of credit card?
Audria Richmond®:And so these are things that you have to think about. So when we talk about sending a shock and awe package and putting something in the mail, we need to make sure that we're well well researched. We need to make sure that these are our people that we're going to make we're gonna break through the noise. We're gonna make a lasting impression, and we're gonna be able to put things in people's hands. So what are some of those things that you can begin to think about as it relates to, like, okay, well, what am I sending in the mail?
Audria Richmond®:What are some of those big impressions I can make? Well, for starters, whenever you're trying to send something to someone and they don't know who you are, at the very least, some kind of guide, some kind of report, something physical that you can print that's not digital. I know it is cheap and free sometimes to send emails and or DMs, but it's also the lowest level of communication because it's free and anybody can do it. But guess what? When you start creating assets, everybody ain't creating assets.
Audria Richmond®:When you start creating assets, that's when you're taking your brand to a whole another level. Right? This looks like, you know, for for me, for an example, I have trademarks, but guess what? I can license my trademarks. I have copyrights.
Audria Richmond®:Guess what? I can give I can license the rights to people to be able to take my copyrights and redistribute it in a different way or recreate it in a different right way. Right? I have planners, I have courses, I have curriculum, I have slide decks from launches I've done. I got YouTube videos, I got this podcast, I got a lot of assets.
Audria Richmond®:And so when you're thinking about developing, you know, a package you wanna ship in the mail, what is that thing that's going like, what is that overwhelming amount of value can you add? When they unbox your thing, it should be the most impressive thing they've ever seen in their life. It shouldn't be like, oh, yeah. This looks just like the brochure I got from Sally. You know what I mean?
Audria Richmond®:Like, they should be able to see your stuff and be like, oh, they the one. I know we we got 4 or 5 more proposals to look at, but no. No. No. No.
Audria Richmond®:I know for a fact this is our person. Let's go ahead and put them on the line. Let's go ahead and hire them. Let's get the meeting. Let's get the proposal.
Audria Richmond®:Let's sign the contracts. Let's close the deal. Right? Because your impression is so big and so vast. Right?
Audria Richmond®:And so again, a lot of this, if you're thinking to yourself, well, how am I make it look pretty and how am I do this? You gotta build a brand. Do you have a strong brand identity? Right? We're gonna talk a lot about that at Uncloned Brand Live.
Audria Richmond®:So if you haven't gotten your ticket or if you hadn't got on the wait list yet for Uncloned Brand Live, head over to unclonedot live. That's uncloned.live, and that will take you to either a wait list or an option to purchase a ticket depending on when you listen to this audio newsletter and or when you visit that website. But you wanna be thinking about, like, how do I overwhelm them with, like, so much value? The second thing, did you personalize it? So I didn't just put my planners in a box and just ship it, just naked.
Audria Richmond®:I actually sent a 2 page welcome letter and thank you letter letting this person know, thank you so much for the opportunity to even present what I have. So can you put, you know, books in the in your in the box? Can you put a guide in the box? Can you put a report in the in the box? Can you put a case study in the box?
Audria Richmond®:Don't forget about personalized letters. Could you put their name on it somehow? Right? That's some that's something extra I coulda did. Right?
Audria Richmond®:Also, it needs to be immediate impact, like as soon as they open. They shouldn't have to dig through multiple, you know, mountains and stuff to find the value. The value should be obvious as soon as you open it up. Like, oh, they got a book. Oh, they sent me a report.
Audria Richmond®:Oh, they put a case study in here. Oh, wow. Look at this. Oh, that's interesting. I really like that.
Audria Richmond®:So you really gotta be thinking about how do I get them to have a a crazy responses like soon as they open. Alright? And so this is this you know, typically, when you're putting these boxes together, again, you wanna be thinking about your welcome letter, your books, your white papers, your case studies. You wanna be able to put something in there that demonstrates your expertise and show people that you actually know what you're talking about. Do you have some testimonials that you can share or some or some a success stories or like I said earlier, some case studies.
Audria Richmond®:Right? And then once you send this package in the mail, you want to be able to properly track it. So for me, for the person that I gave my books to, I have her phone number. So I can follow-up with her and be like, hey, you know, have you read the books? What do you think?
Audria Richmond®:Blah, blah, blah. For this other person, I have their email. I know what their job position is at this school. And I know, I now have the address. So if I want to, I can send a follow-up message like, hey, I can send another letter in the mail and that letter can just be just as beautiful as my bigger package, right?
Audria Richmond®:And I will continue to follow-up until 2 things happen. 1, they're just not interested and they tell me they're not interested. Or b, they say, oh, snap. Like, this is exactly what we've been looking for. Can we set up a meeting?
Audria Richmond®:Blah blah blah blah blah. Right? Because this is the thing that a lot of people fail to understand. Decision makers are busy. Busy busy busy busy busy.
Audria Richmond®:Because people don't have busy lives, they assume that everybody else is just coasting, chilling, watching TV, eating snacks, and ding dongs, and just chilling. The the person you want to impress the most is probably the most busiest, which means they're ambitious, they're driven, they're a leader, they got responsibility, they got a lot of work to do, they got a lot of stuff going on. And so there's a lot of things that you have to do. You, 1, gotta break through the gatekeepers. That's number 1.
Audria Richmond®:Number 2, they're getting overwhelmed by so much information. They're getting emails, calls, social media messages, pitches. People always trying to sell them stuff. So you have to find a creative way to break through that. Right?
Audria Richmond®:The other thing is decision makers don't have a lot of attention. They don't have time to sit through crazy long presentations unless they absolutely, one, you've made an impression and 2, they can find a need for you. The other thing is the market is oversaturated with traditional tactics. So, again, if you're sending cold mess cold emails, you know, voice notes on LinkedIn or whatever. You gotta know you're one of 100, if not thousands of people who doing those same, accessible marketing strategies.
Audria Richmond®:They're free, cheap, and easy. That's why people love it. You have to get to a position where you're open to the idea of challenging the norms. You're open to the idea of doing something different. You're open to the idea of putting something unique in their hands that they have yet to experience, not just from anybody, but from anybody in your industry.
Audria Richmond®:You want to blaze a trail. You want them to forget about any competitor that think that they competing with you. It's so many people out here think that they do what I do is actually very hilarious. Cause I know they they they just don't understand. They don't get it.
Audria Richmond®:So you have to make sure that when you're trying to reach these decision makers, you have to understand these facts and you have to ask yourself if I was extremely busy, if I became very unreachable, what would what would be that thing that'll make people pierce through and make a lasting impression on me? Think about it for yourself. What was the what was the most recent thing that made the most lasting impression on you? I'm actually curious to know. Right?
Audria Richmond®:So anyway, I could go on and on and on about this topic, but the point is, and I wanna kinda bring it back, I need you all to go into 2025 asking yourself, how can I shock and awe the people that I want to do business with? Right? We're not talking about social media marketing. We're not talking about making a post. Okay?
Audria Richmond®:We're not talking about going viral on threads. We're talking about building a sustainable business with marketing strategies that's been around for a very, very long time. Anytime you can send somebody something in the mail, you can direct mail something, that is still considered a high touch marketing strategy. Why? Because everybody liked the free, easy, cheap strategies.
Audria Richmond®:This type of strategy that we talked about today, this will make you stand out if you do it right and you stay consistent with it. So some of the resources I wanna recommend to you, there's a book called How to Get a Meeting with Anyone. Okay? Really, really great book, so check that out. And number 2, I want you to grab the opportunity hour system if you don't already have it.
Audria Richmond®:It's extremely accessible and extremely affordable. You can head over to unclonedot shop and grab it now. So anyhoo, I really do hope you enjoyed today's audio newsletter. It's a little bit longer than normal, but I wanna make sure that I'm preparing my community and my audience and you with everything you need to be uncloned and build an uncloned brand. So let me know your biggest takeaway.
Audria Richmond®:If you're inside of our uncloned community, let me know that on the thread where you're listening to this at. And if you are listening to this on the go and you have not joined our community, head over to www.uncloned.group to request to join our community. That's www.uncloned.group. So make sure you head over to request to join us inside of the group. So let me know your biggest takeaway.
Audria Richmond®:Cannot wait to hear what you have to say. And until next time y'all, let's go live an unclone life and build an unclone brand. Bye y'all.
Creators and Guests
