The Role Of Shock And Awe In Your Marketing

When it comes to building your authority, it’s generally true that the long-term marketing strategy with the most staying power is to drip and engage.

To parse out your content piece by piece over time, working to engage your audience in your big idea.

You gradually and organically build fans, a pipeline of clients and buyers, earn some media attention—it’s all good.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t use some occasional “shock and awe” to goose your authority footprint.

It’s a little like Capital One’s new commercial with Taylor Swift as a loveably bad waitress. It’s unexpected. You notice it. A happy surprise.

Or there’s the moment when Kylo Ren murders Han Solo. A tragic shock and awe that is well, unforgettable, for true fans.

You don’t use a shock and awe strategy lightly when building authority—it can feel manipulative and out of alignment with the gravitas you’re building.

But it has its place.

Think of it as a tool to accelerate the client transformations you’re making.

Your discovery of a new technique or visceral connection could be worthy of dropping a shock and awe bomb.

Maybe it’s as simple as sharing a part of your story you’ve never shared before—the deeply personal thing that put you on the road to your current mission.

Shock and awe has a role in building authority—it just needs to be authentic and ultimately in service to your mission.