Growth without the fluff: For startups and small teams without time, budget, or a full team, here’s what works.
Exclusive interview with Jesse Swingle, Founder of Cedar Collab.
Marketing has never been easy. But in some moments – post-layoff, under-resourced, expectations through the roof, recession on the horizon – it can feel downright impossible. It’s also never been more essential.
After 15+ years helping startups and nonprofits grow during economic ups and downs, I’ve seen what works when your team’s on fumes but the pressure’s full blast.
Five lessons that cut through the fluff and help real teams get real traction.
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Start with a system that lets your people breathe again.
When layoffs hit or leadership is overwhelmed, the marketing problems aren’t just tactical: They’re emotional. People are scared. They’re burned out. The founder is doing too much. Nothing is connected.
“Everything becomes reactive. Leads go to a shared inbox, customer info is outdated, the head of sales is now doing four jobs. It’s chaos.”
Before you launch shiny new campaigns, fix the foundations. Build a process that brings clarity: Lead scoring, inbox routing, CRM tagging, a shared playbook for what happens when someone fills out your form. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It has to be calming.
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Stop chasing shiny tactics. Ask what you’re really trying to build.
No, you probably don’t need a rebrand. Or a $10K/month Google Ads spend. Or six SDRs cold-calling without product fit.
“You can build a cool house shaped like a hat or a shoe, but if what you actually want is a place to grow your family, someone has to say no.”
Invest in the things that support your actual goals. Not the things that look impressive in a pitch deck.
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Retention isn’t just good for business. It’s your marketing goldmine.
Want better customer acquisition? Start by becoming better at keeping the customers you have.
“Too many teams try to sell to everyone. You’ve got to be ruthless about who you’re really for, then make it work so well for them that they send you your next 10 leads.”
Retention efforts uncover what your best-fit clients value most. That helps you speak to new prospects with authority.
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The best campaigns don’t need billboards to feel big.
When an Australian tech company with two new US-based staffers wanted traction, we ran a tiny, smart, multi-channel blitz: Emails, Reddit, light Instagram, even direct mail.
“A sales engineer told me the prospect had ‘seen our billboards.’ We never bought billboards. That was our tiny, smart, multi-channel blitz at work.”
Another nonprofit client saw growth by simply unifying messaging across its teams. No flashy spend. Just a clear story, told well: from volunteer emails to donor events to advocacy calls. Start where you are. Get in sync.
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If you’ve only got 10 hours, here’s where to spend them.
Skip the AI-generated SEO content. Ignore what Meta promises. Instead:
- Talk to your customers. Ask what they need, what they’re loving, what they’d tell a peer.
- Repurpose smart content. One blog post = 5 LinkedIn posts, a Reddit Q&A, a quote card, and an onboarding snippet.
- Make your CRM usable. Not perfect, mind you: just clear enough to track what matters.
- Be present in the right places. Find your audience’s watering holes and show up there, consistently. That could be Facebook. It could be a tiny industry conference. It could be the restaurant halfway between three clients.
“Marketing doesn’t have to be magic. It just has to make sense to your team and to the people you’re trying to reach.”
Want to build traction without the chaos?
Jesse Swingle, a Fractional CMO and founder of Cedar Collab, helps teams grow smart when budgets tighten. You can find Jesse Swingle on LinkedIn or at CedarCollab.com.
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