🤑 No money for ads? No problem

🧘‍♀️ “Career wellness” is becoming the next frontier of wellbeing.

🪃 Would you take your old company back?

☕ Coffee with benefits? Great Lakes Wellness Collagen is unflavored and dissolves right into your morning cup of joe.*

🧠 5 neuroscience-backed ways to make meetings less painful.

🐔 Amelia Dimoldenberg is proof that your dream job doesn’t have to be forever.

Talkspace

Mental Health Benefits, Minus the Headache

Let's be real: building a great team is hard enough. Keeping them supported, mentally healthy, and burnout-free? That's where the real work happens. 

If you've ever tried setting up mental health benefits for a small team, you already know the drill: endless sales calls, complicated onboarding, and price tags that only make sense for a Fortune 500 budget. 🫠

Talkspace Self Serve was built to fix exactly that. Designed for companies with fewer than 100 employees, it gives small business owners and startup founders a simple, affordable way to offer real mental health benefits.

And the best part? It starts at just $15 per employee/month—enterprise-level care for less than the cost of your team's Friday coffee runs.

How to Market Your Business When You Have No Money for Ads

The answer: Sarah Lindenberg, founder and principal of All My Friends Agency, a full-service marketing and PR agency.

A lot of our clients use paid media, and it can be an amazing way to grow. But I’ve also watched brands build incredible businesses without relying on ads.

Here’s what I’ve seen work.

✨ Treat your customers like creators

This idea came from one of our clients. Living Beauty founder Mariam White told me she wanted to "treat customers like creators." I loved the way she put it, and the way she brings it to life is through events.

She hosts almost weekly gatherings—mahjong, needlepoint, beauty masterclasses, expert panels—giving customers a reason to spend time with the brand, bring a friend, and come back. It's rarely about selling or content—White will choose a great room full of people over either, because people are craving offline experiences more than ever.

When people love being part of your brand, they talk about it.

👥 Borrow someone else’s audience

When we started working with Fairgrounds Public Racket Club, they had one location. Today, they’ve expanded across Canada.

They’ve built community through thoughtful programming, amazing events, and merch people want to wear, and partnered with brands like Tinder, ClubMed, Garnier, Three Ships, and LVBL to reach new audiences. And all of that gives us something new to talk about—on social, with their community, and with media.

Find brands that share your customer but aren’t your competitor and do something interesting together.

💗 Put a person—and a story—behind the brand

People connect with stories.

When we started working with HBFace founder Haley Bogaert, she was working out of one studio. Today, HBFace has four locations and a global ecom business. 

Haley has always put herself out there. She shared her story with customers and investors, spoke on panels, showed up online, and was constantly making connections. Her story became part of how people got to know the business, helping lead to earned media including Forbes (on her story here and her products here), as well as organic opportunities like doing makeup and brows for Justin Bieber’s mom and entrepreneur Hannah Bronfman.

You don’t have to become an influencer. Just don’t underestimate the value of letting people know who’s behind the business.

📱 Get scrappy with organic content

We’ve seen brands take off with viral organic content and little-to-no ad budget. Sometimes getting creative and scrappy is the strategy.

Odd Cookie is a great example—leaning into personality, humour, and content that feels native to social rather than overly produced brand creative.

Try the weird idea. Make the video. And look beyond Instagram. Explore Substack, Pinterest, YouTube, or wherever your audience is spending time.

You don’t need to be everywhere. There’s an advantage to showing up somewhere everyone else isn’t.

💡 Make one good idea work really hard

When budgets are tight, PR, social, partnerships, events, and community shouldn’t live in separate boxes.

One great event can become social content, customer UGC, a brand partnership, creator relationships, and a media story.

Ads are great. They’re just one tool. Start with what you have, get creative, and give people something worth talking about.

Got a work problem you need help with? Drop it here, and the answer to your question could be featured in an upcoming newsletter. 📬

📸 Social Media Manager Cheska swears by Dupe—it's basically Pinterest-worthy stock photos, perfect for filling up your social calendar without the usual basic AF options.

🛡️ Executive Editor Victoria’s fave haircare brand, amika, just dropped a new color-protecting and strengthening line. It’s clinically proven to prevent color fade for up to 40 washes and deliver 11x stronger hair (!!!). Victoria and her (fake) blonde highlights are #addingtocart, stat.

💰 Is your savings account collecting dust? Spruce is a no-fee banking app that actually helps your money grow: 3.50% APY⁴ (8x the national average!) with zero minimum balance required. Sign up this month and get a $100 bonus once you receive $500+ in qualifying direct deposits within 45 days. Ca-ching!*

🔪 Your next girls’ night charcuterie board is begging for this adorable knife set from Big Night—three acetate spreaders shaped like a baguette, a hunk of cheese, and a fish, all tucked into the most giftable little tin.

🕯️ Want your home to smell like a five-star hotel? Managing Director Vanessa has been loving this oil diffuser from Amazon that smells like Le Labo’s beloved Santal 33 perfume.

*Spruce fintech platform is built by H&R Block, which is not a bank. Bank products by Pathward®, N.A., Member FDIC

💄 Social Assistant to Founder & CEO, Tarte Cosmetics

🌎 Senior Corporate Partnerships Sales Manager (Remote), Discovery Education

🎟️ Project Assistant, Onsite Marketing (Remote), Live Nation Entertainment

Get ahead (and save time) by automating your job applications.