If marketing feels like a closet full of things you’re not wearing but can’t bring yourself to throw away, this episode is for you.
In Episode 11, Jake and John sit down with Brittany Downey — marketing coach, copywriter, and host of the Do Less Marketing podcast. Brittany has also been part of over 150 website projects with the ARTILLERY team, so this conversation is personal.
She breaks down her framework for cutting through marketing clutter, explains why most businesses are doing too much (and still feeling guilty about it), and makes a case for treating marketing less like a checklist and more like a closet that needs a good cleanout.
Key Takeaways
- Most businesses struggle with marketing because they’re doing too much, not too little.
- Brittany’s Three Ps framework helps diagnose where marketing is breaking down.
- Positioning → Presence → Pathways must build in that order.
- Sustainable marketing requires finding your base pace, not chasing motivation.
- Decluttering your marketing starts with listing every marketing activity and cutting what doesn’t fit.
Episode at a Glance
Brittany Downey has spent years helping small businesses and nonprofits figure out what’s actually working in their marketing — and what to let go of. In this episode, she walks through her “Three Ps” framework and explains why the marketing wobble happens to almost everyone.
Action step: List every marketing activity your business is doing right now. Everything. Get it all out in front of you — like cleaning out a closet. Then ask: which of these actually fit my team’s strengths and drive results? Cut or pause the rest. Give yourself permission.
Main idea: Most businesses aren’t failing at marketing because they’re doing too little. They’re struggling because they’re doing too much — and too much of the wrong stuff.
Why it matters: Marketing guilt is real. The pressure to be on every platform, try every tactic, and say yes to everything leads to a wobble: bursts of effort followed by burnout. A sustainable approach starts with clarity about what fits.
Quick tool: Brittany’s “Three Ps of Minimalist Marketing” — Positioning, Presence, and Pathways. Use them as a diagnostic: Where is your biggest leak right now? Start there.
Listen & Subscribe
Podcast page: https://artillerymedia.com/podcast/
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About Brittany
Brittany Downey is a marketing coach, writer, and host of the Do Less Marketing podcast. She helps small businesses and nonprofits cut through marketing noise to focus on what actually works for them.
Her background spans nonprofit marketing, agency work (including a stint at Swanson Russell), and years of hands-on consulting with lean teams. She’s also been part of over 150 website projects with ARTILLERY.
- Founder of Downey Strategy
- Host of the Do Less Marketing podcast
- Marketing coach for small businesses, nonprofits, and lean teams
- Collaborator on 150+ ARTILLERY website projects
Brittany’s website
https://downeystrategy.com/
Do Less Marketing podcast
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/do-less-marketing/id1806109083
Brittany on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittany-downey
Highlights & Timestamps
00:00–04:15 — Meet Brittany + Her Background From music composition to nonprofit marketing to agency work to running her own practice.
04:15–10:05 — The Pattern She Keeps Seeing Why every organization — small nonprofits, big companies, solo practitioners — hits the same marketing wall.
10:05–17:05 — The Three Ps of Minimalist Marketing Positioning, Presence, and Pathways — and why they build on each other.
17:05–22:00 — The Marketing Wobble Why businesses swing between “doing everything” and doing nothing. The role of motivation, fit, and base pace.
22:00–28:00 — The Marketing Closet Cleanout Brittany’s decluttering approach: get everything out, see what’s there, and make honest decisions about what goes back.
28:00–36:00 — AI as a Thinking Partner (Not a Thinking Replacement) How Brittany uses AI to sharpen her thinking without outsourcing it — and what happens when businesses let AI do the thinking for them.
36:00–42:00 — Where to Start (the Bare Bones) Client interviews, marketing audits, and why coaching beats consulting when the goal is lasting change.
42:00–47:55 — Marketing Should Be Fun Jake’s poker game idea, why marketing is like exercise, and finding the version that fits how you actually want to spend your time.
The Three Ps of Minimalist Marketing
Brittany’s framework is simple and diagnostic.
Positioning is the foundation. Who you are, who you serve, and how you talk about it. If this isn’t clear, everything downstream — your website, your content, your outreach — will feel off. As Brittany put it, a lot of businesses skip this step and jump straight to tactics. That’s where the wobble starts.
Presence is where your positioning comes to life. For most businesses, that means a website. And Brittany made a point that stuck: if a team member in your store said something like “we’re leveraging our streamlined services for your benefit,” you’d wonder what was wrong with them. But we write exactly that kind of thing on websites all the time. Your digital presence should feel as human as your physical one.
Pathways are how people actually find you. Not “marketing channels” in the abstract — but specific, real ways people get to your business. A lunch meeting. A podcast conversation. A Google search. A referral. Brittany uses “pathways” instead of “channels” because it opens up the thinking. Not everything that brings people to your business looks like a traditional marketing tactic.
The three build on each other. If your positioning is off, your presence won’t land. If your presence isn’t solid, your pathways won’t convert. Start where the biggest leak is.
The Marketing Wobble
Brittany named something that a lot of business owners feel but can’t quite articulate.
It’s what she calls the “marketing wobble” — that cycle of ramping up, burning out, and stopping. Two things cause it.
First: trying to do too much. When motivation is high, everything feels possible. But motivation is inherently unstable. You can’t build a marketing plan on something that comes and goes.
Second: doing marketing that doesn’t fit. Something can be strategically sound on paper and still be wrong for your business. If it doesn’t match your team’s strengths, your capacity, or how you want to grow — it’s not going to stick.
The solution isn’t doing more. It’s finding your base pace — the level of effort you can sustain even when motivation is low and things get hard.
That’s slow and steady.
Clean Out the Marketing Closet
Brittany’s metaphor is perfect.
Treat your marketing like a closet that needs a cleanout. You don’t just pull out one or two things and call it done. You get everything out — every platform, every campaign, every half-finished project, every idea you’ve been meaning to get to.
Then you look at what’s actually there. And Brittany said something encouraging: most businesses are doing more than they think they are. Once it’s all laid out, the guilt starts to lift.
From there, you run each piece through a filter: Does this have real impact? Does it match my team’s strengths? Does it deserve to go back in the closet?
Sometimes the answer is outsourcing. Sometimes it’s doubling down. And sometimes it’s cutting something entirely — like the client spending $1,000 a month on social media posts that were getting crickets, who redirected that budget to Google Ads and saw real returns.
AI: Sharpen Your Thinking, Don’t Outsource It
Brittany’s take on AI is grounded and practical.
She uses AI (specifically Claude) as a sounding board. She talks her ideas into it, has it repeat them back, and asks it to challenge her thinking. It’s not generating her strategy. It’s helping her process.
The danger, she said, is when businesses outsource their thinking to AI. Everyone starts sounding the same. Everyone’s content looks the same. And you end up back at the original problem: how do you stand out?
Where AI shines is in scaling work that already has a strategic foundation. Brittany described a project where she built out brand voice, messaging, and website copy for a client with multiple sub-brands — then used all of that context to build a custom AI tool the client can use to generate on-brand content. The difference between that output and a generic AI prompt is night and day.
AI is great for scaling. Not great for the thinking that comes first.
Where to Start
Brittany’s advice is refreshingly clear.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, do two things.
First: have someone interview your clients. Not you — someone external. Your clients will tell a third party things they won’t tell you, because they’re not managing your feelings. Those conversations reveal how people actually experience your business, which is the foundation for everything else.
Second: do the marketing audit. Get everything out on the table. You can’t make informed decisions about what to cut until you can see what’s there. And give yourself permission to say no without guilt.
Marketing Can Be Fun
One of the best moments in the episode is when Jake talks about starting a monthly poker game for agency owners, investors, and tech founders in Lincoln. Not a networking event. Not a BNI meeting. A poker game with eight people and good conversation.
It came from watching Molly’s Game and thinking: what if the best networking didn’t feel like networking at all?
That’s the point. Marketing should fit how you actually want to spend your time. If it feels like buying new tires — something you dread but force yourself to do — the consistency won’t be there.
Find the version of marketing that’s fun for you. That’s how you stick with it.
Call to Action
Want help building a website that reflects who you actually are — with messaging that connects and a strategy that sticks?
Start here: https://artillerymedia.com/contact/
Show Credits
Hosts: Jake Kramer & John Wooten
Guest: Brittany Downey of Downey Strategy: https://downeystrategy.com
Produced by: ARTILLERY, Lincoln, Nebraska
Slow & Steady — A Podcast by ARTILLERY
https://artillerymedia.com/podcast/
