Joining the Dots for the Samaritans
A new partnership to be proud of We’re so happy to share that Join the Dots has been appointed as the new offline media agency for Samaritans – one of the UK’s most loved and trusted charities. Following a competitive agency tender process, we were selected to support Samaritans with their cold mail channel acquisition […]
Still the most wonderful time of year? Why charities might be missing out by focusing on Christmas campaigns
If you ask most charity marketers when their big campaign moment is, the answer is almost always the same: Christmas! And it makes sense. People are with loved ones, in a giving mood, and thinking about those less fortunate. The trouble is, everyone else has had exactly the same idea. According to Ad Intel around 35% of offline charity media spend happens in Q4 […]
Why the channel you choose says as much about your charity as the ad itself
Did you know that when people decide whether to trust a charity enough to give, the media channel carrying the message plays a real part in that decision. Not just the words. Not just the imagery. The channel itself. We tend to think of media planning as a numbers game: reach, frequency, cost per thousand. They’re all […]
The media multiplier: What the data actually says about how channels work together
Here’s our roundup of the key evidence presented at our The Media Multiplier event. Together with Whistle and Herdify we presented a series of talks covering advertising effectiveness, the role of mail in a multi-channel plan, and why the question most marketers are asking might be the wrong one. The presentations were specific, the numbers were citable, and some of the conclusions cut against where the market has […]
Why data cleansing, validation and enrichment still matters
For many UK organisations, direct mail remains a valuable channel for reaching customers and stakeholders. But as databases grow and age, data quality can gradually decline. People move home, contact details change, and duplicate records can build up over time. With rising print and postage costs, paying closer attention to data cleansing, validation and enrichment […]
Mail is back: Rediscovering the
power of mail
With Royal Mail introducing a 20% rate rise in April, major UK charities face a sharp increase in direct mail costs. At a time when return on investment is under scrutiny, rising postage can quickly erode margin and suppress volume.
Your best digital strategy? Add paper
In 2026, the most forward-thinking acquisition strategies might involve… paper. Not because we’ve run out of digital innovation. Not because we’re nostalgic. But because consumers are changing, and smart marketers need to change with them. Are we all growing quieter? According to Edelman in their Tipping Points 2026 report, we’re living through an era of […]
Audience planning: How mailing smarter delivers more bang for your marketing buck in 2026
In 2026, direct marketing finds itself at a crossroads… With Royal Mail introducing a substantial increase in postage rates – landing at a point when many programmes are already under pressure – brands that rely heavily on mail are being forced into a hard conversation: how do we protect performance when the cost of simply […]
The Drum Predictions 2026: What the future of marketing is really asking of us
The Drum’s Predictions 2026 event, hosted by Lynn Lester and Richard Draycott, brought together leaders from across the industry to make sense of where marketing is heading in a world shaped by uncertainty, automation and constantly shifting human behaviour. What stood out was not another rush towards the newest tools but a genuine return to […]
Campaign’s Year ahead 2026: Fundamentals for the win
On 13 January 2026, at the National Gallery in London I attended Campaign’s Year Ahead breakfast briefing. It was inspiring backdrop for a morning of big-picture thinking and industry insight. Designed for senior marketers, agency leaders, strategists and anyone who cares about where the marketing, media and advertising world is heading, the briefing brought together […]