What is the best way to introduce you to Join the Dots, a brand-new media agency with a refreshing approach to their clients? By getting all the detail and behind the scenes info direct from the visionaries behind the brand, of course!
Here is Ben Briggs, Managing Partner, with his thoughts, inspiration, and opinions to get you fully immersed in Join the Dots and their way of working.
So, Ben, what was the idea, the big inspiration behind Join the Dots?
I’m going to answer your question infuriatingly with another question. How often do you get the opportunity to build a brand from the ground up that answers the difficulties that clients experience on a day-to-day basis and puts people and the planet at the same priority level as profit?
The marketing industry continues to evolve at a rapid pace, and it’s become full of buzzwords, jargon, and meaningless metrics. Join the Dots means simplicity and creating connections. Dots, like data, on their own are meaningless, but it’s when you start to join those data dots together, turning that data into insight, you start to bring those dots to life. Connecting audiences to communication channels, online with offline, acquisition to retention, and analogue with digital to drive better business outcomes.
No one does it well, so we’re committing the following:
- We’re immersive, our clients’ needs are our needs, and we do everything for your gain first and foremost, not ours.
- No shortcuts, no blueprinted plans, we’ll be honest, and data led. Even if it’s not what you want to hear!
- We will be ethical and sustainable throughout the process (not just production stage.)
- We will look to the future to guide our activity, where long-term impact takes precedence over short-term gains.
- Working with us will be different to what you’re used to; we’ll be fun and innovative; we love the hustle of media agency life, we don’t sit still, and we won’t play according to the rule book.
- We are ISO27001 certified, so you can trust that your data is in safe hands.
As a team we are hugely excited by the opportunity to take this brand to market, and shake up the media agency landscape, with a proposition we believe is going to excite existing and potential clients.
So, Ben, why the name? Why Join the Dots?
It’s clear and simple and does what it says on the tin. Join the Dots is about creating connections and it brings marketing back to its simple basics, which are so often easily overlooked in a world awash with more data and technology stacks than you can shake a stick at.
Join the dots connects suppliers and clients, online to offline, data to creative, acquisition to retention, the list goes on and on. All of this and more, to make your media unstoppable.
What about Join the Dots is going to make you stand out, get noticed ahead of other brands?
We’re brave enough to meet the needs of the market. We’re seeing a lot of press lately saying how smaller agencies can create media with huge impact, that can compete and often far exceeds the giant agencies due to a brave or collaborative approach.
We also see the gap in the market for independent agencies ready to be filled by us; giant groups or networks can be intimidating to brands who want a personalised approach. Being an independent agency also gives us the freedom to always be able to do the right thing for our clients and the planet, which is hugely important to us and makes up a part of our value statement. So, we can put our clients’ needs first and foremost, making sure that our campaigns are considerate. And, because we have taken several years of feedback to heart, from winning and losing pitches, we really know what clients are looking for in an agency – no blueprinted plans, entirely bespoke, a deep understanding of their audiences and sector knowledge, with competitive pricing and value, delivered by a genuinely enthusiastic team with a data and insight led approach.
It’s going to be a huge success, isn’t it?
We certainly like to think so. We’re launching off the back of successful year on year growth, building off feedback from our clients. Brands are demanding change; we’re listening and doing the legwork to make it happen. Agencies that sit on their hands, too scared to innovate beyond the norm are going to get left behind.
Tell us something you’ve been working on that you’re really proud of, and why should potential clients be grabbing their phones and/or firing off emails to you for your services?
As mentioned earlier, we’ve spent the last couple of years listening intently to our clients’ needs from successes and failures and spent time refining this feedback into the proposition we are taking to market that is helping brands grow, and grow fast. Since the beginning of 2020 we’ve been working with 31 new brands across 11 different vertical sectors, so we know this works.
Our core proposition revolves around media that is connected by data, and whilst many media agencies claim they do, very few actually do it properly. We unlock audiences by combining data and insight, and then find the audiences within other channels, and connect channels together to create precision integration and extend reach. We operate all media channels within one team, without silos that could reduce how effective a cross-channel strategy performs, which can sometimes be hampered when multiple agencies have differing strategies and are also competing for budgets. This drives value through finding the audiences that matter, reduces wastage on spend and enhances customer experience throughout the entire customer journey alignment.
Some examples of how we’re data led include using our VAS tracking software and creative agency partnerships for our data-driven creative, and through these we are able to optimise performance, to make the element that consumers see and interact with work harder and drive a response. And for our data-driven digital offerings, we’re working with partners like ExitBee, utilising their technology to help us progress more consumers through to completion, simply by serving the consumer an ad unit which is activated when they move their mouse towards the top of the page to exit, we are able to convert more customers, driving more value for our clients, giving them more contactable customers and higher ROI.
What’s the plan for Join the Dots, where is it headed?
Now that we are independent, as a part of The Salocin Group , we can contribute towards their goals for data-powered marketing services group encompassing Systems Integration & Marketing Automation, Customer Experience & CRM, Analytics & Insight, Content Development, and Media Optimisation.
We’ll be further committing to sustainability by joining Ad Net Zero, and we’ll proudly display our carbon offsetting publicly on our website. We have our sights on more awards too, contrary to popular belief, media agencies do exist outside of London as our success at the 2021 DMA’s prove, our talent and capability are strong. We’d also like to do our bit by helping to continue to raise the profile of talent in the South-West and win more awards
Working closely with the team at Edit, we’ll develop our approach to attribution, which will mean we can offer a clear and objective view on where our clients should be investing their media budgets.
Some truly ingenious projects and products will be launching over the coming year, watch this space for a product we’ve been developing alongside Edit – we saw a problem and an opportunity to join time-poor customers up with businesses, and we think we’ve found an excellent solution that meets the needs of an audience accustomed to the digital age.
You can reach out to Ben to chat about any of Join the Dot’s products and services by emailing him at ben.briggs@wejointhedots.co.uk and following us on Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter: @wejoindots
