Meet the speaker… Jodie Hanrahan
We’ve got an amazing line-up of speakers for the 7th TBE South West Charity Conference & Expo on Thursday 5th June at Bath Racecourse, including, Jodie Hanrahan, Head of Media Planning at Join the Dots – part of the Salocin Group.
Ahead of the day we met Jodie to find out more about her work and what she’s going to be sharing with attendees on the day.
Can you tell us a bit about your background and what led you to work in data-driven fundraising campaigns?
I’ve worked in the media industry for 12 years, predominantly supporting not-for-profits in recruiting new donors utilising data-driven marketing. I started out at Lifestyles Online, a data and lead generation business based in Bath, where I supported the sales teams in executing lead generation campaigns. Shortly after, I joined Response One, a direct response-focused agency, also based in Bath, where I was first introduced to charity clients and media channels like direct mail and inserts. Response One then merged with two other businesses to form Edit and the ‘connected acquisition’ team I was part of had a solid charity client base that was growing and becoming more data-led. Eventually, it made sense for the connected acquisition team to evolve into its own agency brand, Join the Dots, which is now part of Salocin Group. Join the Dots has a fully data-led media planning focus and a large charity client base producing award-winning work from outstanding results. I’m currently enjoying supporting the Join the Dots team in expanding, helping more charities reach their donor recruitment goals and using data to refine targeting to produce better, more sustainable results for clients.
What do you enjoy most about your role at Join the Dots, and what keeps you motivated?
I really enjoy strategic planning using data and insight for multi-channel campaigns – bringing a new idea to life is fun and working with clients to build that plan can be challenging but is definitely rewarding, you’re constantly learning. But the most rewarding part of working for Join the Dots for me is seeing the results that campaigns I’ve planned have produced. It’s inspiring to learn about my clients causes and help them reach fundraising targets, making a real difference in the world. My motivation comes from this and our close-knit team being so supportive and encouraging, with a good balance of hard work and fun.
Without giving too much away, what inspired the approach behind the campaign you’ll be discussing in your session?
Air Ambulance Charity Kent Surrey Sussex had a challenge to conquer with an approaching deadline for the purchase of a helicopter of which the lease was running out. They could no longer afford this due to increasing lease fees and had a set time to make the purchase before it was no longer available. There was a very real concern around the helicopter being grounded, meaning their life-saving missions would be impacted, in turn creating an urgency in the community. We had to be quick-thinking and come up with a strategy to achieve hitting their £1 million shortfall to make that helicopter purchase. Inspiration came from a team of fantastic people from Join the Dots, Open Creates and KSS believing we could do it and devoting our time and energy into making it happen!
Why do you think data has become such a powerful tool for fundraisers?
Without data, you’re guessing or making assumptions based on your own biased knowledge without specific insight. It’s been proven time and time again that data-backed media planning provides stronger results and every charity is striving for more sustainable ways to market to audiences, minimising wastage and getting their charity’s name in front of the right people who are most likely to respond, while also discovering new audiences. Since Covid, there’s been a decline in volumes of donors recruited broadly year-on-year along with rising costs and charities are having to become cleverer about their targeting to make their marketing campaigns work harder to make budgets go further. Data is at the heart of making marketing more efficient, which is why it’s the most powerful tool.
What challenges do you see charities facing when trying to turn insights into action?
Challenges usually involve risk-adverse fundraisers being nervous about testing new approaches and/or budgets for testing being limited. For example, if we propose a new media channel that we can see indexes highly on our audience insights platform against the charity client’s audience it may not be actioned as a new channel test for these reasons. I’m quite lucky in that most of my clients are very open to testing and usually have the budget for it but for some smaller charities it’s more of a challenge as budgets are limited. There’s also a core focus on direct response fundraising with strict targets and less room for brand building activity and fluctuating results that result in long-term gain, with more of a focus on immediate return.
What’s one key takeaway you hope attendees will leave your session thinking about or ready to apply?
I hope attendees will feel inspired to take that leap of faith when they’re presented with a tough challenge! So long as recommendations are supported by data the risk is minimised; ensuring decisions are data-backed is imperative for success and hopefully takes the edge off of a ‘risky’ decision that could result in the best campaign you’ve run to date, as it did for KSS!
The 7th TBE South West Charity Conference & Expo is taking place on Thursday 5th June at Bath Racecourse from 8:30am-4pm. The day is free to attend but booking is essential. To find out more and to book, click here.
