Ray Smith

Manage independent Drum & Bass acts Bloom, Millbrook & Hillsdom, focusing on contract negotiations, financial management, and tailored marketing strategies. Oversee A&R processes to identify and develop talent. Build strong partnerships with labels and industry contacts to create growth opportunities for artists while adapting to industry trends for sustained success.

• Manage Blooom's Career Growth: Successfully manage and grow Blooom by securing music partnerships, resulting in over 800K monthly Spotify listeners and 21 million streams over past 12 months...
• Discovered and Managed Vacuum's Transition to Millbrook: Facilitated rebranding of Vacuum to Millbrook, emerging as key Drum & Bass act in Europe, showcasing effective day-to-day management and strategic career development.

Specialise in performance marketing, focusing on paid social campaigns across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Work with media agencies, startups, established brands, and festivals and music events to drive impactful marketing strategies and ROI. Leverage analytical insights to enhance sales and engagement while staying ahead of industry trends to deliver successful outcomes for clients.

• Managed Over £50+ Million in Media Spend overseeing and optimising budgets, creating paid marketing strategies that drive impactful campaigns and maximise return on investment across various platforms.
• Brands & artists worked with: Nokia, Olly Murs, Steps, Connect Festival, FitTrack, Stan.Store, Hybrid Mind, Metalheads, Noisia, Critical Records.

• Manage and optimise all paid social campaigns for 25 clients with media spend of £1 million per month, achieving effective execution, comprehensive analysis, and improved reporting systems.
• Oversee social media accounts, delivering strategic insights that drive client satisfaction and internal team efficiency.
• Collaborate with creative teams to establish direct response advertising campaigns that significantly engage target audiences.
• Partner with development teams to implement tracking pixels, ensuring accurate performance measurement and data collection.
• Enhance conversion campaigns through strategic analysis and optimisation, resulting in improved campaign performance and increased return on investment.

Develop and execute comprehensive online and offline marketing plans, including content strategies, social media engagement, email campaigns to drive traffic and ROI.Enhance artist and label brand visibility across social networks and email databases.Provide insightful analytics reports to label manager and collaborate with external advertising companies to facilitate impactful campaigns. Work closely with marketing and press teams to secure key promotional placements and oversee online strategies while liaising with artists and management.

• Increased record label's and artists' social media and email databases: Facebook (500k fans), YouTube (76k subscribers, 27 million video views), Twitter (300k followers), Instagram (40k), email database (50k unique emails).
• Increased record label's online store gross annual income in 2014 by 31% year on year, with Q1 2015 showing increase of 126.95% and Q2 by 49.46%.
• Contributed to marketing and advertising plans for one UK top ten single and two UK top twenty singles.
• Base79 selected Ram Records YouTube channel as case study for best practices in growing content creator YouTube channels.
• Pure360 selected Ram Records email sends and creative as case study to provide accounts with best practices.
• Featured in industry interview piece on breakbeat.co.uk titled “Ray's Marketing Rampage.”
• Served as panellist for Sensoria Pro in October 2014, discussing "Making YouTube Work for You" and exploring how to maximise promotion and revenue options on YouTube.
• Successfully project managed rebranding and redesign of ramrecords.com website, creating one-click shop.
• Discovered and managed A&R for artists: Teddy Killerz, Bensley, Frankee.

• Developed and executed advertising campaigns on Facebook and Twitter, driving enhancing social awareness by 30%.
• Managed and grew label's social media channels, including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, increasing followers by 40% and email database by 20%.
• Oversaw upload of label releases to YouTube's content ID management system, ensuring compliance and maximising monetisation opportunities.
• Improved brand's merchandise output from 0% to 100% in year 1, significantly enhancing revenue streams and brand visibility.
• Secured impactful press placements for artist releases across various platforms, increasing media coverage by 50%.
• Maintained database of video directors for creative projects, facilitating collaboration on 15+ successful campaigns.
• Cultivated relationships with radio DJs at BBC, Kiss FM, and Capital to promote releases, gaining playlist support for 3 tracks.

• Assist label manager in planning social media schedules ahead of release campaigns, ensuring timely and effective promotion.
• Create and edit HTML newsletter templates in Adobe Dreamweaver, distributing via company's email database to enhance audience engagement.
• Established new methods for creating and producing news articles for main label website, boosting website traffic by 25%.
• Drive traffic and growth for online fan base with web-related campaigns, achieving 30% increase in engagement.
• Support all aspects of event management, including sourcing artwork design, booking artists, promoting, and supervising events, ensuring successful execution of 10+ events.
• Maintain growth and operation of record label's club and radio DJ promo mailing list, increasing subscriptions by 20%.
• Communicate with artists daily to ensure alignment and support for ongoing projects, fostering strong working relationships.