about raiya
Named after the sunshine. Built out of 16 years in marketing.
raiya is created by Becca Smith, founder and primary marketer at the business, with a long-standing career in SaaS, tech, services and ecommerce marketing. Specialists are brought onto the account when needed - but you meet everyone we work with. They're all close friends of raiya.
Sixteen years, mostly on your side of the table
Hi, I’m Becca - and I’m who you’ll work with as your primary contact. I have a husband, two gorgeous goldadors, and nearly seventeen years in marketing behind me.
I’ve held VP of Marketing, Head of Digital and Head of Demand Gen roles, all within high-growth startups, and I’ve always loved it. Startup marketing means you get to work across everything - even more so now you’ve got AI on your side.
I’ve always been in-house, and I genuinely didn’t mean to start a business. I picked up a great project between jobs, loved it, took another client, then another, and suddenly I had this little business.
I take on limited clients at a time, and it will always be that way. My biggest issue with agencies as a startup was that ‘the scope’ was everything and you could never go over it. That’s not raiya. We’re full flex, reactive to what’s in front of you while we work the proactive plan.
So you get what I found was missing in-house: flex, honesty, transparency and constant communication.
“I've worked in startups before. I've worked in scale-ups before. I've been in-house. So I've often sat in the seat of the prospect that's talking to me.”
the raiya family
The rest of the team, technically
Callum Smith
Admin and strategy
Helps with the admin nobody enjoys, and is a useful second brain on strategy.
Blu Smith
Oldest goldador, failed therapy dog
Officially failed his therapy dog qualification. Still does the trick.
Cali Smith
Business development
Once won us a client by getting the zoomies in the background of a prospect call.
Designed to be deleted
The end goal is a marketing function that doesn’t need raiya. Systems, reporting and know-how stay inside your business.
“It means I want to create jobs in the marketing industry.”
Things you’ll hear from raiya that most agencies won’t say:
- “You need local office presence at this stage in your growth. Let’s map out what we need to sort so you can onboard a marketing executive - and reduce our retainer.”
- “I know you want that channel to work, but all the testing points to no. We need to try this instead.”
What raiya wants to be known for: Creating jobs in the marketing industry.
See previous workfrequently asked questions
Questions people actually ask
- Is raiya an agency, a consultant or a freelancer?
- A blend of all three. You work directly with the founder, who manages your strategy and execution, with known freelancers brought into your account as and when needed. You're introduced to everyone. It feels like an in-house marketer supporting you.
- How is this different from hiring a freelancer?
- A freelancer does tasks. raiya owns outcomes. There's a senior strategic layer, and when raiya shows up on your leadership call it's to contribute, not to read a report out loud.
- We already have someone in-house. Does that rule us out?
- No - raiya works well alongside a team, taking on the strategy and the projects they can't get to, and building systems that make them more effective.
- How does raiya use AI?
- As a tool, always human-directed, human-edited and human-checked. It's used to build things - automations, outbound systems, reporting, workflows - not to generate copy nobody read.
- Do you lock people into contracts?
- There's a 3-month notice period to walk away from raiya, but you can upgrade or downgrade your plan with no notice at all. We take on a limited number of clients at a time, so the notice period is mandatory.
- Can you guarantee results?
- No, and neither can anybody else honestly. Forecasts get made and adapted as priorities change, which is more useful than promising the stars and blaming you later.