Paul Delaney

Paul Delaney
Paul Delaney
Native name	Paul
Born	September, 1977 Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Residence	Valencia, Spain
Nationality	British
Other names	dEL, EL dEL, Club Madchester DJs, Stereo Revolver DJs
Education	Digital Marketing Institute (2018 – 2019), Edinburgh Napier University (1995 – 1998)
Occupation	Entrepreneur, Publisher, SEO Professional
Years active	1998 - Present
Known for	Entrepreneurship, Education, DJ/Promoter of Club Madchester
Home town	Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

Paul Delaney is a Scottish Entrepreneur, Publisher, and SEO Professional. based in Valencia, Spain. Paul has three decades of experience in generating growth for brands across the Education, Travel, and Leisure sectors.

Introduction

Paul's extensive track record includes a wide array of clients, from start-ups to PLCs, helping them achieve significant revenue milestones—breaking through the £1 million, £10 million, and £40 million marks for the first time. Additionally, Paul has a proven ability in turning around brands facing multi-million-pound losses, achieved in record times.

His academic credentials include a Postgraduate Diploma in Digital Marketing from the Digital Marketing Institute, a BA in Publishing from Edinburgh Napier University, an UCLES (Cambridge ESOL) CELTA, and an Ableton Live Certificate in Music Production from Point Blank Music School. Paul also performed as a DJ for two decades under the stage name EL dEL and has released podcasts and track-remixes under that name, also as Club Madchester and Stereo Revolver.

Early Life and Education

Paul Delaney was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. Paul was both academic and active as a child, and represented both his school, Trinity Academy, and Boroughmuir Rugby Club as a teenager. In 1995, he played in the Digital Under-18 Rugby Scottish Cup winning team. Paul pursued a BA in Publishing at Edinburgh Napier University from 1995 to 1998.

Paul later went on to study an UCLES (Cambridge ESOL) CELTA in 2003, an Ableton Live Certificate in Music Production with Point Blank Music School in 2013, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Digital Marketing with the Digital Marketing Institute in 2018,

DJing & Club Promotion at University

In 1995 Paul began working at the Edinburgh club night, Madchester, soon after starting his own night with now-renowned Festival Promoter and DJ Chris Knight/Astrojazz. From late 1995 Paul worked closely with Events Armoury managing, promoting or DJing at their numerous student club events. Paul built up a publicity distribution service that stretched across 11 university and college campuses, as well large street teams.

In 1996 Paul became the lead DJ at Club Madchester, an event started by Steven Cumming in 1994 that ran until 2018. Through the 1990s the night took place at La Belle Angele, The Music Box (later The Liquid Room), and other Edinburgh and Glasgow venues. The first birthday of the club, albeit in 1996, featured a live performance from Northside, their first since the collapse of Factory Records. In 1999 Mani of Stone Roses and Primal Scream joined Paul on stage and performed at the club's 5th birthday party in La Belle Angele.

Guerilla Marketing

To promote their events, Paul and Steven unleashed guerrilla marketing campaigns that captured attention in local and national publications, featuring in International DJ Magazine and Loaded Magazine. The innovative tactics included "photoshopping" the faces of Shaun Ryder and Bez from Happy Mondays/Black Grape onto movie and TV posters, old band photos and the like— and using them on publicity- a pioneering approach to meme advertising.

Further pushing the envelope, they employed students to place projectors in their apartment windows, which at night would display moving images of their upcoming event posters onto prominent historic buildings in Edinburgh. This not only secured local media coverage but also positioned them as avant-garde guerrilla marketers.

Career

Education Industry

In 1998 Paul worked for Basil Paterson College, an English language school. Later moving to a sales and marketing role for the OISE chain in Oxford in 2001, using email marketing and PDFs - then new technologies - to open up new marketing channels for them.

In 2003 Paul relocated to Valencia, Spain, taught English in a school, learned Spanish, and began freelancing. Paul returned to Oxford in 2006, managing global agent and affiliate sales for OISE. In 2008 Paul moved to the Eurocentres Foundation, directing the Swiss chain's sales and marketing in a number of regions. In 2011, Paul joined EAC Language Centres, acquired by TUI Travel PLC, and as sales and marketing director, was instrumental in the team that took the struggling giant back to an operating profit in one academic year.

Paul left the corporate world in 2013, relocated to Zurich and formed his marketing agency. Shortly after he helped AEC Education Group PLC open a multi-million pound revenue stream for their brand Malvern House. In 2016 Paul took on Hallmark Property's struggling English language brand, and using offline and online marketing, delivered multimillion pound growth in one academic year- helping them create of one of the largest international summer schools ever in the UK, attracting over 2000 students in summer 2017.

In 2020 Simon Gooch Founded Seed Educational Consulting, a company dedicated to providing study abroad opportunities to West African students, Paul is the brand's Marketing Director. The organisation has offices in six countries and representation in many others across the continent.

In 2021 Paul rebranded his marketing agency to Content Ranked to focus purely on delivering SEO projects for clients in the education sector.

Paul has recently also embarked on a new publishing venture with Rhys Southern, the Australian entrepreneur, SEO professional and public speaker.

Events

Viral Pioneers

Alongside his career in education, Paul continued to promote and perform at music events with Steven Cumming. Focussing their promotion online from 2006, the pair were very early commercial users of social media, and capitalised on platforms such as Hi5, Bebo, MySpace, and later Facebook, to build a significant following for their Club Madchester nights across Scotland, the UK, and beyond. With the fanbase of the scene starved of events for many years, people soon started travelling from across Scotland and England for the monthly club nights.

With no training, they developed organic content marketing strategies to grow a sizeable and influential audience. They shared Steven's unique meme style images and Paul's podcast mixtapes mashing Madchester music with Acid House and Hip Hop. They pioneered the use of customised 'on this day', 'today's birthdays', and 'historic photos' for social media content in the music industry, going viral multiple times over and having their strategies shared by 100s of commercial accounts.

Club Madchester Events

As their reach online grew, so did the club night and soon there were monthly events in Glasgow as well as Edinburgh, with occasional nights in Dunfermline and Paisley.

Paul noticed that Tim Burgess was engaging with their content and was able to arrange his first ever appearance as a DJ. The night at The Liquid Room was a huge success and so Paul and Steven started inviting members of other bands to guest DJ at their events, starting another trend in the UK alternative club scene.

An impressive list of guest DJs played at Club Madchester nights including:

- Peter Hook of New Order/Joy Division - Mani of the Stone Roses and Primal Scream - Tim Burgess of The Charlatans - Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays - Bez of Happy Mondays - Clint Boon of Inspiral Carpets/XFm - Mike Joyce of The Smiths - Rick Witter of Shed Seven - Andy Williams and Jez Williams of Doves - DJ Dave Booth the original Madchester DJ

Paul and Steven also DJ-ed at official after-show parties with members of touring bands, including: - Terry Hall of The Specials - Steve Craddock of Ocean Colour Scene - Kyle Falconer and Kieran Webster of The View - Nick Power of The Coral - Phil Smith Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds Tour DJ

They also promoted, and co-promoted, live music events including: - Peter Hook & The Light - Stereo MCs - Rick Witter and Joe Johnson of Shed Seven (acoustic) - Rick Witter and Paul Banks of Shed Seven (acoustic) - John Power of The La’s and Cast (acoustic) - Mark Morris of The Bluetones (acoustic) - Tom Hingley of Inspiral Carpets (acoustic) - Northside - Chris Helme of The Seahorses (acoustic) - Nigel Clark of Dodgy - Winachi Tribe

Peter Hook & The Light's performance at the Liquid Room in Edinburgh in April 2011, the band's third ever concert, was the first time outside of Manchester they performed Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures album, and their first Scottish live performance. Rowetta of Happy Mondays appeared with the band, and Peter Hook played a DJ set at Club Madchester afterwards.

Former Stone Roses tour manager, Steve Adge, MCed at the pre-gig party Paul & Steven organised at The Record Factory before the Stone Roses Hampden concert, their last ever, in 2017.

Throughout this period, Paul DJed at official post-gig parties in Edinburgh for The Charlatans, and also Beady Eye- alongside Alan McGee of Creation records. He DJed as Club Madchester in 2015 at the first ever Shiiine On Festival, with one of the festival stages being dedicated to the Scottish club night. Paul returned to the festival in 2018 DJing as Stereo Revolver on a bill that included Bentley Rhythm Ace, playing with James Atkins of EMF. The Big Beat act opened their live performance playing along with the last few tracks of Paul's DJ set. Paul also promoted and DJed at Fabrika De Funk - opening for Ghetto Funk artists Shaka Loves You, Sammy Senior, and DJ Detta.

In 2015, after 20 years, Paul started winding down his DJ career, and also took a career break from education, though he continued with Club Madchester in Glasgow, and appeared with producer DJ Groovecellar in Switzerland.

The Club Madchester events stopped abruptly after 24 years in February 2018, the final night took place at The Record Factory in Byres Road, Glasgow. Events in Edinburgh had stopped in December 2017. Paul's last DJ gig in Edinburgh was at The Liquid Room on Boxing Day 2018, at an event organised by the Official Madchester brand. He teamed up with Glasgow's DJ Fran Tamburrini and they launched the Stereo Revolver club nights in Glasgow in 2018, but COVID-19 brought events to an end.