👉🏻🎧 Mark Ramsey’s 3 Checkmarks For Sticky Audio

Mark Ramsey: 00:00:00

Nowadays, for me, I'm asking the question, am I creating something that has a business model attached to it? Am I creating something that matters to me?

Because if it matters to me, it's worth doing for me, and if it doesn't matter to me, then I don't want to do it at all.

VO: 00:00:15

BRANDwidth On Demand rebooting radio with a different take on all radio can be.

I had somebody come to me with a great idea and it was essentially to do a version of the Dating Game via podcast. Now this is a great idea. And he had a pilot and it was a good pilot, but he never went to the next step in developing it. Yeah, I said, oh, great.

Okay, well now what's your plan for actually doing this every week? Didn't get that done. You know, what's your plan? It was a great idea, it was a great concept, it was a good pilot. But he lost the momentum.

VO: 00:00:54

Now your guides through the mediamorphosis, David Martin and author of the book BRANDwidth media branding coach Kipper McGee.

Dave Martin: 00:01:03

Mark Ramsey built his career helping radio stations figure out what their audiences really want and what they'll actually come back for.

He's worked with some of the biggest brands in the game, but when he saw that there was the puck heading in a different direction, he made his move, shifting from consultant to creator and taking audio storytelling to a whole new level.

Now he's the brains behind podcasts like Inside Jaws, Inside the Exorcist, and Scrooge A Christmas Carol, projects that blend true stories, cinematic sound, and just enough drama to keep you hooked. He's teamed up with Wondering Iheart, Amazon Music and more, proving there's serious power and audio that thinks bigger.

Mark's also a regular draw at NAB Podcast Movement Radio days, where his no BS insights tend to shake up the room a bit. Media pros looking to future proof their content and careers. This is your wake up call, folks. BRANDwidth On Demand Proud to welcome back Mark Ramsey.

Kipper McGee: 00:02:09

Hey, Mark.

Mark Ramsey: 00:02:09

Hey.

Mark Ramsey: 00:02:10

I'm so thrilled to be here with you guys.

Dave Martin: 00:02:12

Well, we are so glad to have you, Mark. It's really great. And you have gone from really advising legacy radio brands.

I remember back when you were doing that a lot of research and now you are creating some of the most, gotta call them, cinematic podcasts in the industry.

So what was the moment you knew it was time to move from just consulting radio with audio and start building the kind of audio content that you wished more people could be making with podcasts?

Mark Ramsey: 00:02:42

Well, I think it started because I realized there was an opportunity to do it. And nobody was doing it at that time. I remember doing a conference in public radio at this point probably 20 years ago, programming conference.

And I highlighted to them that there was an awful lot of news content that was very informative available in audio. There was a lot of entertainment content that was very kind of slight, but there was not a lot of kind of industrial strength entertainment content.

There was not a lot of effort to create high quality entertainment. It was kind of like, you know, fairly disposable.

I mean, the morning shows are great, but at the end of the day, morning show is, let's say four hours long. They're built so that you can come in at any time. There's no start, there's no middle, and there's no end.

It's intended to be something you experience in a hit and run fashion. If you miss it, you miss it. If you hear it, you hear it. And worst case scenario is you come back tomorrow and we'll all try again.

And instead I was thinking about it more the way you think about television and film, which is destination programming. Something you have to tune in for, something you enjoy, something you talk about with your family, with your friends, something that you spread.

This is what great television, great film is.

And I know that because for years I was on the board of the Critics Choice association, which gave honors every year to the best in film and television and usually happened on right around the same weekend as the Golden Globes and was famous as a fortune teller for what was going to be popular for Emmy and for the Academy Awards. So I saw that opportunity and I thought, well, why not charge down this path?

So I walked into the offices of Wondry in la, where they had about half a dozen employees and about half a dozen shows. Okay, they had a big whiteboard and they had a few shows up in the upper right hand corner and a lot of space left on the whiteboard.

And they had very few people walking into them with content. Everyone had ideas, but nobody had actual content.

And I was listening to all this, you know, at that point it was mostly radio reruns of radio shows and reruns of public radio shows and the stray original project, but not a lot of stuff being done. And I thought, well, you know, where's the content for the rest of us?

And I said, what about something that takes, you know, a movie that everyone's interested in, that everyone has seen, that everyone knows familiarity and go kind of inside that movie with an original approach, a lot of fancy sound design and some compelling Storytelling and maybe some reenactments. Just some stuff that people haven't heard before.

And that's what we did with the first one was Inside Psycho, and that was followed by Inside the Exorcist and Inside Jaws and Inside Star wars and a branded content thing for Coke on the movie Philadelphia to commemorate 20 years of Coke's red campaign for AIDS in Africa and so on. And all told, it was like millions of downloads. Most of the shows were top 10 Apple Podcast overall.

Some of the shows were top 2 Apple Podcast overall. And those were the days when you can actually claim to be top 10 overall. Yes, I remember not top 10 in some remote category.

So that was kind of the clue that there was something there. And it led me to a bunch of interesting relationships and interesting people.

And we could talk about how this space has evolved since then, but, you know, it's a very different space now.

Dave Martin: 00:06:33

Well, you've worked across both radio broadcasting, podcasting, streaming, so you've really seen all the blind spots on all sides. Mark, what are creators still getting wrong, though, when it comes to building real audience loyalty?

And why do so many shows in both spaces still confuse having a personality with actually creating content that people care about?

Mark Ramsey: 00:06:56

Oh, that's a tough one. The first thing to note is that creating content that people care about, there's a chicken and egg problem there.

You know, you don't know they care about it until you make it. And you can't make it unless you can prove to somebody that they care about it.

That's why shows that actually get distribution nowadays are shows that already have an audience. In other words, they've already proved that there's something about them that people will care about.

And that means either the host is someone that people know, or the show is related to shows that people already know. And thus, the host or creator already has distribution. So it used to be that great content created distribution.

Now great distribution creates content.

And that's, I think, the central difference, which is why right now, for example, I can create and I am creating a new version of Insight, but, you know, it's not going to be on Wondery. Wondery has no interest in that anymore because Wondery needs millions of download guarantees in order to put a show on its platform today.

And in those days, they didn't need that. They were creating millions of downloads.

Kipper McGee: 00:08:07

Right?

Mark Ramsey: 00:08:08

Right now they need millions of downloads before they start getting millions of downloads. So this is why you see, every name brand, talent wants their own podcast.

And more often than not, it's an interview show because A, interview shows are easy, B, the name of the talent can carry the distribution weight. Because who doesn't want to know what David Duchovny has to say? Well, a lot of people, but a lot of people do. So David Duchovny can get a show.

The Kelsey brothers, who never hosted a thing in their lives, can get a host a talk show because of the Kelsey Brothers, because they have built in attention, they have built an audience.

So what most people are missing out, I guess you could say, if you want to use those words, is you can create a show, anybody can create a podcast, but not everybody can create a hit in this environment.

Kipper McGee: 00:09:00

So with that, I mean, what kind of thing helps you figure out when it does have, like real legs versus something like a Duchovny that maybe just sounds cool in a pitch meeting, but then kind of falls flat?

Mark Ramsey: 00:09:13

You know, folks like to say that you can put all the, you know, the stars together and create content, but unless it really hits, unless it's really compelling, unless it's really good, it won't matter. That's true to a degree.

Kipper McGee: 00:09:29

Yeah.

Mark Ramsey: 00:09:29

But you know, there's a difference between at the very, very top of the list, the Joe Rogans of the world, and the very, very bottom of the list, which, by the way, is 80% of the list.

Kipper McGee: 00:09:43

Yeah.

Mark Ramsey: 00:09:44

So let's call it the top and the middle. To be in the middle is a really broad, broad area because lots of people can put out shows and have kind of middling success.

I mean, the two stars from the Brady Bunch, Greg and Peter, to use their Brady Bunch names, have a show about the Brady Bunch. I've heard what their listenership is like, and it's not very impressive, but apparently it feeds egos. It is good enough to justify their effort.

It's fun for them to do. It serves a niche audience. So it sounds like a hit, but is that the same as the hit? No, but who's going to know? Because who has their numbers public?

You can show rankings all day, but the reality is unless you're at the very top of a ranking in any given category, that's the reality of it. So how do you know you're creating something that people want to hear?

Well, who's to say how many people are enough if you're doing business to business podcasts, you know, there. There's a whole industry of people who say, look, you have a.

You could have a hundred listeners, and if they pay you for something for your company that can be a great business model for you, or you can have a thousand fans, but if they're on Patreon, that can be a great business model for you. None of that adds up to hit. But that's okay. Not everything needs to be a hit. Look at all the stuff that's hiding on Netflix, for God's sake.

I mean, there's tons of that stuff, never gets watched by anybody to speak of. And yet there it is. They've spent more money on any one of those shows than a thousand podcasts will spend combined.

Kipper McGee: 00:11:23

Right. Like a long tail kind of thing.

Which might work in the case of a radio station for like an ask the expert thing, rather than eating up a weekend slot that could be perfectly well programmed for audience.

Mark Ramsey: 00:11:37

Well, that's the thing. I mean, then. Then what's the. I would ask this, what's the business model? So if you've got. If you're a radio station, you.

And, you know, I know local podcasts are one of the supposedly rising trends right now. Great. So that means you're not going to get national distribution. Fine. You.

You know, just because you're on YouTube doesn't mean the people the world over are watching you.

Kipper McGee: 00:11:58

Right?

Mark Ramsey: 00:11:59

It means you've got an opportunity for people, the world. It's like in the old days they used to say, well, 90 million homes have MTV. Yeah, but only 5 million people are watching it, whatever.

Kipper McGee: 00:12:09

Right, right.

Mark Ramsey: 00:12:09

So. So it doesn't really. That kind of stuff doesn't really matter in the big scheme of things.

What matters is, you know, are you creating something nowadays for me, I'm asking the question, am I creating something that has a business model attached to it? Am I creating something that matters to me?

Because if it matters to me, it's worth doing for me, and if it doesn't matter to me, then I don't want to do it at all. That's why I don't do true crime projects, even though they're incredibly popular.

I mean, there's an industry of industry of people who do that stuff and are really good at it. God bless them. You know, I'm glad they're there doing it, but I'm not interested in it, so I'm not going to do it.

And I'd rather do this stuff than I am interested in, even if it's got a much more modest audience, you know?

Dave Martin: 00:13:00

Mark, can a station talent or a small team actually pull off a successful. I don't know how you term successful, but at least a meaningful podcast without.

Mark Ramsey: 00:13:13

A giant budget well, they can, but the way I like to put it is this. I said create an Excel chart with three columns. Put all your idea, four columns. Put your ideas in the first column.

In the second column, estimate for me the amount of appeal it has to any audience to an audience. Right? And just give it a rating, whatever, or give it a star, give it a check.

And then in the third column, put whether or not there's a champion on staff who can get behind it, you know, is someone going to go to the wall for it? And then in the final column, put a check.

If there's a business model attached, you have a client attached, you have, you know, it's the kind of thing that can. That people will pay for, that listeners will pay for, whatever the business model is.

And then just go down your spreadsheet, find all the things with three check marks, all the rows with three check marks. Oh, it's got audience appeal. I've got a champion in the building. And there's a business model. Three check marks. Those are your best ideas.

Dave Martin: 00:14:30

Mark Ramsey. We can all learn something from him. Kipper, know someone we should interview or a topic we should cover Will let us know.

Email your suggestions to showrandwithondemand.com showrandwith on demand.com or reach out on social BRANDwidth plus on Instagram, Facebook and X. That's Brandwith. T L U s BRANDwidth plus.

Kipper McGee: 00:14:59

So if you're new to the podcast, well, that's really great too. Awesome. Just don't forget to smash the follow button on your favorite podcast app. And if you've been with us for a while, please spread the love.Tell a friend BRANDwidth On Demand. We're available wherever better podcasts are found. And with over 200 episodes, we're here to help you master the art of audio like a pro.

VO: 00:15:25

Coming up, Mark Ramsey gives us some no fluff advise..

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VO: 00:16:43

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Dave Martin: 00:16:50

We're with Mark Ramsey. Mark, it was smart, but stuck. Radio talent came to you asking, what's my first step toward relevance?

You know, something beyond those three check marks? What's your advice?

Mark Ramsey: 00:17:04

Well, those three check marks are big things. I guess I would add beyond that, what's the, what's the blue ocean?

You know, the blue ocean is the unexplored frontier of ideas, stuff that other people aren't doing. What's your original concept? Why should that be popular? I mean, I love to talk with people about this stuff.

I'm going to have a conversation next week, in fact, with somebody who is a producer, creator of one of America's most popular television shows, who wants to do a podcast.

And the question I'm going to have for him is the question that, you know, I just had for your hypothetical radio talent, which is what's the blue sky idea? What's the blue ocean idea? That's the question. And I think there's lots of stuff out there that are relatively unexplored.

I mean, when I did the inside projects early on, I mean, that was an idea. Nobody had done anything like that before. And it caught on and there were lots of, you know, spin offs from that.

And now there's a whole category of entertainment podcasts that didn't exist at that time. So I think that's really the question.

But because almost everything is out there, it's a harder thing to say, well, you know, what, what are you going to do that hasn't already been done? It's like asking the question, what am I going to name my website?

Let me go to GoDaddy and search and discover that, you know, nine out of ten of your names are already taken.

Kipper McGee: 00:18:41

Right?

Mark Ramsey: 00:18:43

So creating a name for a website is easy compared to a podcast. But I, you know, I had somebody approached me with the, what I thought was a really cool idea.

But the cooler the idea sometimes, the harder the effort. Mm.

The idea was, and I'll tell you one of the big things that right now I think Is the coolest thing that almost nobody is doing is stuff that involves actual listener participation. You know, one of the most famous radio shows of all time, in this case a public radio show, was car talk.

Kipper McGee: 00:19:13

Sure, yeah.

Mark Ramsey: 00:19:14

Car talk was a traditional talk show, help yourself show. Right. With two guys who were mechanics and people who would call with car problems.

Well, as you know, as probably most of your audience knows, but the general audience does not know, people didn't randomly call into that show. That show. Those, those calls were all set up in advance.

Kipper McGee: 00:19:39

Right.

Kipper McGee: 00:19:40

Harvested?

Mark Ramsey: 00:19:41

People called, left their names, stated their problem. You know, a producer called set it all up. A call was scheduled, they had a call with the hosts.

The hosts had some sense of where they were going with the conversation. Some of the witty remarks were written in advance, et cetera, et cetera.

Just like the random conversations on late night talk shows are hardly random conversations. Right. There's a degree of preparation.

Radio historically has been built on this notion that we're going to make it up as we go along, and that's the best way to do it. A little bit of preparation goes a long way in making spontaneity look much better.

So my point though is that why is it that there aren't podcasts created the way that car talk was created? Now, I'm sure somebody's going to tell me there are.

And here's example A, B and C. I had somebody come to me with a great idea, and it was essentially to do a version of the Dating Game via podcast. Now, this is a great idea. And he had a pilot, and it was a good pilot, but he never went to the next step in developing it. I said, oh, great.

Okay, well, now what's your plan for actually doing this every week?

Dave Martin: 00:20:56

Right?

Mark Ramsey: 00:20:56

Yeah, for 40 weeks a year, 50 weeks a year. What's your plan to get that done? You've got to have three people competing for the hearts of a fourth. What's your plan? It was a great idea.

It was a great concept. It was a good pilot. But he lost the momentum. Do you want to put that much work into an idea? Then go do it.

Do you want to just sit there with a mic and do a chat show with someone else from the staff? A chat show with someone from the audience? I mean, have fun with that. Good luck with that. But why should I care?

If you think that your podcast is going to be as spontaneous as your radio show, then you're mistaken.

You've got to have a concept that's big, a concept that's fresh, and you've got to be prepared to put the work in and then find your three check marks. And if you have your three check marks and you've got a concept that has that blue ocean strategy locked down, go and do it.

Dave Martin: 00:21:58

So this is the next level question. In radio, we're used to living in a button punch world where people can simply hear a song they don't like and punch away.

But now in a podcast arena, we kind of have the question, how do we keep our show sticky in an era where people can drop us with just a thumb swipe? How do we keep the next level after we got those three things? How do we evolve and keep it fresh without jumping a shark?

Mark Ramsey: 00:22:35

Are you talking about podcasts now? Yes, sir. You've got to do all the things I just said, and then you've got to have the capacity to capture and sustain attention.

Because the thing about most radio personalities is that their job is to be the interstitial amidst 12 songs an hour, or if they're a morning show, their job is to be the interstitial amidst eight songs an hour, or more likely, ten songs an hour. And that's a different job than it is being the magnet for 30 minutes of attention, 60 minutes of attention, 90 minutes of attention.

It's just different. And I just think that's a different challenge altogether, which is why you have to go back and consider, well, what's the high concept?

What's the big idea? Where's the blue ocean strategy here? And what's the appetite in the audience? Do we have a champion here on staff? And what's the business model?

I think you can in many ways start with business model because that would be attractive to management.

Dave Martin: 00:23:40

No, you're right.

Mark Ramsey: 00:23:41

And I don't know why that doesn't happen more often.

But it seems to me that if you're a commercial station or a non commercial station and you have an advertiser or an underwriter in a direct relationship, the idea that you would do something that would be branded as hand in hand with that advertiser or underwriter is a compelling notion.

Because if you have a thousand listeners for a branded piece of content that may be more valuable to that advertiser than 10,000 listeners who happen to pass by your 32nd spot, your 62nd spot in the context of listening to 12 songs an hour, I mean, it's about attention and it's also about what's the halo if you're a Christian station.

I do a lot of work for Christian stations right now, and you have an Underwriter that wants to affiliate with your Christian station and they sponsor they brand, they put their halo around their umbrella, around a podcast that you've created that has their name all over it. Well, they are literally, they literally fall under the halo of your brand.

In that, in that sense, that means they are fall under the trust umbrella of your brand. That means they fall under the affection that your audience has for your radio station through that podcast.

That means that when it comes time to find somebody to do my flooring, and I know that there are a million people on Google, but there's one that puts their money where their heart is with the local radio station. I have an affiliation with, I'm going to be favorite, I'm going to be favoring, inclined towards that flooring company. So that's simple.

Dave Martin: 00:25:17

Yep.

Mark Ramsey: 00:25:18

This is not complicated and it's more so now than ever. So I don't know why that's not more important to people today than it was yesterday, this obsession.

I, I realize the big money is with the agency buys and the rankers and so on, but you know, that big money is getting smaller for a reason. Yeah, we've got to find new means of, of business, new business models, and distribution is key. Radio stations can offer that distribution.

In my case, I'm not a radio station. I have no distribution. So I think of, of, of projects that have blue sky associated with potential distribution partners.

The reason why we did Scrooge, the full cast Christmas carol project starring Sean Astin with Hope Media Group was because they had an interest in growing their platform and reaching new markets and new types of content. And I recognized that we needed a distribution partner that was much bigger than me.

And they have dozens of radio stations and all kinds of assets and you know, a top drink station in, in Houston, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and Way FM and all of these assets. And they wanted the prestige and the quality and the connection created by a new initiative on a new platform called podcasting.

So we were able to work together.

So what I'd like to say to radio stations is whatever you do well, do it well for people who don't do that well and recognize that there are going to be people out there who do well things that you don't affiliate with them. Those people could be, you know, clients. They could be content creators like we are.

They could be a guy or a girl in their bedroom doing TikTok videos in your local market.

Dave Martin: 00:27:16

Yep.

Mark Ramsey: 00:27:18

Stations aren't looking in those places. They're not looking there at all. And they better start.

Dave Martin: 00:27:24

Our thanks to Mark Ramsey. We can all learn something from him. Kipper know someone we should interview or attend topic we should cover? Well, let us know.

Email your suggestions to showrandwithondemand.com show@brandwithondemand.com or reach out on social BRANDwidth plus on Instagram, Facebook and X. That's BRANDwidth plus. BRANDwidth plus.

Kipper McGee: 00:27:53

As always, our thanks to executive executive producer Cindy Huber. She gets all of this stuff together. And our associate producer Hannah B. Handles booking. And coming up next.

Tim Roberts (next guest): 00:28:05

Hey, this is Tim Roberts, format captain for Odyssey country and program director of WYCD and WOMC in Detroit. And if you're a creative type, I want to talk to you on the next brand width on Demand.

We're going to be talking about how creative talent can survive and thrive, thrive in today's intense media environment. With social media, so many distractions, so many competitors, it's going to be a tough road.

But if you're creative and you want to have fun, I think you want to listen. So hope you'll join us for the next BRANDwidth On Demand.

Dave Martin: 00:28:35

That's a wrap. Kipper, what is reverse benchmarking? Well, we'll find out in the next episode of One Minute Martin.

You'll find it the show notes in the brandwithondemand.com I'm Dave Martin.

Kipper McGee: 00:28:50

And I'm Kipper McGee. May all your BRANDwidth be wide.