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

📝 Show Notes

Guest: Mark Ramsey — Audio strategist, researcher, and creator of Wondery’s Inside Psycho, Inside Jaws, and Inside The Exorcist series.

Hosts: Kipper McGee & Dave Martin

Key Topics & Takeaways:

• From radio research to storytelling: Ramsey saw early that audio could be cinematic—destination content, not filler.
• Discover the 3 Checkmarks Framework: Every successful project needs it. Few actually use it.
• Shift in the industry: “Great distribution now creates content — not the other way around.”
• Why ‘Blue Ocean’ ideas matter: Find the unexplored frontier others ignore
• Listener involvement 2.0: Modern shows should borrow structure and prep from classics like Car Talk—authentic ≠ unplanned.
• Branded content done right: Partnerships with sponsors or underwriters can add halo and trust, not clutter.
• Final thought: Radio stations should “do what you do well—for people who don’t do that well—and partner with those who do what you don’t.”

Mentioned Projects: Wondery, Inside Series, Hope Media Group’s Scrooge: The Podcast Christmas Carol.

ONE MINUTE MARTINIZING: "Reverse"

Please help us thank these underwriting supporters:

• musicmaster.com
• radiocontentpro.com

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Links referenced in this episode:

• brandwithondemand.com
• musicmaster.com
• radiocontentpro.com
• wondery.com

Mentioned in this episode:

visit: www.throwbacknation.com

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Nowadays, for me, I'm askingthe question, am I creating something
that has a business modelattached to it? Am I creating something
that matters to me? Because ifit matters to me, it's worth doing
for me, and if it doesn'tmatter to me, then I don't want to
do it at all.
BRANDwidth On Demand rebootingradio with a different take on all
radio can be. I had somebodycome to me with a great idea and

(00:24):
it was essentially to do aversion of the Dating Game via podcast.
Now this is a great idea. Andhe had a pilot and it was a good
pilot, but he never went tothe next step in developing it. Yeah,
I said, oh, great. Okay, wellnow what's your plan for actually
doing this every week? Didn'tget that done. You know, what's your

(00:45):
plan? It was a great idea, itwas a great concept, it was a good
pilot. But he lost the momentum.
Now your guides through themediamorphosis, David Martin and
author of the book BRANDwidthmedia branding coach Kipper McGee.
Mark Ramsey built his careerhelping radio stations figure out

(01:07):
what their audiences reallywant and what they'll actually come
back for. He's worked withsome of the biggest brands in the
game, but when he saw thatthere was the puck heading in a different
direction, he made his move,shifting from consultant to creator
and taking audio storytellingto a whole new level. Now he's the

(01:29):
brains behind podcasts likeInside Jaws, Inside the Exorcist,
and Scrooge A Christmas Carol,projects that blend true stories,
cinematic sound, and justenough drama to keep you hooked.
He's teamed up with WonderingIheart, Amazon Music and more, proving
there's serious power andaudio that thinks bigger. Mark's

(01:52):
also a regular draw at NABPodcast Movement Radio days, where
his no BS insights tend toshake up the room a bit. Media pros
looking to future proof theircontent and careers. This is your
wake up call, folks.BRANDwidth On Demand Proud to welcome
back Mark Ramsey.
Hey, Mark.
sothrilledtobeherewithyouguys.
I'm so thrilled to be herewith you guys.
Well, we are so glad to haveyou, Mark. It's really great. And

(02:16):
you have gone from reallyadvising legacy radio brands. I remember
back when you were doing thata lot of research and now you are
creating some of the most,gotta call them, cinematic podcasts
in the industry. So what wasthe moment you knew it was time to
move from just consultingradio with audio and start building

(02:36):
the kind of audio content thatyou wished more people could be making
with podcasts?
Well, I think it startedbecause I realized there was an opportunity
to do it. And nobody was doingit at that time. I remember doing
a conference in public radioat this point probably 20 years ago,
programming conference. And Ihighlighted to them that there was

(02:59):
an awful lot of news contentthat was very informative available
in audio. There was a lot ofentertainment content that was very
kind of slight, but there wasnot a lot of kind of industrial strength
entertainment content. Therewas not a lot of effort to create

(03:22):
high quality entertainment. Itwas kind of like, you know, fairly
disposable. I mean, themorning shows are great, but at the
end of the day, morning showis, let's say four hours long. They're
built so that you can come inat 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 runfashion. If you miss it, you miss

(03:43):
it. If you hear it, you hearit. And worst case scenario is you
come back tomorrow and we'llall try again. And instead I was
thinking about it more the wayyou think about television and film,
which is destinationprogramming. Something you have to
tune in for, something youenjoy, something you talk about with
your family, with yourfriends, something that you spread.

(04:05):
This is what great television,great film is. And I know that because
for years I was on the boardof the Critics Choice association,
which gave honors every yearto the best in film and television
and usually happened on rightaround the same weekend as the Golden
Globes and was famous as afortune teller for what was going

(04:26):
to be popular for Emmy and forthe Academy Awards. So I saw that
opportunity and I thought,well, why not charge down this path?
So I walked into the officesof Wondry in la, where they had about
half a dozen employees andabout half a dozen shows. Okay, they
had a big whiteboard and theyhad a few shows up in the upper right

(04:47):
hand corner and a lot of spaceleft on the whiteboard. And they
had very few people walkinginto them with content. Everyone
had ideas, but nobody hadactual content. And I was listening
to all this, you know, at thatpoint it was mostly radio reruns
of radio shows and reruns ofpublic radio shows and the stray

(05:10):
original project, but not alot of stuff being done. And I thought,
well, you know, where's thecontent for the rest of us? And I
said, what about somethingthat takes, you know, a movie that
everyone's interested in, thateveryone has seen, that everyone
knows familiarity and go kindof inside that movie with an original
approach, a lot of fancy sounddesign and some compelling Storytelling

(05:34):
and maybe some reenactments.Just some stuff that people haven't
heard before. And that's whatwe did with the first one was Inside
Psycho, and that was followedby Inside the Exorcist and Inside
Jaws and Inside Star wars anda branded content thing for Coke
on the movie Philadelphia tocommemorate 20 years of Coke's red

(05:54):
campaign for AIDS in Africaand so on. And all told, it was like
millions of downloads. Most ofthe shows were top 10 Apple Podcast
overall. Some of the showswere top 2 Apple Podcast overall.
And those were the days whenyou can actually claim to be top
10 overall. Yes, I remembernot top 10 in some remote category.

(06:19):
So that was kind of the cluethat there was something there. And
it led me to a bunch ofinteresting relationships and interesting
people. And we could talkabout how this space has evolved
since then, but, you know,it's a very different space now.
Well, you've worked acrossboth radio broadcasting, podcasting,
streaming, so you've reallyseen all the blind spots on all sides.

(06:41):
Mark, what are creators stillgetting wrong, though, when it comes
to building real audienceloyalty? And why do so many shows
in both spaces still confusehaving a personality with actually
creating content that peoplecare about?
Oh, that's a tough one. Thefirst thing to note is that creating
content that people careabout, there's a chicken and egg

(07:04):
problem there. You know, youdon't know they care about it until
you make it. And you can'tmake it unless you can prove to somebody
that they care about it.That's why shows that actually get
distribution nowadays areshows that already have an audience.
In other words, they'vealready proved that there's something
about them that people willcare about. And that means either

(07:24):
the host is someone thatpeople know, or the show is related
to shows that people alreadyknow. And thus, the host or creator
already has distribution. Soit used to be that great content
created distribution. Nowgreat distribution creates content.
And that's, I think, thecentral difference, which is why

(07:45):
right now, for example, I cancreate and I am creating a new version
of Insight, but, you know,it's not going to be on Wondery.
Wondery has no interest inthat anymore because Wondery needs
millions of downloadguarantees in order to put a show
on its platform today. And inthose days, they didn't need that.
They were creating millions of downloads.

(08:07):
Right?
Right now they need millionsof downloads before they start getting
millions of downloads. So thisis why you see, every name brand,
talent wants their ownpodcast. And more often than not,
it's an interview show becauseA, interview shows are easy, B, the
name of the talent can carrythe distribution weight. Because

(08:29):
who doesn't want to know whatDavid Duchovny has to say? Well,
a lot of people, but a lot ofpeople do. So David Duchovny can
get a show. The Kelseybrothers, who never hosted a thing
in their lives, can get a hosta talk show because of the Kelsey
Brothers, because they havebuilt in attention, they have built
an audience. So what mostpeople are missing out, I guess you

(08:50):
could say, if you want to usethose words, is you can create a
show, anybody can create apodcast, but not everybody can create
a hit in this environment.
So with that, I mean, whatkind of thing helps you figure out
when it does have, like reallegs versus something like a Duchovny
that maybe just sounds cool ina pitch meeting, but then kind of

(09:11):
falls flat?
know,they folks like to saythat you can put all the, you know,
the stars together and createcontent, but unless it really hits,
unless it's really compelling,unless it's real
Yeah.
But you know, there's adifference between at the very, very

(09:33):
top of the list, the JoeRogans of the world, and the very,
very bottom of the list,which, by the way, is 80% of the
list.
Yeah.
So let's call it the top andthe middle. To be in the middle is
a really broad, broad areabecause lots of people can put out
shows and have kind ofmiddling success. I mean, the two

(09:55):
stars from the Brady Bunch,Greg and Peter, to use their Brady
Bunch names, have a show aboutthe Brady Bunch. I've heard what
their listenership is like,and it's not very impressive, but
apparently it feeds egos. Itis good enough to justify their effort.
It's fun for them to do. Itserves a niche audience. So it sounds

(10:21):
like a hit, but is that thesame as the hit? No, but who's going
to know? Because who has theirnumbers public? You can show rankings
all day, but the reality isunless you're at the very top of
a ranking in any givencategory, that's the reality of it.
So how do you know you'recreating something that people want
to hear? Well, who's to sayhow many people are enough if you're

(10:45):
doing business to businesspodcasts, you know, there. There's
a whole industry of people whosay, look, you have a. You could
have a hundred listeners, andif they pay you for something for
your company that can be agreat business model for you, or
you can have a thousand fans,but if they're on Patreon, that can
be a great business model foryou. None of that adds up to hit.
But that's okay. Noteverything needs to be a hit. Look

(11:07):
at all the stuff that's hidingon 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 thousandpodcasts will spend combined.
Right. Like a long tail kindof thing. Which might work in the

(11:27):
case of a radio station forlike an ask the expert thing, rather
than eating up a weekend slotthat could be perfectly well programmed
for audience.
Well, that's the thing. Imean, then. Then what's the. I would
ask this, what's the businessmodel? So if you've got. If you're
a radio station, you. And, youknow, I know local podcasts are one
of the supposedly risingtrends right now. Great. So that

(11:50):
means you're not going to getnational distribution. Fine. You.
You know, just because you'reon YouTube doesn't mean the people
the world over are watching you.
Right?
It means you've got anopportunity for people, the world.
It's like in the old days theyused to say, well, 90 million homes
have MTV. Yeah, but only 5million people are watching it, whatever.
Right, right.
So.So it doesn't really. Thatkind of stuff doesn't really matter

(12:15):
in the big scheme of things.What matters is, you know, are you
creating something nowadaysfor me, I'm asking the question,
am I creating something thathas a business model attached to
it? Am I creating somethingthat matters to me? Because if it
matters to me, it's worthdoing for me, and if it doesn't matter
to me, then I don't want to doit at all. That's why I don't do

(12:37):
true crime projects, eventhough they're incredibly popular.
I mean, there's an industry ofindustry of people who do that stuff
and are really good at it. Godbless them. You know, I'm glad they're
there doing it, but I'm notinterested in it, so I'm not going
to do it. And I'd rather dothis stuff than I am interested in,
even if it's got a much moremodest audience, you know?

(13:00):
Mark, can a station talent ora small team actually pull off a
successful. I don't know howyou term successful, but at least
a meaningful podcast without.
A giant budget well, they can,but the way I like to put it is this.
I said create an Excel chartwith three columns. Put all your

(13:25):
idea, four columns. Put yourideas in the first column. In the
second column, estimate for methe 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 ornot there's a champion on staff who

(13:50):
can get behind it, you know,is someone going to go to the wall
for it? And then in the finalcolumn, put a check. If there's a
business model attached, youhave a client attached, you have,
you know, it's the kind ofthing that can. That people will
pay for, that listeners willpay for, whatever the business model
is. And then just go down yourspreadsheet, find all the things

(14:15):
with three check marks, allthe 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.
Mark Ramsey. We can all learnsomething from him. Kipper, know
someone we should interview ora topic we should cover Will let

(14:37):
us know. Email yoursuggestions to showrandwithondemand.com
showrandwith on demand.com orreach out on social BRANDwidth plus
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(14:58):
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Demand. We're availablewherever better podcasts are found.
And with over 200 episodes,we're here to help you master the

(15:22):
art of audio like a pro.
up,MarkRamseygivesussomenofluff advise.
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(15:44):
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We're with Mark Ramsey. Mark,it was smart, but stuck. Radio talent

(16:54):
came to you asking, what's myfirst step toward relevance? You
know, something beyond thosethree check marks? What's your advice?
Well, those three check marksare big things. I guess I would add
beyond that, what's the,what's the blue ocean? You know,
the blue ocean is theunexplored frontier of ideas, stuff

(17:19):
that other people aren'tdoing. What's your original concept?
Why should that be popular? Imean, I love to talk with people
about this stuff. I'm going tohave a conversation next week, in
fact, with somebody who is aproducer, creator of one of America's
most popular television shows,who wants to do a podcast. And the

(17:43):
question I'm going to have forhim is the question that, you know,
I just had for yourhypothetical radio talent, which
is what's the blue sky idea?What's the blue ocean idea? That's
the question. And I thinkthere's lots of stuff out there that
are relatively unexplored. Imean, when I did the inside projects

(18:04):
early on, I mean, that was anidea. Nobody had done anything like
that before. And it caught onand there were lots of, you know,
spin offs from that. And nowthere's a whole category of entertainment
podcasts that didn't exist atthat time. So I think that's really

(18:24):
the question. But becausealmost 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 beendone? It's like asking the question,
what am I going to name mywebsite? Let me go to GoDaddy and
search and discover that, youknow, nine out of ten of your names
are already taken.
Right?
So creating a name for awebsite is easy compared to a podcast.

(18:47):
But I, you know, I hadsomebody approached me with the,
what I thought was a reallycool idea. But the cooler the idea
sometimes, the harder theeffort. Mm. The idea was, and I'll
tell you one of the big thingsthat right now I think Is the coolest
thing that almost nobody isdoing is stuff that involves actual
listener participation. Youknow, one of the most famous radio

(19:08):
shows of all time, in thiscase a public radio show, was car
talk.
Sure, yeah.
Car talk was a traditionaltalk show, help yourself show. Right.
With two guys who weremechanics and people who would call
with car problems. Well, asyou know, as probably most of your

(19:28):
audience knows, but thegeneral audience does not know, people
didn't randomly call into thatshow. That show. Those, those calls
were all set up in advance.
Right.
Harvested?
People called, left theirnames, stated their problem. You
know, a producer called set itall up. A call was scheduled, they

(19:50):
had a call with the hosts. Thehosts had some sense of where they
were going with theconversation. Some of the witty remarks
were written in advance, etcetera, et cetera. Just like the
random conversations on latenight talk shows are hardly random
conversations. Right. There'sa degree of preparation. Radio historically
has been built on this notionthat we're going to make it up as

(20:11):
we go along, and that's thebest way to do it. A little bit of
preparation goes a long way inmaking spontaneity look much better.
So my point though is that whyis it that there aren't podcasts
created the way that car talkwas created? Now, I'm sure somebody's
going to tell me there are.And here's example A, B and C. I

(20:31):
had somebody come to me with agreat idea, and it was essentially
to do a version of the DatingGame via podcast. Now, this is a
great idea. And he had apilot, and it was a good pilot, but
he never went to the next stepin developing it. I said, oh, great.
Okay, well, now what's yourplan for actually doing this every

(20:55):
week?
Right?
Yeah, for 40 weeks a year, 50weeks a year. What's your plan to
get that done? You've got tohave three people competing for the
hearts of a fourth. What'syour plan? It was a great idea. It
was a great concept. It was agood pilot. But he lost the momentum.

(21:17):
Do you want to put that muchwork into an idea? Then go do it.
Do you want to just sit therewith a mic and do a chat show with
someone else from the staff? Achat 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 yourpodcast is going to be as spontaneous
as your radio show, thenyou're mistaken. You've got to have

(21:41):
a concept that's big, aconcept that's fresh, and you've
got to be prepared to put thework in and then find your three
check marks. And if you haveyour three check marks and you've
got a concept that has thatblue ocean strategy locked down,
go and do it.
So this is the next levelquestion. In radio, we're used to

(22:04):
living in a button punch worldwhere people can simply hear a song
they don't like and punchaway. 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 dropus with just a thumb swipe? How do

(22:25):
we keep the next level afterwe got those three things? How do
we evolve and keep it freshwithout jumping a shark?
Are you talking about podcastsnow? Yes, sir. You've got to do all
the things I just said, andthen you've got to have the capacity
to capture and sustainattention. Because the thing about
most radio personalities isthat their job is to be the interstitial

(22:51):
amidst 12 songs an hour, or ifthey're a morning show, their job
is to be the interstitialamidst eight songs an hour, or more
likely, ten songs an hour. Andthat's a different job than it is
being the magnet for 30minutes of attention, 60 minutes

(23:11):
of attention, 90 minutes ofattention. It's just different. And
I just think that's adifferent challenge altogether, which
is why you have to go back andconsider, well, what's the high concept?
What's the big idea? Where'sthe blue ocean strategy here? And
what's the appetite in theaudience? Do we have a champion here
on staff? And what's thebusiness model? I think you can in

(23:35):
many ways start with businessmodel because that would be attractive
to management.
No, you're right.
And I don't know why thatdoesn't happen more often. But it
seems to me that if you're acommercial station or a non commercial
station and you have anadvertiser or an underwriter in a
direct relationship, the ideathat you would do something that
would be branded as hand inhand with that advertiser or underwriter

(23:58):
is a compelling notion.Because if you have a thousand listeners
for a branded piece of contentthat may be more valuable to that
advertiser than 10,000listeners who happen to pass by your
32nd spot, your 62nd spot inthe context of listening to 12 songs
an hour, I mean, it's aboutattention and it's also about what's

(24:21):
the halo if you're a Christianstation. I do a lot of work for Christian
stations right now, and youhave an Underwriter that wants to
affiliate with your Christianstation and they sponsor they brand,
they put their halo aroundtheir umbrella, around a podcast
that you've created that hastheir name all over it. Well, they
are literally, they literallyfall under the halo of your brand.

(24:44):
In that, in that sense, thatmeans they are fall under the trust
umbrella of your brand. Thatmeans they fall under the affection
that your audience has foryour radio station through that podcast.
That means that when it comestime to find somebody to do my flooring,
and I know that there are amillion people on Google, but there's

(25:06):
one that puts their moneywhere their heart is with the local
radio station. I have anaffiliation with, I'm going to be
favorite, I'm going to befavoring, inclined towards that flooring
company. So that's simple.
Yep.
This is not complicated andit's more so now than ever. So I
don't know why that's not moreimportant to people today than it

(25:28):
was yesterday, this obsession.I, I realize the big money is with
the agency buys and therankers and so on, but you know,
that big money is gettingsmaller for a reason. Yeah, we've
got to find new means of, ofbusiness, new business models, and
distribution is key. Radiostations can offer that distribution.

(25:49):
In my case, I'm not a radiostation. I have no distribution.
So I think of, of, of projectsthat have blue sky associated with
potential distributionpartners. The reason why we did Scrooge,
the full cast Christmas carolproject starring Sean Astin with
Hope Media Group was becausethey had an interest in growing their

(26:11):
platform and reaching newmarkets and new types of content.
And I recognized that weneeded a distribution partner that
was much bigger than me. Andthey have dozens of radio stations
and all kinds of assets andyou know, a top drink station in,
in Houston, et cetera, etcetera, et cetera, and Way FM and

(26:33):
all of these assets. And theywanted the prestige and the quality
and the connection created bya new initiative on a new platform
called podcasting. So we wereable to work together. So what I'd
like to say to radio stationsis whatever you do well, do it well
for people who don't do thatwell and recognize that there are

(26:56):
going to be people out therewho do well things that you don't
affiliate with them. Thosepeople could be, you know, clients.
They could be content creatorslike we are. They could be a guy
or a girl in their bedroomdoing TikTok videos in your local
market.

(27:16):
Yep.
Stations aren't looking inthose places. They're not looking
there at all. And they better start.
Our thanks to Mark Ramsey. Wecan all learn something from him.
Kipper know someone we shouldinterview or attend topic we should
cover? Well, let us know.Email your suggestions to showrandwithondemand.com

(27:39):
[e-mail] orreach out on social BRANDwidth plus
on Instagram, Facebook and X.That's BRANDwidth plus. BRANDwidth
plus.
As always, our thanks toexecutive executive producer Cindy
Huber. She gets all of thisstuff together. And our associate

(28:01):
producer Hannah B. Handlesbooking. And coming up next.
Hey, this is Tim Roberts,format captain for Odyssey country
and program director of WYCDand WOMC in Detroit. And if you're
a creative type, I want totalk to you on the next brand width
on Demand. We're going to betalking about how creative talent
can survive and thrive, thrivein today's intense media environment.

(28:23):
With social media, so manydistractions, 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 wantto listen. So hope you'll join us
for the next BRANDwidth On Demand.
That's a wrap. Kipper, what isreverse benchmarking? Well, we'll
find out in the next episodeof One Minute Martin. You'll find

(28:45):
it the show notes in thebrandwithondemand.com I'm Dave Martin.
And I'm Kipper McGee. May allyour BRANDwidth be wide.