Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Leckey.
Hi Ryan, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My story really starts with a love of storytelling, people, and community. I spent two decades in morning television including 18 years at WNEP-TV (ABC) in Pennsylvania. I worked as a host/producer of my own segment called Leckey Live which included special projects, behind the scenes of TV shows, community happenings and more! Live TV taught me how to connect with an audience, tell stories people care about, build trust, work under pressure, and understand what makes someone stop and pay attention.
Over time, I realized I wanted to take everything I had learned on television and apply it in a bigger way. I became increasingly interested in the strategy behind communication. Why do some messages connect while others disappear? Why do certain brands become part of a community while others struggle to get noticed? That curiosity eventually led me to earn my Ph.D. in Strategic Leadership & Administrative Studies from Marywood University in Scranton. My research concentration was on Social Media’s Effects on Men. All of that work and seeing how people consume content, led me to make one of the biggest decisions of my life.
I left a career I loved in television and launched Ryan Leckey Media (RLM).
What started as a vision has grown into a full-service marketing and media company working with businesses and organizations on everything from brand strategy and creative production to digital marketing, websites, media buying, public relations, social media, and advertising.
The part I’m most proud of is that we have built a team of incredibly talented people who care about the work and about the businesses we represent. I never wanted RLM to become an agency that simply sells marketing services. I wanted us to become an extension of our clients’ teams, understand what keeps them up at night, identify where the opportunities are, and then build strategies that create a real business result.
My career looks different today than it did when I was waking up in the middle of the night to do morning television, but the foundation is still the same. I’m still telling stories. I’m still connecting people. I’m still obsessed with understanding what makes an audience care. Now I get to use those skills to help other businesses grow.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Definitely not a smooth road. I think any entrepreneur who says it has been is leaving out a few chapters.
One of the biggest challenges was walking away from a career that was comfortable, successful, and deeply familiar. I spent just over 20 years in television, and for a long time, that identity was a huge part of who I was. Leaving that behind to build something from scratch was equal parts energizing and terrifying.
Then came the reality of entrepreneurship. When you own a business and just start out, there is no department to hand the problem to. Payroll, hiring, client relationships, contracts, sales, operations, creative, finances, and everything in between eventually lands on your desk. I had to learn quickly that being good at marketing and storytelling is different from building and leading a company.
There have also been plenty of growing pains. Hiring the right people. Learning when to delegate. Saying no to business that is not the right fit. Building systems while still serving clients. Managing cash flow. Making decisions when there is no perfect answer. I have made mistakes in all of those areas.
One of the hardest lessons has been understanding that growth can create its own set of problems. More clients and more revenue do not automatically mean a healthier company. You need the right people, processes, margins, expectations, and culture behind that growth.
I have also had to get comfortable with the fact that leadership can feel lonely at times. Your team looks to you for clarity and confidence, even when you are still figuring things out yourself. That has pushed me to become more disciplined, more self-aware, and much more intentional about how I lead.
The struggles have been real, but they have also shaped the company we are building. I would not trade the hard parts because they forced me to grow from someone who knew how to perform and produce into someone who knows how to lead, build, and think long term.
As you know, we’re big fans of Ryan Leckey Media. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Ryan Leckey Media (RLM) is a full-service marketing and media company with a full production team in-house. We travel the country and work with all types of clients, loving every minute of it! RLM is built around one simple idea: marketing should solve a business problem, not simply create more noise.
We work with businesses and organizations on brand strategy, video and photography, social media, digital advertising, television, streaming, radio, outdoor, websites, SEO, paid search, public relations, and media buying. What I love is that we can look at the entire picture instead of forcing a client into one service or platform.
I think what sets us apart is the combination of storytelling, strategy, and execution. My background is in television and communication, so storytelling is deeply ingrained in how we approach brands. But great creative alone is not enough. We constantly ask what the business is trying to accomplish. More customers? More patients? More qualified leads? Better recruiting? Greater awareness? A stronger reputation? Once we know the goal, we build backward from there.
We are also intentionally media agnostic. We do not recommend something because it happens to be what we sell. If television makes sense, we will recommend television. If Google Search is where the opportunity is, we will put the focus there. Sometimes the smartest recommendation is a combination of traditional media, digital advertising, strong creative, public relations, and a website that converts the attention we are generating.
Another major differentiator is how closely we work with our clients. I never wanted RLM to feel like an outside agency that disappears after the contract is signed. We want to understand the business, the numbers, the competition, the challenges, and what keeps the owner or leadership team up at night. In many cases, we function more like an extension of their internal team.
Brand wise, I am most proud that Ryan Leckey Media has grown into something much bigger than my name. When I started the company, people knew Ryan Leckey from television. Today, clients know RLM because of the team behind it and the work we produce together. That evolution means a lot to me.
We have incredibly talented strategists, producers, editors, designers, developers, digital specialists, and media professionals who bring different expertise to the table. I am proud that we can give a local or regional business access to the type of strategy, creative, technology, and media thinking they would expect from a much larger agency, while still giving them the personal attention and accountability that often disappear at that scale.
At the end of the day, I want people to know that we care deeply about results. We love making great content and building great brands, but the real question is always the same: Did the work move the business forward? That is the standard we try to hold ourselves to.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
I think the biggest shift over the next five to ten years will be the continued blending of technology, creativity, data, and strategy.
AI is going to change how marketing teams work. It will make research faster, help teams create and test more ideas, improve personalization, automate repetitive tasks, and give smaller businesses access to tools that once required much larger teams and budgets. But I do not think AI replaces great marketers. If anything, it raises the value of judgment, taste, strategy, relationships, and original thinking.
At the same time, audiences are becoming harder to reach in one place. People are watching streaming television, scrolling social platforms, searching Google, using AI tools to answer questions, listening to podcasts, following creators, and still consuming traditional media. The days of relying on one channel to carry an entire marketing strategy are fading.
That means brands will need to get much better at understanding where their customers spend time and how those channels work together.
Search is also changing. Businesses will need to think beyond traditional SEO. People are increasingly asking AI platforms questions instead of only typing keywords into a search engine. Brands will need strong websites, credible content, clear expertise, reviews, and information that both people and AI systems can understand and trust.
I also think authenticity will become more valuable as technology makes it easier to create content. When anyone can generate a polished ad, the brands that stand out will be the ones with a clear personality, real people, strong stories, and something meaningful to say.
Measurement will become more important too. Business owners are going to expect agencies to connect marketing to real outcomes and they should! Views and impressions have value, but clients increasingly want to know what generated leads, appointments, sales, foot traffic, or revenue.
For agencies like ours, I see the future being less about selling individual marketing services and more about becoming a strategic growth partner. Technology will keep changing. The platforms will keep changing. The job stays the same. Understand the audience, solve the right business problem, tell a story people care about, and prove that the marketing is working. And always, always, have our clients’ backs! No one wants them to win more than us!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://ryanleckeymedia.com
- Instagram: Ryanleckey
- Facebook: Ryan Leckey
- LinkedIn: Ryan Leckey
- Youtube: Ryan Leckey
