Customize Your Episodes with Dynamic Content

We'll explain how using Dynamic Content in Buzzsprout can make adding timely messages, ads, and announcements across new and old episodes quick and easy to do! 

Check out more on Dynamic Content here! 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Podcasting Q&A
• 0:21 What is Dynamic Content?
• 3:12 Strategies for Using Dynamic Content
• 9:41 Final Thoughts

Transcript

Cara Pacetti: 0:00

Welcome to Podcasting QA, brought to you by the people at Buzzsprout. I'm your host, Cara Pacetti, and I'm bringing you the best tips and strategies to keep you podcasting with confidence. In today's episode of Podcasting QA, we are talking all about dynamic content. Dynamic content is a really fun feature in Buzzsprout that allows you to share timely information with your audience. And I have brought in an expert to help me answer this question. Lindsey is joining me, and she is a part of the Podcaster Success team here at Buzzsprout and has been answering questions and serving our podcasters for over four years now. She has helped many, many podcasters not only launch their podcast, but grow it with confidence. Lindsay, thank you so much for joining me to answer this.

Lindey Perez: 0:48

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Cara Pacetti: 0:50

So first, I want to start with what is dynamic content in case you've never heard of it before. Dynamic Content allows podcasters to insert short audio clips to all or some of your episodes. You can add these audio clips as a pre-mid or post-role, and you can decide whether or not you want to apply this to your whole back catalog or just add it to a few certain episodes. This feature is super powerful because the content is non-destructive, which means you can swap out that pre-mid or post-role at any time to easily update your episodes. This means you can add information for maybe an ad run. You can add an announcement of an upcoming event. So dynamic content is a very powerful tool. Lindsay, can you walk us through how to set up dynamic content inside of your Buzzsprout account?

Lindey Perez: 1:44

So dynamic content is actually available to every Buzzsprout user. Whether you're on a free plan or a paid plan, you can access that within your account. You're going to go to the episodes page, and then from there, you're going to see a tab called dynamic content. There, you can upload your audio files and either add them as a pre-roll, a post-roll, or a mid-roll. You can also select whether you like them to be applied to all of your episodes or some of your episodes. You could do past episodes, future episodes. Now, there is a limitation. The audio file can only be five minutes long. But the beauty is that you have total control as to what you are adding to your episodes. So this is different than the dynamic ad insertion where your host might be placing ads into your podcast. This is fully in your control.

Cara Pacetti: 2:29

That's a great point, Lindsay. Sometimes podcasters will hear the word dynamic content and automatically assume that this is dynamic ad insertion. So we at Buzzsprout are going to be placing advertisements within their episodes. And that's not the case here. Although that can be a useful tool, dynamic content is, again, really powerful because you have full control of what you're adding there. So while dynamic content can be used for monetization, there are also some uses for dynamic content that's just different than dynamic ad insertion because you, as a podcaster, have that control. So I'm really glad you brought that up. When you add dynamic content to your episodes, they will automatically play in all of your episodes across all of your directories where your podcast is listed. So, Lindsay, can you tell us some ways of using dynamic content that's different from using it for monetization?

Lindey Perez: 3:22

Yes. Okay. So you might have a giveaway that you're doing that you want to add in as your pre-roll. And then you might also have a post-roll where you do a listener survey. And then in the middle for your mid-rolls, you might have some ad reads. You could talk about a sponsor that you have. You could talk about buzz route subscriptions. There is a lot of flexibility with what you can do with dynamic content.

Cara Pacetti: 3:43

Those are really great examples, Lindsay. I mentioned before that dynamic content has many uses besides monetization, but let's talk about how dynamic content can be used for monetization. So if you've created a relationship with the business on your own and you've agreed with them that you'd like to run an ad about their business in your podcast, that is something that you can do through dynamic content. Like Lindsay was saying, you can upload up to a five-minute audio clip. Sometimes advertisers or sponsors will give you a script or they'll let you as the podcaster get creative with it. You can record that content, upload it to that dynamic content page, and then you can drop those ads inside of your episode. And so the beauty of this is that on that dynamic content page, you can actually see the downloads for the episodes containing that content. If you've agreed to a certain time frame that you're running that ad, you can remove the ad after that timeframe has passed and you can let that sponsor know, hey, I received 50 downloads for my episodes that contained your ad. Or sometimes advertisers or sponsors will base their agreement with you solely on download numbers. And so you can provide that as soon as you reach 50 downloads, go ahead and remove that content. When you remove the dynamic content from your episodes, that update will show in the directories within 24 hours. And you can provide those analytics and that data to the sponsor or advertiser. So that's another way of using dynamic content for monetization. I want to clear up something that can be a little bit confusing for podcasters who are just starting out using the dynamic content tool. Since there is an option to add this content as a pre-or post-role, we've seen where podcasters will upload their intro or their outro for their episodes as dynamic content. Lindsay, have you seen that in the support inbox at all?

Lindey Perez: 5:42

I have seen that come through. And that always makes it a little bit difficult because if you do ever want to use a pre-roll or a post-roll for something else, it makes that hard because then you're going to have to take away your intro, let's say it's music or a call to action. Then you're having to remove that in order to insert your timely information or something that you really want your listeners to know that's happening right now.

Cara Pacetti: 6:04

Absolutely. And I think this happens with newer podcasters because they think, well, I'm just a couple of episodes in. I don't know if I plan to monetize or not. But then once you're three years in and you have 50 episodes under your belt and you get that ad opportunity, it's going to be really hard to go back and replace all of those pre and post roles. And so that's why our big recommendation is just to bake that intro and outro into your original audio that you're adding to Buzzsprout and leave those spots open for your dynamic content so that you can add timely information or add opportunities as they arise. Now I want to switch gears and I want to focus a little bit more on adding dynamic content as a mid-roll in the middle of your episodes. We have technology here at Buzzsprout that will automatically find insertion points in the middle of your episode based on the length of your episode and based on natural pauses that our system can automatically identify. So when that technology identifies mid-role placements, those will appear inside of the details page in your Buzzsprout account. Those will automatically be identified by our smart insertion technology. And you can pick from any of those mid-rolls to use for your dynamic content placement. Once you've selected the insertion point that we've identified for you, you still have the flexibility to manually move that insertion point slightly if you want to see it in a new spot. Now, if you have an episode that you've uploaded and it's under 23 minutes long, you will actually have to manually add that mid-roll placement. So the technology can't identify the insertion points because the episode is shorter than 23 minutes. We still want to give you the opportunity to use mid-rolls. So under the mid-roll settings, you will see the option to manually add those mid-roll placements. And then you can add the dynamic content there. So now that we are adding mid-rolls into the middle of your episode, that means that we need to get your listener from your normal episode into this new dynamic content that you've added. And the best way of doing that is by adding a transition. So when you're hosted here with Buzzsprout, we automatically include that transition for all of your dynamic content. So all of those mid-rolls will start with a Buzzsprout, I'll call it a jingle. It's this little noise. You've probably heard it before, but you'll hear the noise play, the jingle. And then this will bring your listener into the dynamic content that you've added. The reason that we include that is because it's very jarring to be listening to an episode about maybe about podcasting, this podcasting QA episode. And then in the next breath, I am talking to you about HelloFresh and how their steamed broccoli is the best. The listener is left wondering, what on earth just happened? And so adding a jingle cues the listener, hey, content is coming, whether it be an ad, whether it be an announcement, uh, it's going to be a little different than what you are listening to. And we also provide the option to add a transition. So we have a couple of stock options for you that we've already pre-uploaded in your Buzzsprout account underneath the dynamic content page. There are different messages like we'll be right back, or we have just the music. So you can hear just the jingle and then your dynamic content will start playing. Another option is to actually upload your own transition. So if you would like to be the one letting your listener know that, hey, this is a message about an upcoming event, you can add that transition into your dynamic content. Then once the dynamic content finishes playing, you'll hear that same little jingle and it will take you out of the dynamic content and back into your episode. It's very helpful to, again, let your listeners know that you're taking a break, playing that mid-roll, and then getting right back into the content. And so I hope that's helpful when it comes to adding dynamic content, whether it be as a pre or post-roll or even a mid-roll. I know there's really creative ways for using dynamic content in your episodes. We hear about those all of the time in the support inbox from our podcasters.

Lindey Perez: 10:16

And so if you have a creative way that you're using this, we would love to hear from you. Um you can either send us a message via fan mail or you can send us a message to the support inbox and just kind of tell us how are you using it? What are you using it for? Have you received any feedback from your listeners that they love it as well? We just love to hear how our podcasters are using different features that we've created.

Cara Pacetti: 10:39

And if you have any questions about dynamic content, you could reach out to Lindsay or I or any of the podcaster success specialists here at Buzzsprout by emailing us at support at buzzsprout.com. If you have a question you'd like answered on a future podcasting QA episode, just click the send us a text link in the show notes. And we'd love to create a future episode based on that question. Thank you for joining us, Lindsay. Thank you so much for helping me answer this question today. Yes, absolutely.

Lindey Perez: 11:05

Thank you so much for having me.

Cara Pacetti: 11:07

Be sure to join us every Monday to kickstart your week. Thanks for listening. And as always, keep podcasting.