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20

Jul

How much effort would you go to to get a feed subscriber?

Posted by stuart as , , ,

I received an email a couple of months ago from a blogger. The blog was one I’d never heard of, and by the looks of it it was fairly new.

The email was friendly enough, and quite well tailored to me specifically.

The email mentioned a post I’d recently written about my kidney transplant, questioned how that was going, and casually alluded to a couple of other posts I’d recently made, and here’s the kicker:

The blogger asked if I could possibly answer some questions, in interview form, and they’d post the interview on their blog.

I thought to myself, “why not?”, and sat down for half an hour or so writing detailed responses to their questions.

I fired off the email, and subscribed to their feed, and waited to see my interview on their blog.

And waited..

….and waited….

…………….and waited…………

It would seem I had been had.

So this has got me thinking. It seemed like a lot of effort to go to to get a feed subscriber/blog visitor. But was it really?

I’ve been stuck at the same number of feed subscribers for some time now. (just under 100). Nothing I seem to do will make that number take the next jump.

I reckon I could fire off around 50 of those type of emails in a few hours. Personalising them to each blogger, asking them questions, attempting to interact with them. I don’t think I’d even have to offer them an interview or link from my blog. I would guess that at least half of the people I send the email to would subscribe to my feed, as it’s just such a simple thing to do, and we all know it’s about a million times harder to lose a subscriber once you’ve got them, than it is to get them in the first place.

So other than the fact that this blogger wasted about half an hour of my time getting me to answer questions to which the answers were never going to see the light of day, would this be seen as a legitimate way to increase subscriber numbers?

What do you think? Would this be seen as spam, or a geniune attempt to network with other like minded bloggers?

7 comments so far

45n5 says July 20th, 2007 at 12:09 pm

you could also start with the email addresses you are already collecting in the comments.

see a first time commenter? email them a thanks, welcome to my blog, and consider subscribing.

“I’ve been stuck at the same number of feed subscribers for some time now. (just under 100). Nothing I seem to do will make that number take the next jump.”

lol, I’m in the same boat, for the moment ;-)

stuart says July 20th, 2007 at 12:16 pm

Thanks Mark.

I think using the emails I collect from comments would be considered spam. Don’t ask me what the difference between using them, and emailing other bloggers out of the blue is, it just “feels” differeny. Maybe because the commenters have “trusted” me with their email address?

I actually get very few first time commenters anyway. It would seem to me that 80% of the comments here come from the same ten or so commenters. I love them, and I’d be lost without them, but I’d love to know if anybody has a way to get the other 80 odd feed readers to come to the site and get involved.

As to your last paragraph. It’s driving me nuts that I can’t get the number up. I’ve said I’m not allowing myself to put the feedburner feed count thingy up until I hit 100, I just keep bouncing between 80 and 95. I keep thinking about creating some sort of controversy, but that’s just not my style ;-) .

Might just have to write another post telling people to get over themselves…. ;-)

Rhys says July 20th, 2007 at 5:47 pm

Haha, me too! I’m on 94 at the moment, but like you, I keep bouncing between 80 and 95. It’s driving me insane! I reckon though you need at least 120 for it to display 100, or maybe get everybody visiting on the same day, I don’t know.

stuart says July 20th, 2007 at 6:15 pm

Rhys - PLEASE un-spamify my name on your blog…

I keep leaving comments, and keep seeing them disappear off into the ether. :-(

Will says July 21st, 2007 at 2:18 am

Human psychology time…

Do you think posts such as “A shout out to the regular commenters” might put those people who aren’t mentioned off commenting?

stuart says July 21st, 2007 at 6:42 am

This is an excellent point Will.

I agonised over that very issue before I made that post. (And over whether I’d miss a regular commenter! :-( )

I’ve been trying to come up with some sort of competition for first time commenters, but am afraid I’d alienate regular commenters by not including them.

I feel like it’s a no-win situatuion.

Same with trying to get new feed subscribers. You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

swollenpickles says July 29th, 2007 at 10:37 pm

I had a subscriber once, but I think I scared them away! :(

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