Boost Your Subscribers by 40%

In July I made a decision, over on Sciencebase, to restart the old podcast. Originally, I’d recorded half a dozen using microphone and soundcard. I even did a little guitar jingle. They’re all still available as mp3 files, but the quality was never great and to my chagrin I abandoned the project towards the end of last year. Then, thanks to Rob Watts on YackYack, I was inspired to try out Odiogo, a text to voice system that automatically generates a podcast for your blog using a Wordpress plugin and a “Listen Now” button.

It was an experiment, I assumed it wouldn’t be that popular until finally after three months, a newsletter from Odiogo dropped into my inbox, telling me all about various features and, more importantly, providing me with some statistical feedback. By the end of the first month, there were a couple of hundred subscribers and a few dozen people who clicked the “Listen Now” button when they visited Sciencebase. Not bad, I thought. Second month, those figures had doubled, amazingly, and then in the third month, Sciencebase broke through the 1000 podcast subscriber mark!

All very gratifying, for me, and hopefully those listeners. But, why am I telling you this? Well, it’s not merely about bragging rights, although I am going to mention another significant figure (for me). RSS newsfeed subscribers on Sciencebase hover around the 2500-2700 mark each day. Sometimes it dips, some times it’s higher. Now, think about it, the Odiogo plugin picked up well over 1000 new subscribers to the site, albeit listeners rather than readers, all the while, the RSS subscriber numbers were steadily climbing too. Add to that the same again who ar subscribed via email (via the site’s Feedblitz list and Yahoo Group) and that adds up to almost 5000 subscribers, which isn’t bad for a little old science blog.

But, look at the percentages, could you do with an extra 40% or so subscribers for your blog? I’d suggest giving Odiogo a trial run and see how many you pick up. Once you have installed the plugin, added appropriate buttons and links to your blog, the next step should be to set everything up so that listeners can subscribe easily via iTunes. I’d already done that for the original podcast a year ago, but you may have to start from scratch. Once that’s all in place, get yourself listed in the other podcast directories, make sure your subscribe listen buttons are prominent and wait for your first Odiogo newsletter.

You can grab the Sciencebase podcast direct from the site, via this link, or from iTunes.