How I Increased RSS Subscribers By 142% By Being A Purple Cow
In late February 2006, I decided to catch on to the phenomenon which was occurring on the net whereby a person details goings on and musings in their life or in their specified niche. 2006 was to become a big year for blogging and I caught on and decided to create my own site.
This original blog hosted on a Blogger domain ended up after 5 months having a community of 20 or so casual readers.
In short, the reason for this, was that my blog was normal. There was nothing special about it; from the repeated content which you could find on other more established sites to the bog-standard template with no logo, my site looked like millions of others floating around on the ‘sphere which were merely average and had nothing remarkable about them.
Fast forward about a year later and checkout the awesome growth graph which I have managed to rack-up:
As most bloggers will tell you, RSS Stats are their most prized possession and most of us look to increase the numbers of people who are reading articles through their feedreader. Therefore when I reached my highest subscribership levels ever a few days back (at an evil 666) I was over-the-moon to see that I had finally manage to create a closely knit community around this site.
Now there are a great deal of reasons why this blog has experienced the slow but positive growth over the past months, but that’s a story for another post. What I wanted to show you here, is the power of being different.
I’ve just finished reading Seth Godin’s bestseller called “Purple Cow” (UKers
Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable.
The book, whilst only 137 pages long, was an excellent read and really got down to detail about how you can stand out from the crowd. Seth Godin talks about how the old form of growing a successful company is dead now. Before, the big shots like Procter & Gamble would spend millions on TV, Radio and Newspaper Advertising in order to get the word out about their product.
The problem with this today (much like the ever-growing blogosphere), is that there are now so many ads, and so many similar products, that people simply aren’t interested and prefer sticking with their own “trusted” brand to see them through. So how do you make people want to buy your product or service, or start reading your blog instead?
As Seth puts it, and how you probably guessed by the title, you need to be a Purple Cow. This isn’t as potty as it seems. Instead of being a normal, brown dairy cow, don’t be afraid to be different with your product. Many examples are used in the book, for example the French baker who refused to sell baguettes and the brilliance of Krispy Kremes to give out free donuts when a certain sign is lit up.
To relate this again to the world of blogging, try and go to the extremes. JohnCow took his site to the extreme by parodying the extremely popular JohnChow (who I’m sure loved every minute of it!). This, in a slightly ironic way, show’s the use of a Purple Cow – and resulted in a lot of linkbacks and a quick RSS growth as well as distinct word of mouth.
I managed to be different through blogging by doing a couple of simple things. Firstly, I wrote content and articles that people wanted to read. And secondly, I had a custom design created for me which helped me to distinguish myself from a crowd who all had the same batch of themes. Another useful thing which helped to build my community from 275 readers in May to 666 readers a couple of days ago, was to inject a bit of my personality into the site. By making it a priority to email back all those who had got in touch and to try and respond to comments if possible, I encouraged repeat readers and enforced the sense of togetherness that I’m really hoping to boost.
So, is being a Purple Cow sustainable?
In the modern business world, Seth explains how the remarkable product can soon become boring and you’ll be left milking the cow for all its worth and not moving forward. On the contrary, I believe that the blogosphere is different. Because one visitor can read and subscribe to hundreds of blogs, you can still continue to be the same Purple Cow that you were once before.
Examine your site and ask yourself why it isn’t performing how it should be. Look at the big boys and see how they’re conducting business; try writing viral copy to get the name out about your site, try changing or altering the design of your blog, or try creating a newsletter whereby regular users can get a daily, weekly or monthly update about your site. In short, don’t be scared to be different. There’s no such thing as failing, as you’re always getting to learn something new in the process of creating that next big concept, product or website idea.
As for Seth Godin’s Purple Cow Book (UKers
