I have writen down the numbers that Feedburner provides. I, in fact, tracked the number of email subscribers on my three blogs, listed below, for four continues Mondays. In fact in this whol process four weeks were used because that was the longest period that I could obtain the breakdown for email subscribers. So it was a very hard work for me, to do that job. The number of email subscirbers are given one by one on each of the three blogs.
vneedjobs.blogspot.com
· Monday of September 07 = 109 email subscribers
· Monday of September 14 = 112 email subscribers (+3)
· Monday of September 21 = 112 email subscribers (+0)
· Monday of September 28 = 114 email subscribers (+1)
As you can see the average weekly increase of email subscriber was 1,3.
1scholar.blogspot.com
· Monday of September 07 = 932 email subscribers
· Monday of September 14 = 950 email subscribers (+18)
· Monday of September 21 = 966 email subscribers (+16)
· Monday of September 28 = 979 email subscribers (+13)
On this second case the average weekly gain of email subscribers was 15,6.
theawkum.blogspot.com
· Monday of September 07 = 4986 email subscribers
· Monday of September 14 = 5040 email subscribers (+54)
· Monday of September 21 = 5129 email subscribers (+89)
· Monday of September 28 = 5153 email subscribers (+24)
For the third blog the average weekly gain of email subscribers was 55,6.
The Numbers With the Subscription Form
After writing those numbers down I inserted a simple email subscription below every single post. I also included a small message explaining to the visitor that they could subscribe for free, and that we would keep sending related tips to their email inbox. You can see the form live below this post as well. Here is how the numbers behaved on the following weeks.
vneedjobs.blogspot.com
· Monday of September 28 = 114 email subscribers
· Monday of October 11 = 119 email subscribers (+5)
· Monday of October 18 = 122 email subscribers (+3)
· Monday of October 25 = 125 email subscribers (+3)
The previous average gain was 1,3, and after I inserted the form it jumped to 3,6.
1scholar.blogspot.com
· Monday of September 28 = 979 email subscribers
· Monday of October 11 = 1025 email subscribers (+46)
· Monday of October 18 = 1050 email subscribers (+25)
· Monday of October 25 = 1084 email subscribers (+34)
Without the form this blog was getting, on average, 15,6 new email subscribers every week. After I inserted the form the number more than doubled to 35.
theawkum.blogspot.com
· Monday of September 28 = 5153 email subscribers
· Monday of October 11 = 5245 email subscribers (+92)
· Monday of October 18 = 5310 email subscribers (+65)
· Monday of October 25 = 5373 email subscribers (+83)
In the third case I saw a big jump as well. The previous average was 55,6, and after the insertion of the subscription form it jumped to 80.
Results
As I think, and you can also notice and examine it that, the results are very clear. By adding the email subscription form below each of your posts you could reap many more email subscribers. Consider the HOT TALKS for example. Without the form, in 6 months, I would have 374 new email subscribers. On the other hand when I start and using this form, however, this number would jump to 840 subscribers. So this is the clear advantage of adding the email subscription form below each of your post.
It is also cristal clear that the effectiveness of this technique will depend on a couple of factors. Tech oriented websites might see smaller results, while blogs with a more varied audience will see better results because those visitors are more likely to subscribe via email, as opposed to RSS feeds.
The styling and the overall layout might have very good impacts also. Similarly if the bottom of your articles is cluttered with all kinds of badges, links, social bookmarking icons and the like, the email form might get lost among those and will be ineffective. If you have a clear design, however, it will be easier to make visitors notice.