Is it possible to get awesome results from email marketing? Can email take your business from the brink of collapsing to amazing heights and success? Yes, it can. And we're getting to hear from one of our clients – the lovely April McMurtrey from Learn Reading, who's sharing how she increased her revenue by 400% in just ONE year! 

Pretty unbelievable, right?

But it's true. 

Let's get the whole story from April! 

SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: 

(:) Join our FREE Facebook group.
(:) Who is April McMurtrey?
(:) When did April start using email marketing in her business?
(:) What did April's email marketing look like when she first started?
(:) What's the first change April made when she joined our world?
(:) What happened when April started making changes to her email marketing?
(:) How April got a 400% increase in sales in just 12 months.
(:) How does April feel about her email marketing now?
(:) What's ONE action April recommends people take when it comes to email marketing?
(:) Subject lines of the week.

Who is April McMurtrey?

April is a Dyslexia and Reading Specialist who teaches struggling and dyslexic readers how to read. In a nutshell, April’s come up with a better, easier, and faster way of learning how to read. Isn't that overwhelmingly awesome?!

After teaching reading for 30 years, April started her private practice as a reading specialist. She then got certified in dyslexia therapy and testing and went on to develop her programme after 25 years of experience in seeing what works and what doesn't. After creating her curriculum for dyslexic and struggling learners, she launched her business and programme (backed up by a lifetime of skill and expertise) in March 2020.

When did April start using email marketing in her business?

April started using email marketing about a year after she launched her business. She knew she wanted to do email marketing from the start, but we all know the learning curve at the beginning is quite steep. And April had no idea where to start. Like most, April is in business to help people – not to necessarily learn all the stuff that goes with running a business.

When we asked her about her biggest barrier to getting started with email marketing, April told us she didn't know how to find someone who could help her learn. She had a lot of subscribers on her list but no idea what to do with them. 

April recognised the power of emails though. She could see all the professional-sounding and impressive emails landing in her inbox, and she knew the marketers who were sending those emails were following some sort of sequence to be able to sell. That's what April wanted to be able to do, too. But at the time, she just didn't know how. 

What did April’s email marketing look like when she first started?

At the start of her email marketing journey, April would send an email once every couple of months just to tell her subscribers about any products she had for sale. People on April's list had no real idea who she was, and she's pretty sure a lot of them would unsubscribe as soon as they realised she was trying to sell to them. So her emails were sporadic, and she had no automation. 

What’s the first change April made when she joined our world?

After spending some time trying to learn about email marketing through podcasts, April started binge-listening to ours. And that's what eventually led her to join our membership The League and start implementing our strategies.

One of the first things she did was to send out daily emails. And that’s where everything changed for April. She discovered she loves the creative process of sending emails every day. She enjoys sharing what’s going on with her days and tying that into something she can teach people. Now, seeing the relationship with her audience build through daily emails is one of April’s favourite things to do.

What happened when April started making changes to her email marketing? 

The first shift happened in April’s mindset. After joining our world, she felt she finally had the tools she’d been looking for and everything mapped out for her. She could see where she was, where she was going, and what she had to do to get there. And she was on fire with it!

When April started implementing email sequences (such as our Overture campaign and our Getting to Know You sequence) things picked up for her. In particular, when April launched our Golden Cloak campaign, her sales went from trickling to skyrocketing. 

Finding her people

The combination of sending daily emails and automating a few campaigns gave April control. It filled that gap she felt she had in her business, and April discovered she loved communicating with her audience. Suddenly, because of all the emails, the subscribers on her list turned into her people – April became their reading teacher, and they started caring about her. And that was fun.

Plus, because we always teach our students that you should give your subscribers something to click on (or something to do), April did just that. And people started replying to her and telling her just how much they loved hearing about her life and receiving all the little tricks she shared with them. April was pleasantly surprised at the rapport and deep connection that she started to be able to build with her people.

What April has now, thanks to email marketing, is a relationship with the people on her list. She’s open and honest about her days and her ups and downs, and people are supportive and encouraging. April truly cherishes those relationships, and sending emails is one of her favourite things to do because of the connections it allows her to build. It’s like having individual relationships with 21,000 people! April’s list is not just a crowd – the connections she established feel very personal.

How April got a 400% increase in sales in just 12 months

After she started doing email marketing consistently, April experienced a 400% increase in sales in just one year. During this time, her social media presence also increased. But April attributes at least 80-90% of the increase in sales to what she learnt about email marketing from us. We showed her the perfect route to take, she said. 

Now, her social media is her traffic source. Just like we recommend, it's where she builds her audience. But she built her business through email – because that's where April gets to establish and deepen her relationship with her subscribers. 

With around 21k subscribers, April has a considerable list. But as we all know, having people on your list is one thing – converting them is a different game! And without the right skills and techniques, it’s a hard thing to do.

How does April feel about her email marketing now?

Email marketing saved April’s business. A year before our chat, April's business was ‘on life support' – she felt she probably only had one month of a viable business left in the tank. Email marketing not only helped her business get off of life support but, a year later, to also thrive well beyond what April could have ever imagined. And that’s thanks to the email strategies that April learnt from us.

April is a writer – she loves writing and being creative. Above all else, she loves building relationships and deep connections with her audience. And spending 10-20 minutes a day putting her hands on the keyboard and getting her brain engaged is her favourite thing to do. But it’s also the most effective thing in her business – it's what saved April’s business and got it to where it is now. If you think about it, 10-20 minutes a day is a pretty good deal!

What’s ONE action April recommends people take when it comes to email marketing?

The one action April recommends people take is to trust the process. It’s not all about you, what you can provide, or how you can perform. It’s the process that works – it’s the campaigns and the sequences that have been developed inside The League.

So think about the expertise you have to offer. Be confident that the people on your list need what you have to offer and don’t give up. When you’re thinking about what you’re going to say in your emails, focus on your desire to help your people and the connection that will result from it. Don’t give up because the process works!

In even more exciting news, April is also launching a book, and setting it up for success (with email marketing, of course) is next on her agenda. If you're interested, you can find details about the book here.

Subject line of the week

This week’s subject line (courtesy of Kennedy – for once) is “Insurance payout (the whole £30)” The subject line works because it has compound curiosity but also uses specificity by mentioning the exact amount of the payout – £30. Kennedy didn’t just mention the specific amount of money but also decided to contrast it with “the whole”, which makes it sound like it should be a really big number, but it’s not! First, he tries to build the whole thing up, but when you read £30, the whole idea comes crashing straight down.

So as you can see, Kennedy used a few techniques here – the subject line triggers curiosity by mentioning the insurance payout. People want to know how he won because insurance companies are well known for wiggling out of it. But also, who won? What happened? And what's the £30 all about? What does this whole thing even mean? No surprise that this subject line got really good open rates. So check it out!

Useful Episode Resources

Related episodes

How Cheryl Hatch Increased Her Membership Conversion Rate By 84% With Just Two Email Campaigns – A Case Study.

How Our Client Jeri Anderson Made $27k In Month One Launching A Brand New Business & Starting With Zero Contacts On Her List.

And How Our Client Hillary-Marie Made $16k With ONE Email Marketing Campaign (And Then Did It Again!)

FREE list to improve your email marketing

If you want to write better emails, come up with better content, and move your readers to click and buy, here's how. We put together this list of our Top 10 most highly recommended books that will improve all areas of your email marketing (including some underground treasures that we happened upon, which have been game-changing for us). Grab your FREE list here. 

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If you want to chat about how you can maximise the value of your email list and make more money from every subscriber, we can help! We know your business is different, so come and hang out in our FREE Facebook group, the Email Marketing Show Community for Course Creators and Coaches. We share a lot of training and resources, and you can talk about what you're up to.

Try ResponseSuite for $1

This week's episode is sponsored by ResponseSuite.com, the survey quiz and application form tool that we created specifically for small businesses like you to integrate with your marketing systems to segment your subscribers and make more sales. Try it out for 14 days for just $1.

Join The League Membership

Not sick of us yet? Every day we hang out in our amazing community of Email Marketing Heroes. We share all of our training and campaigns and a whole bunch of other stuff. If you're looking to learn how to use psychology-driven marketing to level up your email campaigns, come and check out The League Membership. It's the number one place to hang out and grow your email marketing. Best news yet? You can apply everything we talk about in this show.

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