Can email marketing help grow your business and make more money? What if you have a membership? And what if you help people in teaching and education? Yes, yes, and yes! So let's hear it from our client Cheryl Hatch from Preschool Plan It, who implemented only two of our email campaigns and increased her membership conversion rate by a whopping 84%!

And there's a lot more to come for Cheryl. 

Want to get the full story?

Let's go. 

SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: 

(0:22) Join our FREE Facebook group. 

(3:13) Who is Cheryl Hatch?

(5:58) When did Cheryl get started with email marketing?

(7:37) What was Cheryl's biggest barrier with email marketing? 

(9:16) What are some of the changes Cheryl made when she came into our world?

(14:07) Implementing her first automated campaigns.

(18:30) What results did Cheryl get with her email marketing?

(22:50) What does this increase in conversion rate mean for Cheryl?

(26:12) How does Cheryl feel about her email marketing now?

(28:13) What's the one action that had the most impact on Cheryl's email marketing?

(30:10) Subject lines of the week.

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Who is Cheryl Hatch?

Cheryl serves preschool teachers who work with 3 and 4-year-olds in a group setting. With two decades of experience in the education space, Cheryl launched a website jam-packed with awesome resources back in 2010 to help preschool teachers create their lesson plans. She managed to grow her audience by adding ads and affiliate links to her website. Online traffic went crazy (those were the days!), and the teachers in her audience started asking for more resources. 

That's why, in 2016, she turned her website into a monthly recurring membership, complete with lesson plans and professional development training.

When did Cheryl get started with email marketing?

When she first started her email marketing, Cheryl didn't have a lead magnet. She'd simply ask her website visitors to join her newsletter. For a long time, her email marketing consisted of sending out a monthly newsletter packed with lots and lots of information. Around 2015, Cheryl started doing more research on how she could give her audience more and perhaps launch a business.

Although she had no product yet, she realised she had so much information in her newsletter that she could send it twice a month instead. That would give her a better chance to drive people back to her blog for ads and affiliates.

What was Cheryl's biggest barrier with email marketing?

Was that a comfortable transition for Cheryl? Not at all. Increasing the frequency of her emails was a true barrier for Cheryl - she was quite worried about annoying her audience. After all, she'd promised them a once-a-month newsletter when they first signed up, and she felt she was breaking a promise.

It took her a long time to change her mindset and understand she wasn’t sending emails for the sake of sending them. She was sending emails because she could help people! And by sharing more bite-sized information, she was also giving her audience a chance to go and implement her tips in the classroom and make a difference. 

But until she truly realised that, emailing more frequently was her barrier.

What are some of the changes Cheryl made when she came into our world?

The first thing Cheryl did when she came into our world was to re-write her welcome sequence by implementing our 4-day Getting to Know You sequence. Because of the psychological tips that are at the basis of all our campaigns, Cheryl managed to increase her engagement. People started responding to her emails and telling her how much they agreed with what she was sharing. While that didn’t increase her conversions just yet, it improved her deliverability rate. 

Cheryl also created a lead magnet in the shape of a PDF download with some activities to help teachers create a week-long lesson plan. Her lead magnet is something that Cheryl sends out at the start of every month with inspiration for the month ahead. 

Another change that Cheryl made when she joined our world (courtesy of Rob) was to increase the frequency of her emails. She thought about it for 6 months, but eventually, Cheryl started sending out a second email every week on a Thursday. Because that's the point in the week when teachers feel burnt out and could do with some inspiration. So Cheryl sends out a quote and an image to wish her teachers a great rest of the week.

She also added a Super Signature at the bottom of all her emails, which directs people to her website or her membership offer. There’s no call to action in the email as such – just the Super Signature. And Cheryl still gets a lot of replies from the teachers in her audience acknowledging how much they needed the encouragement.

Implementing her first automated campaigns

Cheryl also started looking at the campaigns we offer inside our membership The League intending to increase her membership conversion rate. After becoming familiar with the idea of using a SCORE engine of email campaigns (where the acronym stands for Sales, Content-led, Objection handling, Risk reversal, and Engagement), Cheryl got to work. Because she already had the Engagement piece covered with her value-packed newsletter, she started focusing on the S (sales) and the C (content-led) campaigns first.

Rather than feeling like she's bombarding people with requests to buy, Cheryl was pleased with our approach, which helps you outline what you have to offer and how it can benefit the people in your audience. This is one of the main things Cheryl learnt from us, she said. And it's this idea of talking about your product in a way that doesn't just focus on features and benefits. Instead, she's telling her audience how they can use her products to become awesome preschool teachers.

As a result, Cheryl doesn’t feel salesy anymore. She knows she sells a product that helps people. And that's changed how she feels about talking about her membership. Her resources are exactly what every preschool teacher needs! So she's not scared about doing a call-to-action to her membership in her newsletter, for example. It's easy to let people know how the membership can truly help. 

What results did Cheryl get with her email marketing?

In the 3 months between May and July 2022, Cheryl's membership conversion rate (i.e. people joining her membership from her email list) was just under 2.5%. This is when all Cheryl had in place were her lead magnet, her newsletter, and our Getting to Know You sequence.

Cheryl set herself a goal to increase her membership conversion rate to 5%. So she revamped her Getting to Know You sequence and added a sales campaign to her email engine - i.e. our 6-day Overture campaign, which Cheryl chose to send out every other day instead of daily. She also put a 3-day content-led campaign in place (our Daisy Chain campaign) with pre-recorded videos that people can watch at their own pace.

Now, instead of receiving 'welcome' emails for 4 days and then going into her newsletter, Cheryl’s new subscribers go through about 21 days of emails. When Cheryl looked at the same 3-month period for this year (May to July 2023), she noticed that the percentage of people joining her membership from her list is just under 4.6%, which takes her super close to an amazing conversion rate of 5%! And that’s with only two new email campaigns in place – she’s not even done yet!

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What does this increase in conversion rate mean for Cheryl?

Cheryl is now communicating how she helps people in a much better way because she's able to understand what they need. While she doesn't run live activities with her audience (because of different time zones), her emails feel ‘real’ – this is Cheryl’s voice. And people feel like they know her. 

What's interesting is that when looking at the conversion rates of the individual campaigns, Cheryl said, the sales aren’t immediate. They’re small numbers. But over time, she achieved a huge increase in conversion because the campaigns she implemented solidified the know, like, and trust factor for her audience. By the time people start receiving her newsletter, they already know they can trust Cheryl. And that’s when the sales happen.

This is important because a lot of email marketers expect to run campaigns and make sales instantly. And to an extent, that happens. But these automations are also building the beliefs, information, context, and understanding of what someone’s offer is. The sales campaigns that are part of our SCORE email engine build the context you need for future campaigns. Our sales campaign shares the information about the offer that people need before they move on to the content-led campaign.

So while you can (and should) expect to make sales in each campaign, what also matters is the knock-on effect - it’s about the bigger picture. And that's how the email campaigns, when linked together, make a real difference.

How does Cheryl feel about her email marketing now?

Cheryl feels great about her email marketing now, and she’s excited about the campaigns she’s created. At the time of our chat, Cheryl was putting her subscribers through her newly created objection-handling campaign. And she's looking forward to working through the finishing touches of her risk reversal campaign, which will offer a low-dollar ticket item to show people what they can get in the membership. 

What’s the one action that had the most impact on Cheryl’s email marketing?

Cheryl thinks the one action that made the most difference was changing her mindset around why she was doing email marketing. Yes, she wants to make sales. But above all, she wants to help make a change for her audience. By keeping that in mind, Cheryl can create better campaigns to promote her membership. 

Suddenly, she feels she's being of service. And if people unsubscribe as a result, that’s okay - there are enough people out there for everyone. So it’s about switching your mindset and understanding that you email people because you know you can serve them. And if you talk to them like a real person (and not like some sort of sales machine), doing email marketing becomes a lot easier. 

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Subject line of the week

This week (courtesy of Cheryl), we're sharing not one but three subject lines that had great open rates: 

• “He looked perplexed. What did she say?” This one plays on that curiosity we always talk about. People want to know who looked perplexed. And what did she say? And who is she anyway? And the story was about teaching preschool math!
• “Spiders: creepy or fascinating?” This subject line was used to promote one of Cheryl’s low-dollar one-off products. It sounds like a poll, but the email talks about the fact that some children find spiders creepy while others think they're fascinating. The email was about promoting the resource with some great activities to do with children in class so they can learn more about spiders.
• And “It’s like a game of whack-a-mole.” This game can certainly create anxiety in some people - you hit a mole, and another one pops up. And the challenge gets harder and harder because the moles pop out faster. This email was about the feeling teachers can get in preschool when you're helping a child over here, and something else that needs your attention happens over there! The story proceeds to prove how teachers don’t have the time in their week to create lesson plans.

Useful Episode Resources

Related episodes

Learn How To Keep Your Members Forever And Ever With THE BEST Email Marketing Membership Retention Strategies On The Planet.

What Emails Should You Send Your Paying Members? with Mike and Callie from Membership Geeks.

How A League Member Made Over $10k With Just ONE Email Campaign – Case Study With Aidan O’Sullivan.

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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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Unknown 0:36

Hey, it's Rob and Kennedy

Unknown 0:38

hello today on the Email Marketing Show we're talking to Cheryl hatch from pre school plan

Unknown 0:43

it now is my womb

Unknown 0:45

when we get there but as your as your voice feels broken, or your real, I'm a real man.

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Unknown 1:21

his solution to decluttering is to rent more storage units.

Unknown 1:25

It's commonly referred to as Robin several and he was sat directly in front of James Corden at the theatre recently it's psychological mind reader Kennedy.

Unknown 1:39

was James lean to his wife

Unknown 1:48

he was literally with everybody literally, like, directly behind me.

Unknown 2:11

So our house has more things in it that it has space for things and we keep acquiring things at a rate of knots. Rachel said recently Can we buy a carpet cleaner? I said no. She said can we buy a carpet cleaner it live at my mom's house and I said yes. So we bought the carpet cleaner generate lives in our house anyway. So I'm just received my fourth storage unit. And I'm putting things in there because that's easier than throwing them away. But

Unknown 2:28

if you don't need them, Why are you keeping them like you're questioning God?

Unknown 2:31

I don't need it. But also I need to know basis. So we've got like three grands worth of Harry Potter Lego, which we don't need on a daily basis, but I don't wanna throw it away. I

Unknown 2:39

built it in Florida. When you log on you're quite good. You can flog it on? Well, that's

Unknown 2:43

how I feel about it. But Rachel's different anyway. So now we're collecting storage units to store things in and where are you gonna put all these storage units?

Unknown 2:50

That's the question. Hello. Every week on the show we show you how to make more sales and earn more money from your email subscribers. We're talking about email marketing strategies, psychology tactics, and share what's working right now to make more sales online making you the email marketing hero of your business with a brand new episode every email every Wednesday. Make sure you hit subscribe button on your podcast player.

Unknown 3:11

So let's get into the episode. Today we are joined by the very lovely Cheryl hatch from preschool planet as Kennedy said at the top of the show so Cheryl, welcome to the email marketing show. Thank

Unknown 3:20

you. I'm wicked excited to be talking to you guys. Oh, wicked excited,

Unknown 3:23

because just from Boston, yes.

Unknown 3:26

Here's a funny thing about Cheryl being in Boston. So we used to run a mastermind and Cheryl was a member of our mastermind, and we were like, where should we run it? And Cheryl and Sheila two members who have a sounding so at first name booth live in Boston. We were like we don't have enough awesome let's fly everybody to Boston. So everybody goes to Boston. Cheryl gets COVID card cut a bloody mastermind it's basically in our back garden. So anyway, so never hung out in real life. Have we?

Unknown 3:49

We have not done that and it's gonna happen. It's

Unknown 3:51

gonna happen. You've been you've been in our world and implementing this stuff. For a while and like and really going for with your with your business. And one of the things we were talking about and just amazes me is how you increased your conversion rate for your offer for your membership by 84%. And we're gonna we're gonna ask you to kind of show and talk about that. So that the DS but before we get into what you did, how you increased about 84%? Let's get first of all, find out. Just share with us. What is your business? What do you do, who do you Who do you serve, and then sort of what's the format you do that in?

Unknown 4:21

Okay, well, I serve preschool teachers, which means teachers who work with three and four year old children in a group setting. So some teachers work maybe for public school or like ABC daycare down the street. And I was a preschool teacher and director for a couple of decades. So I bring that to it. And I the way I serve them is I have a website with tonnes of free, awesome stuff for them to help them create their lesson plans. And it eventually just grew into a membership, a monthly recurring membership where I create lesson plans and professional development training.

Unknown 4:45

I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. And so it's now it's a it's a it's a monthly membership, isn't it? It's

Unknown 4:49

monthly or they can, you know, do 20% off if they sign up for annual Yeah, just

Unknown 4:54

to put a bit of context around that. When did you start that? Like when did you start the website which then morphed into a membership? Okay, well,

Unknown 4:59

Unknown 5:16

didn't think I was gonna turn through the website and put some AdSense on and stuff and then SEO it that was a really viable business model. It's not by itself, but like it was at the time. So at what point in that journey? Did you get started with email? Did you do that from day one? Did you get to the membership and sort of naturally emerged? Like what happened?

Unknown 5:30

Unknown 6:31

right. No, there's no product yet this was still curate them a community curating an audience and in a platform you own email, to drive them back to the blog to see these affiliate offers and the AdSense and stuff like that. So what do you think he talked about the frequency of your emails, not something we've done a lot of work with you on over the last few years together? What do you think for you because I've had a big thing a lot of people have gotten really hard on email. Too often on a piece people offered there were no people. Why do you think do you know why you had a barrier towards increasing frequency? Like what was that about?

Unknown 6:59

Well, because I, I am not my audience, right? We always say that. We all say that all the time. But I think that I am and I think that I get annoyed if I get daily emails from people. And also part of it was I promised them it would be once a month and I felt like I was breaking the promise. Right? Right. And so I tend to anybody in the group knows sometimes I get very stuck in the box. And it's hard for me to get outside of that box. And I felt like you know, it took me a long time, as you know, to sit back and say, You know what, I'm not gonna be sending emails for the sake of sending emails, I'm sending emails because I can help people. Right. And I think that's what was missing. That was my barrier. If I'm just sending more emails and annoying people as opposed to, for example, rather than sending a five page monthly newsletter, I could send them bits and pieces each week, they could read that implemented in the classroom and make a difference in their lives.

Unknown 7:40

So what's kind of the only kind of emails you were sending? Well, these live emails, do you have any automations at all Khaliqul welcome series or anything like that? Oh, nothing?

Unknown 7:47

No those Okay. Nope. Okay. So

Unknown 7:49

they join your email list. And whatever it happened to be. Yeah, nothing. And it was. Yeah.

Unknown 7:55

No, welcome sequence. No, not even a hey, congratulations. You've joined the list. It was just they started getting newsletters, okay. I mean, that was it. Okay.

Unknown 8:01

Okay. And so what would you say when you came into our world? What was the first major change or the first change you made?

Unknown 8:09

Okay, will be for coming into your world? I did put a welcome sequence in place Yeah. So it was like a getting getting to know your sequence that it was four emails here. They would get the lead. I did create a lead magnet. Yeah, finally. Right. So it was a lead magnet where they get this download and I also part of that lead magnet is each month on the first of the month. You'll receive a PDF download, with some activities get you started creating a week long lesson plan. Okay, that's my promise with the lead magnet. So that's

Unknown 8:29

a big lead magnet isn't like hey, my lead magnet is you'll get something today but also every start of every month going forward. I'm gonna give you some inspiration for the month ahead, high value but you know, we've added we've proven this idea around a lot and back and forth. But you know what, today's Well, that's such a high value thing that kind of stands out. And I like it. I love it. Okay.

Unknown 8:46

Yeah. And so, so that's what they're signing up for. So what was happening before it came into your world was the lead magnet delivered the same day? Yeah. Which was the lesson planning forum. Yep. And then of course, every month they're gonna get this download and a weekly newsletter. So and then they would get the first welcome email. And that was four days every day in a row for four days the welcome email and then they just went into the weekly newsletter. And the welcome email was just the series was you know what I think a lot of us are told like just let them know who you are and why they should trust you and like every you know, all the and here's what I saw and here's how I can help you like it was I was okay, but it was just it was there because I was told I'm supposed to have a welcome sequence.

Unknown 9:20

Right. So what was the first change though? That's what you had. And then you came into our world what first sort of

Unknown 9:25

switch? The first change? There were two changes that I made when I first come into your world. And the first change was redoing my welcome sequence. So that I use like what the psychology that you guys talk about, which is, you know, letting let your letting them know who I am and how, why they should trust me, but without saying, This is why you should trust me. Yeah, rather than telling. So that was the first thing I did. And that actually increased my engagement. It didn't change conversion, but it changed my engagement. People were writing back to me saying, oh my gosh, I so agree with you. That's exactly how I feel about teaching. So what does that matter? It didn't change my conversion rate. But what I know is because people replying to me, that likely increase my deliverability rate because Google is saying, Oh, wait, these people are talking back and forth. Let's put this in their primary inbox, which I know that's a whole nother topic, but but that was a big change. For me. I usually didn't get reply emails, so it was really cool because I don't do anything live with my audience. So it's really cool to have another way to engage with them. The second thing I did, which took you that you alluded to it earlier, it took and I'm sorry, I have to give Rob All the kudos for this but I mean, pushing me pushing me to do to reach out more and to go I mean, you know, it's hard to go from once a month to weekly now you're telling me you should go to twice a week I'm like, Oh my gosh, I can't do that. I went through that whole mindset thing again. And I know that Ashley Kennedy, you and I talked on one of the hotseat coaching calls about I don't want to send an email for the sake of sending an email. So what could it be? And so teachers get burnt out by Thursday when you've had 16 little three year olds, all week long, you're tired. So what I do what I did was I did add this is what you need, like the you know, clouds part and Angel thing. I did start sending out a second email every week.

Angels on cue,

thank you so much. And so what what it is is what we had talked about in that call, which is, it's an inspiration. It's like a quote maybe from Mr. Rogers or from Maria Montessori, who is well known in this field, and it's just an inspiration like so I would talk just about whatever that quote was, and how you as a teacher are awesome, because this is what you're helping your children do and I would have a little quote and a little image and just have a great rest of your week. And I added a super signature at the bottom, which are just, you know, helpful. You know, we help I think it's something like helpful, helpful tips, one, send them to my website on my team page one, send them to my store one send them to my membership offer. So there's no direct call to action. It's just like a signature at the end of the email. And those I get a lot I still get a lot of replies, saying thanks. I really needed this today. I was really questioning my entire career. Yeah, sweet. So you know, so I mean, those I think also helped deliverability but that was huge. You guys know, it took us six months to for me to finally implement that because I just had this mindset around it. So

I love it. So what happened next talk us through the next stages. So you made these two big changes this renewed welcome sequence of the following are getting to know you sequence increase email frequency to what else is happening. Okay, well,

then I thought, okay, so this is when I said Okay, so I'm looking at all the campaigns and thinking what can I do to increase the conversion rate of new members because when I know when I sign up for something, I'm really excited that I found this person or this group or this thing. This is when they're sorry, Jack. That's my dog. He thinks that he is the dog blog and that he should be the

he's the stuff he's good. Okay.

So Sorry, I lost track of thought for a second there. When I wanted to do with a while they were really excited they have found my world they they know they found someone that they can know like and trust and that's what I'm building. How can I convert a higher percentage of these new members that join every month? And so I decided to create campaigns based on what I was wanting from you guys. In what do we call like an engine, like instead of just to getting to know you, what can I then send to them that's going to help them either grow know like and trust and increase my conversion to my membership? So that's what I started working on. So I actually added I think it's quite a bit because for me, considering I used to have nothing this was huge, right? So the first thing I did was you guys talked about the score engine, which I absolutely love. So like a sales lead campaign is the S content lead campaign is to see objection handling is the Oh risk reversal as they are and I re engagement emails with my weekly bi weekly newsletters, right. So that's what I did. I created a sales lead campaign, which to me just felt like a launch campaign and you know, I baulked at that too right because I felt like I don't want them to hear getting to know me and then a bunch of emails that say buy my thing, buy my thing, buy my thing, right, right. So but in technically that's what it is. But it's so much better. And more than that, because you're not just saying buy my thing. You're saying, Here's what I have, here's who you are, and here's how it can benefit you. And I think that's the biggest thing that I've learned through this whole process is how to talk about my thing, and not just talk about features. But the benefit of it's important that they know because people want to know what do I get if I'm gonna pay you this money? What am I gonna get? But they also want to know, okay, I get that. But so what how does that help me? Right? So that you can now do this and be an awesome preschool teacher or

that was huge for me. Yeah. We used we work with you collaborate on on what we call the fab T framework, which we've talked about elsewhere. We're not going to today, but I've really gone beyond just features and benefits, but you actually took it on to a whole two extra dimensions of this visibility, which and the ability that not that What does that done for you to be able to talk to your audience in your emails, but I'm sure in all of your copying all the communications with that in mind, how has that changed the way you feel? And the way that you communicate with people?

I don't feel salesy anymore. Like everyone feels that way. Right? Like that's, that's the big barrier, right of why you don't want to email people more. Well, I don't want to sound salesy. I don't, well, we need to sell our stuff. We don't have a business. We all know that. But we don't want to seem like one of those people. Were just like, buy my thing, buy my thing. Buy my thing. And I think what has changed is that yeah, I have this thing but I created it because it really will help you. And so it's really changed how I look at talking about my membership because I know that it is going to benefit not every single preschool teacher but for the right teacher, they're going to know that this benefit is exactly what they need. So I just I feel better about talking about it. I don't have any room. I don't know if I want to talk about my membership. I do I want to scream it from the rooftops but in a way that's going to help them and it's definitely changed like every single email I send out even my newsletters now I don't even question doing a call to action for the membership. I just don't even question anymore. Like oh, how do I marry this copy to the membership? How can I show them that this email that's about teaching preschool science. Here's how the membership can benefit them even more with that. Yeah. So

you wouldn't be creating this stuff if it wasn't good. And if it didn't help people, so like, why not show it to people? So we're so glad that you started to embrace that. Let's put some meat on the numbers of this whole bone a little bit. What can you tell us in terms of the changes from where you were before to where you are now, we already mentioned that percentage increase in subscribers joining the membership, what does that really mean?

Okay, so when I did was I looked at I'm a metrics geek. A lot of people know that I love my I love me some numbers. So what I did was I looked at last year, May 1 through July 31. New members only this isn't my existing list just new members only how many people joined and of those people who joined within that timeframe? How many of them joined the membership from May 1 to July 31. The percentage was just under 2.5%. So

that's two and a half percent of the people who joined your email list then became members became

members within that three month period two and a half percent right and so I have read you know, we read all these things online that if you are converting, you know, new subscribers at three to 5% You're doing well. And I thought, well,

you're pretty, pretty close to 5%.

Yeah, I'm not even at three. Let's see if I can how close I can get to 5% That was my goal I have in place and that that was based on getting a lead magnet getting to know your sequence into the weekly newsletter

to just say that again. So that 2.5% was just people go they come into lead magnet getting to know us getting to know your sequence, and then the newsletter that's all you had in place at that point, right? Correct. Okay, good. Two and a half percent okay, which was falling short of what you'd read online, which was you're aiming for three to five, five be in the top end, obviously, and three being kind of what you should be aiming for aiming for that remember, like, it's not like what most people are getting like that's what you're aiming for. All right.

Great. So this year, the difference is I revamped my getting to know you sequence my welcome sequence I rewrote the emails. From there, they now go into the Sales Lead Campaign, which I use when called the overture six days, but again, I don't like emailing every single day if I don't need to, so I send them out every other day.

Okay, so you've diluted the frequency a little bit to feel to make it feel more like you cool. Right?

And then from there, I instant I put in place a content Lead Campaign, which is I think I use the daisy chain which basically video and videos for me work good because I can't do live because there's so many time zones with my audience. So a pre recorded video where they can watch it at their pay there. It's great for them. So they get this video that talks about this one thing and that's they get I think it's three emails. Is that correct? With the days if anything is three emails, and again every other day, right? So now my new members instead of just taking four days and they go into my newsletter, it now takes them probably like 21 days to get through all this before they join my newsletter before they get my newsletter. So that's what I instituted. So as of May 1 That was all instituted. So this year, May 1 through July 31, just looking how many new people joined my world.

And before we go any further, basically just the S and the C. This is just what you did engagement with your welcome sequence and you've also got engaged and got over the ongoing but you've got that you also got sales and content. So you're still doing the final tweaks. On your objection handling and your risk reversal but they're not live yet. Okay, that's great. So that's where we're at now.

Right? So I looked at literally August 1 I was online to look at these numbers to compare them to last year, so may 1 of this year to July 31. Again, just looking at how many new members joined my list, and what percentage of them converted to the membership in the same timeframe. Just a hair under 4.6%.

Wow. I mean, that's incredible. Like you're not even you haven't even just hit the 3% goal that most people have, but you're like so close like 4.6 year old, you're almost at that 5% high end, which is just incredible. And that's with two of the campaigns that you're going to have in place 4.6% So that's an increasing percentage of 84% and and what does that mean? What does that mean for you? Because for some people be oh my god, what it means for my business. What does that mean for you like, you're a business owner, you're a passionate person. What that increase wasn't really mean for you though.

I think what it means is that I'm actually communicating how I can help them in a better way. And I think it's helping they've realised that I do get them I do understand what they need. It's been very specific because as you talked about before with the fab T, talking about, okay, how can this person this business, this company, how can they help me? And I just think I've been able to communicate it and these emails have helped me just be more real because I don't do live things with my audience. These emails, they're my voice. They feel like they know me. What they know I love corgis. They know that I love you know, coffee, they know like they know that even though I'm not you know live anywhere with them something that was very interesting about these two campaigns for me that I think that it's important for anyone listening to this to know too is you know, when we run a new campaign we want to see like instant results like this campaign created this percentage of sales or here's the interesting thing for me is that most of the sales didn't happen while they were live in these campaigns. If you were to look at the results of each campaign, you'd be like, that's almost abysmal. Like there were no sales or very few sales, because a lot of people thought it didn't work. But you know, I was like, Nope, we're given the three months we're gonna see what happens. What happened was obviously a huge increase in conversion. Why? Because the Sales Lead Campaign in this content Lead Campaign solidified the know like and trust of my audience, so that when they got the newsletters and now I'm talking about teaching preschool science or teachings, you know how to have a good circle time. They already know that I know, my stuff, and they know that they can trust me, that's when the sales are happening. So isn't that interesting, like 21 days of these emails and I'm thinking oh, they're all gonna unsubscribe and I gotta meet someone mad? No, they've just like, okay, okay. No, not yet. Not yet, because they don't know if they know like, or trust me, because there's no other way they can learn about me except for these emails. So it just took a little longer, but I'll tell you in that month, two and three 4.6% This

is a thing that people really don't think about a lot is to go yeah, look at some automations and, as you say, expect to make sense most automations Yes, we should definitely expect to make sales. There's automation. Of course, that's fine. But of course, those automations are also teeing up all of the beliefs, all of the information, all of the context and understanding what your offer is. That helps the future live emails. We always say look, your first sales automation, you should not remove it. Even though the highest conversion automation business is all content lead automation. Some people might say well screw it, take the sales automation out but the content on first No, because the sales that automation is building the context. It's building up the information of this is what the offer is before we get into the content and automation, because now what by the time you get to that one, they understand the offence they know what it is. So I think remembering that, yes, you want to make sales during that sequence during that campaign, but also the knock on effect they have later it's about that bigger picture and be able to dig in the data and go Do you know what if I just looked at those individual things in isolation, we would have got a boost, but it wouldn't have been an 84% boost, and that's a difference. So tell us where you are about where you're at, like right now, in terms of how you feel about your email marketing and where you're at with it.

I feel great about my email marketing. It's been I mean, it's been exciting because it's been an all new campaigns. I haven't done this for years, right, like create new campaigns and do automations I mean, I haven't had automations ever. I mean, I had one automation which is I have one off products to like low dollar $6 And there were three follow up emails to promote, you know, a membership, but these are like, it's like it is a whole engine of of things happening. And I feel like that because I feel like it's pretty solid. With this, but what I have done to like right now, as of this week, my objection handling is complete. And I'm actually putting my current list through it. Anyone who went through I just had a back to school promotion because you know, it's back to school time. So anyone who didn't buy is now going to and that's a survey of okay, I see that you didn't buy why am I talking about that? So that's the one that I created. They I just turned that on on Monday. So we'll see how that goes. I'll keep you posted. And then also I have the risk reversal. is almost done. I'm solidifying that this week. And once the objection handling campaign is done, my entire list will also go through that and that's why I'm offering one low dollar item that they can't get in my store only through this automation, which also shows them exactly what they would get into membership. So I think is gonna be helpful. But anyways, my whole list is going through it because it's a new campaign. But they're also both in my new member campaign. So now my new member campaign anybody new who joins, getting to know you sales campaign, the content like campaign and then they'll go to this objection handling and the risk reversal and then the newsletter,

and that's what we love. It's that perfect balance of run a campaign live now and make a bunch of sales automated so that everyone else who goes through it goes through it and forever and that's that's amazing. For listeners listening to this we've talked about a lot of stuff. So what one action do you think has had the most impact on everything you've done so far with email since coming into our world?

What one action I know it's an action but honestly it goes back to that whole mindset of really looking at why are you email marketing anyways? It's it's not just to make sales of course it's to make sales it's why we're in business but like Why Why are you doing this business? What what change what help how you want to help the world? How do you want to help your audience? And when you remember that that's why you're doing this, creating campaigns. And sales campaigns and promoting your thing. It Becomes You You truly do it sounds really corny, but it you do really feel like it's a service. You know, if people get mad and they unsubscribe, they're going to unsubscribe, that's just part of it like you. I mean, I have 50 people that we can subscribe. It's just going to happen when they're either not in the field anymore, or maybe they just don't have the same philosophy of me. That's okay. There's enough people out there for every one. But I just think it's really a mindset of just knowing that once you switch that to knowing that, I'm going to email them because I know I can serve them and I'm going to talk to them like a real person, not like a Sales Machine. It will just be so, so much easier.

I love it. If anyone's listening thinking, I would love to just go and check out what it is you're doing. Where should we go what's a good to website firstly, check it out.

Okay, well my main website I mean it's um it's probably the best place in it's our preschool and then a dash plan and then a dash it.com preschool plan it

love it absolutely love it. Definitely go and check out what Cheryl's doing and have a look at that because she's got some serious marketing jobs and and doing some really amazing stuff in that. Well, Cheryl, before we go, I know you've you've got some lovely subject lines that have really increased your open rates and stuff like that. So we're gonna go into this week's subject line of the week subject line of the week, what have you got for I know you've got three I think

I have three these three I was looking at my subject lines and these three actually, I mean, you know open rates being what they are, I will take them with a grain of salt. But when you see your open rate, Jump up 10%. And from one email, you're like, ooh, that resonated right. Yeah. So these three actually increase my open rate by about 10%. And so the first one was called, he looked perplexed. What did she say? And it plays on that curiosity that you guys have talked about, like they want to say, who looked perplexed. And what did she say Who was she? And it, it definitely increased it. And it was, it was actually about a word called because into, my dad used to say, when he was doing math, he would you know, when he was doing division, like two goes into 10, five times. So and I had said that when I was paying the bills, and my husband said, What are you doing? I said, I'll just do it, my cousin says and he looked at me and I'm like, 30 years I've never used that phrase with you. Anyways, it actually transitioned into teaching preschool math. So that increased it the second one was just it was an email to promote one of my low dollar one off products. And the subject line was spiders colon creepy or fascinating, with a question mark? Interesting. So it sounded like it was going to be a poll, right? Like, do you find that creepy? You're fascinating. And then just a little blurb story about? Some kids will find it creepy. Some will find it fascinating. Some people will stand on a chair like it's a mouse, but here's some great activities to do with your kids so they can learn more about spiders. And then the final one was, it was like a game of whack a mole.dot.so and that one increased by 10%. Because that game, if any of you you probably have envisions of that game now. And it's you know, it's one of those games that creates anxiety, right? Because one pops up and then you hit it and the other one pops up. And the email was really about how you kind of feel like it's whack a mole in a preschool classroom because you're helping kids over here or having a fight in the block area. And the next thing you know, somebody's throwing water at the water table so you feel like Whack a Mole all day. You don't have time to even write up lesson plans, and then it segues into that.

I love it. I love it. Thanks. So that's this week's subject line. So check out the weak lines of the week subject lines.

If you if you want to get your hands on the same resources that Cheryl has been using to do all of the stuff we've talked about in this episode, and far more go and check out our membership at the league membership.com You're able to find out everything about our campaigns, our strategies, the curriculum to follow through the audit to do it in as well as sort of coaching and mentoring to get through that as well the lead membership.com

Awesome stuff. Cheryl, thank you so much for being on the show, sharing what you've been doing it and also massive congrats on going out of your comfort zone wildly out your comfort zone, taking action on it and you're reaping the rewards now, so well done, and thanks for being here.

Well, thank you.

We'll see you all next week. We'll do it again. Make sure you hit subscribe on your podcast player. We're back next email marketing Wednesday and we're going to do it all again with a brand new episode and more awesomeness. See that?