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: 

(0:19) Join our FREE Facebook group.

(2:51) Who is April McMurtrey?

(5:07) When did April start using email marketing in her business?

(6:42) What did April's email marketing look like when she first started?

(7:54) What's the first change April made when she joined our world?

(9:08) What happened when April started making changes to her email marketing?

(12:55) How April got a 400% increase in sales in just 12 months.

(14:32) How does April feel about her email marketing now?

(16:46) What's ONE action April recommends people take when it comes to email marketing?

(19:31) Subject line of the week.

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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.

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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.

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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. 

Join our FREE Facebook group

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.

Subscribe and review The Email Marketing Show podcast

Thanks so much for tuning into the podcast! If you enjoyed this episode (all about how our client April increased her revenue with email marketing by 400% in just one year) and love the show, we'd really appreciate you subscribing and leaving us a review of the show on your favourite podcast player.  

Not only does it let us know you're out there listening, but your feedback helps us to keep creating the most useful episodes so more awesome people like you can discover the podcast. 

And please do tell us! If you don't spend time on email marketing, what do you really fill your working days with? We'd love to know!

Unknown 0:31

Hey, it's Rob and Kennedy. Hello

Unknown 0:32

Today on the Email Marketing Show, we are talking to the lovely April McMurtry from learn reading.com about how she increased her revenue 400% In just one year. It's

Unknown 0:46

Unknown 1:10

So as a tiny kid, he complained that to his parents that they didn't call him Paul instead of Robert. It's comedy hypnotist Robert temple,

Unknown 1:19

and he prioritises mate dates to catch up with friends every week. It's psychological mind reader Kennedy. I am putting this into this sort of like just random catchy little fantasy in your calendar. Obviously we share a calendar which is always going to catch up with them.

Unknown 1:39

It's ever since I lost my dad last year, I've been prioritising the time I've got with people and just making sure I connect with people every single week and it's amazing. It's amazing for the therapists

Unknown 2:01

why what was this Kruk was not the one I mean if you're always not liking me like you don't know you love it when people call me in there right now. Yeah, back in the day.

Unknown 2:07

I think there was the famous magician in the UK, Paul Daniels and what he was doing, I got into entertainment. And I was thought if I was called Paul, I'd probably be successful too. I was like, it's probably four or five years old and I was like ah, and the funny thing is Paul's not even it wasn't even his real stage name. So there you go.

Unknown 2:22

And when did he ever consider like changing already for No, no, no, they're dummies driven. Alright, fair enough. All right. Hello. Every week on the show we show you how to make more sales and earn more money from your email subscribers. We talk about email marketing, strategy, psychology tactics, and share what's working right now to make more sales online with a brand new episode every email marketing Wednesday. Make sure you hit subscribe on your podcast player and we'll show you how to be the email marketing hero of your business.

Unknown 2:47

Now April McMurtry Welcome to the Email Marketing Show. This has been a long time coming so we're super excited that you are here.

Unknown 2:54

Thank you excited to be here.

Unknown 2:56

It's so good to see so just in case somebody doesn't know who you are, give us a quick before we get to these amazing things we want to do with your with your business and the group have seen because we've been working together for a few years now you've been in our in our mastermind you've been in our membership like we've been working together for a while so we feel we know your business pretty well. But just for everyone else listening tell us what it is you do what is your business do and how you deliver it? And I

Unknown 3:15

dyslexia specialist and a reading specialist so I teach people how to read through courses. I've developed a programme the learn reading programme that is designed for struggling and dyslexic readers and that is developed that is delivered through courses generally.

Unknown 3:28

It's amazing some of the stuff you don't you've read. Well, I remember we were sat in a mastermind together in London I think we were and I remember us getting all I quite emotional and there was tears in my eyes and I think everybody was on a bit of a cry because you've reinvented really how people learn to read like you've totally ripped up the the normal method and gone no that's that's not good enough.

Unknown 3:49

There's a better and easier and faster way that works. Yes.

Unknown 3:53

Just it's just so ah,

Unknown 3:56

to put some context around this just so people like How long have you been doing this for? When did you start when when it become an online thing if it was previously not like how long has this been going on? And then I've got a follow up question to that. So

Unknown 4:06

Unknown 4:27

what we're talking about here is realistically is backed up by a lifetime of skill and expertise. But what we're talking about here as an online business is really only a few years in the making. So that's really exciting. And at what point in that journey, I've taken this knowledge course of buying it to sell it online. Did you get started with email marketing?

Unknown 4:44

Probably a solid year after I launched the business I always I know that I should be doing something with email marketing, but when you launch a business, you're not an expert in all of the business platforms and things that you have to learn you're you're an expert in what you're delivering and email marketing was just one more thing that I didn't know how to do. So it just sat there gathering dust and me gathering guilt about what I'm not doing and knew I should be doing something but had no idea what that was. So what

Unknown 5:09

was the it's the perfect example of somebody who just wants to help people and sell the thing they do and that means you have to learn a whole bunch of other stuff you don't really want to learn, but you just have.

Unknown 5:15

So you look at this email marketing thing you're thinking I don't know how to do that. What do you think for you is the biggest barrier to you just getting on with it and doing it?

Unknown 5:24

I didn't know that there were people out there who knew what I should be doing but I didn't know where to find them. I didn't know how to connect with them. All I knew is I had a lot of people on my email list and I had no idea what to do with them. I would see these professional emails come in and I was super impressed by them. I knew they were following some sort of sequence the logical sequence that I knew that they were selling to me in this beautiful way and I just wanted to know what they knew and all I knew was I didn't know anything. All

Unknown 5:50

I knew was I knew now it's okay great. Okay. So at that point so before you before you got into our world and are you join our membership the league what what have you got to with your email marketing before you joined us what it was at the beginning of your journey, or had you had a little Tinker about or done some other stuff beforehand?

Unknown 6:07

Yeah, I don't know, Tinker about I had an email marketing platform that I kept them in. And I would shoot them an email maybe once every other month just to tell them as a product that I had. They had no idea who I was, and I'm sure they unsubscribed as soon as they realised that this woman is going to bother her with these sales emails. So yeah. Okay.

Unknown 6:28

So in terms of the types of emails you were sending, they were live broadcasts. Yep, sporadically, but sort of once every couple of months. Yep. Yep. But it probably it probably wasn't diarized. You probably just went Oh, I haven't emailed them for a couple of months. I should probably go and do that. Now.

Unknown 6:40

It was basically I have this thing. You should buy it.

Unknown 6:43

Okay, so it wasn't even like a regular it was like, Oh, I've I've created a new programme. I should tell people about it now. Okay, interesting. Okay, so what was the first change you made? The first

Unknown 6:54

change? Well, I tried to teach myself by listening to podcasts, and I stumbled upon email marketing heroes, and that one, just binged, and I started listening to strategies and it started coming together and I joined and then I got the deep dive into the the everything I saw the everything and it was start here and do this and one of the first things to do was daily emails and that is where everything changed. For me. That is what gave me hope. And I found that I love sending daily emails. I love the creative process. I love sharing what's going on with my day and tying that into something that I can teach people and just that relationship that it builds it's tied for first off my favourite thing to do during the day is to send those emails.

Unknown 7:42

I love it. So you start you kind of go from I mean, that's, that's rare to go from sort of nothing to like, I'm gonna I'm gonna upgrade and move to the email straightaway straightaway. So kudos for doing that. But like, what was the what happened from those changes over what timeframe? So you start sending daily emails, you probably don't see a difference on day one or day two, but at some point, something's going to shift. So what happened and kind of when?

Unknown 7:59

I think the shift just happened in my mindset, and because I had now I had the tools that I was looking for for so long. Now I had everything mapped out for me, this is where you are and this is where you're going and this is where you can go and I was just on fire with it. So when did things start to change? I think when I started putting those sequences in and the particularly the just the overture and the HUD and the getting to know you sequence and golden cloak, the golden cloak really started skyrocketing sales. So that's when it went from sales trickling into my set that golden cloak sequence in motion, then sales started skyrocketing and I think I even posted on your Facebook page guys, this works. If you haven't done the golden cloak yet. You need to put that sequence into action. It works yeah, yeah, it

Unknown 8:42

isn't Godot so. So you've got two different things going on here. Now you've got the fact that you significantly up to your emailing frequency. And you've gotten out and you start doing these daily story lead emails, which which is amazing. So you went straight in and took action on that. And then you start building these email campaigns. What kind of impact has that had? Like, tell us a little bit about what really happened for you inside the business and for your life? Like what did that do?

Unknown 9:09

It gave me control. It filled that gap in that hole that I had been filling in a way that I enjoyed and I loved and I think my love for communicating with my with my audience kind of comes through because all of a sudden they became my people. They weren't just people anymore. They were my people and I was their reading teacher and they cared about me. That was the fun thing to realise that when because one of your techniques that you say is to always give them something to do something to click or somewhere to go or every play. And they would reply to me all the time and say how much they just love to hearing about my life and how much they enjoyed the little tricks, the tricks that I share with them and I was genuinely just pleasantly surprised at the rapport that was being built between me and my people just because of that connection, that deep connection that was being made. I love

Unknown 9:58

what you said we were talking just before we hit record, which is about having a relationship with these people.

Yeah, that's what it turned into. And that's what I have now is is the relationship and I'm I'm open and honest about my my day in my life in my my ups and my downs and they are supportive. And they are encouraging of me which you know, they buoy me up and I believe them up and that relationship is something that I cherish. That's why sending emails is one of my favourite things to do during the day because I get to connect with my people

a lot by itself coming. I mean, you said it's like having 21,000 individual relationships, you know, 20 relationship with 21,000 individual people. It's not having a relationship with your list that's makes us look like just a crowd. These feel very personal because of the way

I have 21,001 on ones every day. That's magical.

When we talked at the top of this episode about this idea of this 400% increase in 12 months of doing this stuff, let's put some meat on the bones with that if you don't mind. Well, that was

really what I attribute that 400% increase to is the email marketing I also dabbled in social media a bit and that increased at the same time as my social is my email is increased. But my social media presence got them to my email

marketing. So use social media as your traffic source. Perfect. Yeah, great stuff. And that

is when I got to build that relationship with them. And so I can I I claim that that 400% increase is due I don't know 80 90% due to female marketing that you've taught me about

the perfect route you know, we we've often we haven't said it for a while but we always used to say that you want to build an audience on social sorry, build build an audience on social but build a business through email. And and that's true right so you build an audience on social which is great you drip drove those people and you're 21,000 subscribers is not to be sniffed out loads of people would give their left arm for 21,000 subscribers. That's amazing. But, but then being able to convert those 21,000 subscribers is a totally different game and you've proven that without the skills that was a harder thing to do. And with these techniques and the stuff that you've put in place, for I want to give it a 400% increase in sales is insane. You've already kind of described this but I'm gonna put a button on it again. How does like how does email marketing feel for you now specifically, compared to how it felt before you started doing things this way? So

it saved the business and our business. A year ago, maybe a little more than that now was on life support. I think I used those exact words with you. I came to you and I said I might have one more month of a viable business. It is literally on life support. And then thank goodness I found you and email marketing and that sustained and grew not only off of life support but now in the business just you know a year later is thriving well beyond my what I thought it could have done a year ago because of the email strategies that I've been taught. So now I'm that's my favourite thing. I mean, I've said it before, but I love being creative. I love the connection. And then there's a bonus that it also works. It does that split drives the conversion and

here's here's a question for you. Because if we know what's your favourite thing, but how much of your day because if we do our favourite thing we can often go oh, that's fine for you is your favourite thing you love doing it? You must spend all day doing it. You must spend how much time does it does it take over your life and they see my marketing stuff you're doing

just to preface this this answer. I'm a writer. I love writing. That's what I mean about I love being creative. I love to just put my hands on the keyboard and get my brain engaged and go so for me 10 to 20 minutes a day.

Okay, so it's your favourite thing. It's the most effective thing in your business that's got you from taking you from the brink of of going out of business from the brink you said from life support. And now a you know a few years and you're talking about just in the last year. This this stuff has added 14% of the revenue that you've built on that on that. That's like that's amazing and you can do that 20 minutes a day is pretty flippin it pretty flippin amazing. So if you were to say to our listener right now, what's one action they could take? What's one action they could take to? Maybe they're on the brink because a lot of people you know, some people get to that place and we've been to that place a couple of times. Or they just feel like I've tried some obscure thing that's frustrating or I don't get it or whatever. What would you say is one action. You could tell ask people to take

I would say trust the process. So it's not. It's not all about you, and what you can provide or how you can perform, but it's the process that works. And it's the campaigns and the sequences that have already been developed in the league that work and that and to think about the expertise that you have to offer and the people who are on your list need what you have to offer, and to not give up, but to when you're writing and typing and thinking about what you're going to say to your people to think about them and your desire to help them and then that connection will result in conversions just because of of what you have to offer. So don't give up the process works.

Really does. It really does.

I love this so much. The story for me is so inspiring. What's what's next with the mafia?

Well, I'm launching a blog is on pre orders now and so just a cape I think yesterday I listened to your podcast episode on a book launching. So that's what's next for me is I'm going to set that up for success.

Amazing. I love it so exciting. If someone's thinking I'd really love to go and check out what April's doing. Maybe they're interested in your work on reading because it is fascinating and so clever and simple and brilliant. And also just see what you're up to where can people go and check out your stuff.

So living reading.com is where you can find my programme, the reading programme and then the book will be available at visit dyslexia.com

Is it dyslexia.com Amazing April, thank you so much for coming and sharing these great stories. I just like we could I mean we talk to you for hours and we're in masterminds and stuff with you. So I thank you for being here. Really appreciate you. And congrats.

Thank you. Actually, if I could just fix that. Is it dyslexia book.com. And thank you guys, it's been such a pleasure.

Hey, absolutely. Is it dyslexia book.com? And yeah, amazing, amazing stuff. Rob, we're gonna go into this week's subject line of the week subject line of the week. What have you got,

I'm gonna put you on the spot and throw this on back over to you because this was one of your subject lines when I had a few days off it was insurance payout and bragging to the whole 30 pounds

I don't remember the email whatsoever so I get a bit of a dickhead I'll tell you why this email but just to good. So that's very much so yes, I can tell you how this works is it's got that compound curiosity. And it uses. It uses some specificity in the 30 pounds thing. So it's exactly the amount amount of money but also, I decided to contrast it with the whole as in the whole should sound like a really big number. And I've made it a really small number. So I've used quite I've compounded quite a few techniques and this one I've actually forgotten I'd send this that's the beauty of email, isn't it so insurance payout the one that implies flippin hell, what what do you have to have insurance payout for well done for winning? How did you do that? Because most insurance companies try and wiggle out of that what had happened for us to get a payout and then the whole 30 pounds, the specificity of the 30 and then the whole is is the W H O L E as in the whole amount of 30 pounds. And so you've got a lot of things going on that compound curiosity and the insurance payout. The whole building it up and then the 30 pounds has specificity and it's bringing it down. So again, you could use that those techniques together in on their own, you know that you could have such a good social life would be the whole 30 pounds. What does that even mean? Who's 30 pounds? Why? Well, I put them together just to create this thing. I'm done. We got a damn good Openweight from it. So we're really, really happy about that. So that's this week's subject line of the week subject line of the week. I can see why you like doing that section of us a lovely sort of relaxing calm that comes with isn't it?

Because Thank you for listening to the whole show this week on the email marketing to make sure that you hit subscribe on your podcast player that way you don't have to remember to come and download it again next week. It'll just happen automatically. So join us next week for another great episode full of amazing stuff you can go and take an action and use

I love it if you want to find out more about all the stuff that all the campaign's that we've just been talking about inside the league, the same ones that April has been using it implementing you can go and check all that out at vert League membership.com The league membership.com If not, we'll see you all next week. Thanks