Unknown 0:31

Hey, it's Rob and Kennedy. Hello

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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

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amazing. If you want to find out more about April and the stuff that she's been doing and all of that stuff and how you can apply this stuff to your business, make sure you come hang out in our free Facebook group it's called the Email Marketing Show community. It's on Facebook, it's totally free. There are 1000s of business owners just like us just like you just like April hanging out in there talking about email marketing every single day. It's a great place to get inspired, get question that questions answered and all of that good stuff. So just head to Facebook and search for the Email Marketing Show community and you'll be able to join it's totally free.

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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,

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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.

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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,

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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

I've been teaching reading for 30 years. That's what I graduated in from the university. I worked in the schools for a little while then I had my own private practice as a reading specialist. Then I got certified in dyslexia therapy in dyslexia testing, and I developed learn reading after probably 25 years of that experience of seeing what works and what doesn't work. So then I created my own curriculum just for the dyslexic and struggling learner about was in March of 2020 that I launched the programme. So

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