How Brad 10x'd His Ad Spend In One Month - A Case Study

Can email marketing help you get a crazy ROI in advertising? Brad Gouldemond - a member of The League - shows that you can. When Brad started his business, he invested in ads, he got a few thousand people to join his challenge (which he run and managed with email marketing), and the rest, as they say, is history!

Well, not really.

He made a lot of money.

That's the rest of the story. 

Wanna hear it? 

SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: 

(0:18) Join our FREE Facebook Group. 

(3:39) Check out our sponsor ZeroBounce. 

(5:27) Who is Brad Gouldemond?

(8:15) When did Brad introduce email marketing in his business?

(10:22) What was Brad's biggest barrier with email marketing when he first started?

(13:16) What did Brad's email marketing look like before he joined The League?

(15:36) How did things change for Brad when he joined The League?

(21:33) How does Brad feel about his email marketing now?

(23:32) What ONE thing had the biggest impact on Brad's email marketing?

(25:51) Does Brad feel like email marketing has taken over his life?

(32:09) Subject line of the week.

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Who is Brad Gouldemond?

At the time of our chat, Brad's been in business for about three years. A musician and a speaker, he started his business during Covid. Brad is now based in Nashville and mentors aspiring Christian artists and songwriters to learn how to write better songs. He gives them connections but also teaches them how to find great producers and release their music in a way that feels authentic to them. A lot of artists don't have the confidence to put themselves out there with their music and their songwriting, so Brad's membership helps with that.

This shows that if you're a coach or sell courses or a membership, you're not just helping people with information, tools, techniques, and strategies. You're also giving your audience the permission, inspiration, and desire to do what they want to do. And email marketing can help with that. 

If you want to connect with Brad, you can find him on Instagram or sign up for his FREE Christian Music Workshop.

When did Brad introduce email marketing in his business?

In March 2020, Brad launched his business without an email list. All he had was $5,000 (out of his retirement fund) that he put into Facebook ads. He ended up with a whopping 3,000 people joining his challenge, and that's when he started email marketing. Because he had to welcome them and communicate with them about the challenge.

After that, he soon created a page for his academy, decided how much to charge, and came up with a 5-day sales sequence. And he made TEN TIMES his ad spend back during that challenge - in one month! 

But what to do next? Brad could see the value of email marketing clear as day, but he had no idea how to get results intentionally, consistently, and predictably through it. 

What was Brad's biggest barrier with email marketing when he first started? 

The biggest challenge Brad had when he first got started is that he didn't know about email marketing at all. It'd worked really well for him when he first launched his business, but he felt he had no idea how to get the same results again.

At the time of starting up in business (during lockdown), ad costs were low. Brad leaned into that and got a crazy ROI on advertising! But how could he take his skills in communication and music and make them work consistently for his business by using email marketing?

The answer, Brad said, was to find people (just like us) who are good at what you want to learn (i.e. email marketing) and take their advice, which is what Brad eventually did...

What did Brad’s email marketing look like before he joined The League?

Before he joined The League, Brad’s emails were sporadic. He was running challenges three times a year and sending emails around those. But otherwise, he'd be ignoring his list for 3-4 months. And that's simply because he didn't know what to send them. As many business owners do, he was more focused on serving his paying clients (and making money) and didn't pay enough attention to nurturing people on his list. He just didn't know how to do it! 

So instead of sending automated email sequences, he'd create broadcast-type emails. He didn't know what worked or what to say, and he felt it was really hard for him to get the ball rolling with email marketing. At the time, Brad had an evergreen webinar he wanted to launch, but he just didn't know how to use email marketing to make that convert. Part of it was because of the (then) prohibitive cost of ads, but a big reason was down to Brad not being able to figure out his emails and copy. 

And that's where we come in... 

How did things change for Brad when he joined The League?

Brad found us through a web search while looking for email marketing advice to be able to create great sequences without hiring an expensive copywriter. He came across our webpage and noticed how we stand out – our copy shows personality, it’s interesting, and the branding is amazing (Brad’s words, not ours!). And Brad wanted his emails to have personality, too!

He had this specific idea of wanting to launch a flash sale sequence to convert more of the people who were coming into his world through webinar sign-ups. So when he realised we had a flash sale email campaign included in our membership The League (plus a bunch of other cool stuff), he decided to join. 

And, unsurprisingly, the first thing he did was to implement our flash sale campaign - the Paparazzi campaign. By that point, Brad had about 9-10k people on his list, so a good-sized list by all standards, but his audience wouldn't buy! Up until then, Brad had only been able to make about $100-$200 from the regular sales he ran to his list. And he didn't quite know what he was doing wrong. 

The amazing results Brad had by launching ONE campaign!

So what happened after Brad launched the Paparazzi campaign? After a few tweaks to it, he made an offer for his $47 membership and made $4,460 in four days! Plus, his open rates on those emails were incredible - sky-high compared to what he was used to. 

The campaign gave Brad awesome results because of the psychological stacking of our campaigns and because we only use what works! We have a lot of half-baked campaigns that we’re still testing in our own business, but until they’re proven and robust enough, we don’t include them in our membership. The email sequences we give to our members are watertight – we know they work! And remember that you’re always going to get better results by sending a ‘half-good email’ than never sending that perfect email! 

As Brad nicely put it, "Success always leaves clues", so it's about looking for people who are successful in what you want to learn and going and learning from them! That's exactly what he did when he made the decision to join The League. 

How does Brad feel about his email marketing now?

Brad definitely feels more confident now, and his confidence comes from taking action. Over time, and after noticing how some people got offended by a couple of his subject lines, Brad started tweaking his emails to suit his style and match his voice. Working with artists and songwriters, Brad finds his audience is sensitive, so he takes the working principles of our campaigns and tweaks them in a way that makes him feel confident. And when you see your open rates soar and the results come in, you build even more confidence!

With a proven plan or roadmap to follow and clear step-by-step instructions (just like Brad did when he joined The League), you build that confidence. And it's the same for Brad's clients - by following his guidance, they get the confidence to do what they do best.

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What ONE thing had the biggest impact on Brad’s email marketing?

Having email templates that he could tweak to put his heart and voice into was the biggest and most impactful thing for Brad. He'd tried using templates before, but that had never worked for him. Whereas our campaigns do work! Brad puts his own voice into them - he gives them a feeling of authenticity by adding a tad more gentleness to appeal to his creative and sensitive songwriters.

He’s still using the principles, the mindset, and the philosophies that we teach inside The League, but, at the same time, he also makes sure the emails feel authentic to his people.  

What’s next for Brad’s email marketing?

The next project on the cards for Brad is automating his webinar. He’s been doing live webinars for months now, and he’s starting to get burnt out. Plus, he wants to be able to take a break! And that’s why email marketing is so important. Because it helps with time and energy management.

Does Brad feel like email marketing has taken over his life?

Email marketing is a priority for Brad because that's where his ROI is! You have to look at email marketing as an investment in your business - you do the work upfront, but then you've automated your processes for time to come. Email marketing gives you freedom, money, and peace of mind so you can focus your attention on other things.

As Brad put it, if you take care of the bread and butter of your business (and creating emails is the backbone of your business!), then you have more time to focus on something else. So you may need to invest some initial time in setting things up. But the time and money you spend creating your email engine and writing your emails will pay off - for weeks, months, and even years! We definitely have sequences in our business that we haven't changed for years because they're automated at the right frequency, and they just work!

So if you have a list but don't know how to use it or how to make money from it, you can learn. You can do it in a way that doesn't spam people, so you never have to worry about having them unsubscribe. If you're stuck in paralysis, you think you have a ‘small list’, or you’re just starting out with email marketing, you can do it! Brad went from no subscribers to making $50k in one month and he passed six figures within the first eight months. It's not just about the ROI on advertising - it's about how email marketing can enhance that exponentially.

So are you ready to get some awesome results too? Check out The League! 

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Subject line of the week

This week’s subject line is the word “APPALLING service.” This one works because people want to know about "the bad" more than they want to know about "the good". That's why newspaper headlines are always so negative. People want to read on to find out who got the appalling service, what it was, etc. It’s a subject line that generates lots of questions. So check it out!

Useful Episode Resources

Related episodes

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

How Sheila Went from the Starting Blocks to Total Clarity – an Email Marketing Case Study.

And How Kronda Adair Made $86,500 From A Small Email List.

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 one of our members got some crazy ROI on advertising when he first started out) 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!