263 Why Email Beats YouTube for Course Sales

Alex Dunitz has built one of the top Italian language learning channels on YouTube. 266,000 subscribers, nearly 30 million views, a custom app with gamification, private lessons, group courses, books, webinars, trips to Italy. The whole thing.

And yet, when I sat down with him, the first thing that struck me was how much opportunity he was sitting on without fully realising it.

Alex is brilliant at what he does. His co-host Marta Cappellini spends around eight hours preparing a single ten-minute video. They have a genuine teaching philosophy, a real community, students who argue with them about lost points on the app. The product is genuinely good. But like so many course creators I talk to, the gap between what they've built and what they're earning is bigger than it needs to be.

We talk about how Passione Italiana grew from a local adult college side hustle into a global brand, why Marta was such a turning point for the channel, and what Alex calls the "euro drop" moment, his version of the penny dropping when a student finally gets it. We also get into the gamification system he's built on his website, including a points and ranking structure where students can rise from peasant all the way to emperor using Roman coins called Sesterzi. Genuinely fun stuff.

Then I put on my consultant hat for a bit and we have an honest conversation about funnels, email lists, and why pointing YouTube viewers at every product at once might be the thing holding the revenue back. Alex takes it well. Better than well, actually.

I think you'll enjoy this one.

Check out Alex's work:
🌐 https://www.passione-italiana.com/
📸 https://www.instagram.com/passioneitaliana.official/
▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@UC8gGkW17A_kbDCVNGvzGMrw

Transcript

The Packaging And Email Fear

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We know we got a good product, we just don't know how to package it well. We're also very scared of sending too many emails because we don't want to disturb people, build it and they shall come.

SPEAKER_02 0:09

It's not the place that it's easiest to actually then make a sale from. But email is. The email list is where you can make the most sales from. I think you've got a massive opportunity, revenue-wise, than you are currently aware

Welcome And Alex’s Business Story

SPEAKER_02 0:22

of. Hello and welcome to the art of selling online courses. We're here to share winning strategies and secret hacks from top performers in the online course industry. My name is John Aidsworth, and today's guest is Alex Dunnett. Now, Alex is the founder and director of Passione Italiana. It's one of the largest Italian language learning brands on YouTube. Who's educated in both the British private and the Italian state school system, so he's got a proper bilingual upbringing. He went on to co-author the book England versus Italy, comparing life and language with France. Otimski. And he's been teaching Italian to adults in the UK since 2004. So, first of all, privately through a local adult college. And then in 2011, he formalised that into Passione Italiana. So originally it was a side hustle delivering bilingual talks in East London. Business hit a different gear when his colleague Marta Cappellini joined him on YouTube, and Marta hosts most of the videos, switches between full speed Italian and then clear English explanations, and the chemistry between her and Alex has built one of the largest Italian learning channels online. The channel now has 266,000 subscribers, more than 700 videos, nearly 30 million total views, and they've layered on top of that a custom mobile app with a gamification system, group lessons, private coaching, webinars, trips to Italy, and a catalogue of reference books on Amazon. Alex has taken a love of language and a teaching gig at the local college and turned them into a global brand with a YouTube audience, an app, and a worldwide community of paying students. Exactly the kind of journey that I know so many of you are on right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Alex, welcome to the show. Oh, thank you, John. Thank you. I could not have said it any better, and thank you for bigging us up like that. It's amazing.

Who They Teach And At What Level

SPEAKER_02 1:57

So talk us through it. Who is it you're helping with your courses? Is it is it English-speaking people who want to learn Italian? Is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Yeah, yes. Umly yes, because then with English, with Marta and myself, the bridging language can be English. So we tend to speak uh solely Italian, even with beginners. We try to expose them to as much Italian as possible. That's kind of our sort of um modus operandi, if you will. Uh we do like to sort of give as much as we can in Italian, simplifying the language, of course, not to scare anybody off. Um, but then they they soon realize that that's the best way to learn, obviously, just to receive as much language as possible. And if they're English speakers from uh wherever in the world, then yes, English can be used where wherever we hit any sort of hiccups, let's say. Um, but we do have um students from literally all over the world uh privately and for group courses. But yes, the the sort of the lingua franca, you know, tends to be English, yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

And what what levels are you helping people kind of from and to? Are you are you working all the way from beginners or do people need to know some Italian before they get started?

SPEAKER_00 3:05

That's a very good question. Beginners to advanced, but yes, uh sort of I would say in the last sort of couple of years, not because we wanted to, but just so happened that we kind of specialized in higher level sort of learning learners. Beginners and elementary levels, we have very few courses for them, and maybe some a couple of private students, yes, but um I don't know if it's a trend, I don't know if things are changing in the world of language learning, I don't know if it's a thing specific to Italian, but it seems like people who are absolute beginners don't fancy being in a course with other people, uh, and so they tend and I understand it, obviously, because maybe there's you know, and especially with English speakers, maybe there can be sort of a cultural difficulty there where they they feel maybe under pressure, they feel embarrassed, they don't want to, you know, um say the wrong thing and be exposed in front of other people and show weaknesses. So I I totally get it. It's just so that it happens that sort of the business evolved this way. So when they're absolute beginners, they tend to do uh and be happy with a private lesson, no problem at all, because they they feel safe in that. Whereas instead, uh sort of the group courses are more like I would say uh B1, B2, so inter intermediate level and post-intermediate level and above. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

Okay, interesting.

Why Marta’s Teaching Clicks On YouTube

SPEAKER_02 4:29

And I know that you'd said before that one of the inflection points was when Marta joined you on YouTube. What was different about how she taught that made it land with viewers, or like why did that work so well?

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Well, I must say Marta puts uh the passione in Passion Italiana. She really does. I mean, I love no no, but I love my language, I love English too, because I consider them both my first languages. Um I I really love them and I love the links between the languages. I love my culture too, of course. But Marta is something else, you know. I'm I'm sure you've seen her videos, and you know, just the way she comes across, the way she's explain she explains things, and the care and effort that goes into preparing the videos. I mean, we're looking at on average eight hours to prepare a 10-minute video, and it shows, it shows with all the special effects, animations, and the thought process that goes behind all of that, it's obviously noticeable, um, it does come across you can see it, and it I think it's just this um uh yeah, just this passion she has is kind of infectious, you know, and then students really think, Oh, I got it now, it does make sense now. Now that she's explained it, it really does make sense. And again, with the sort of uh catering for our learners, for the beginners, uh the beginners' levels, the elementary levels, she does use English too, whereas instead of the higher levels it's just Italian. And again, sort of we we remove scaffolding, we remove support as so as we go up the levels, obviously, as you do, um to sort of push the learners and challenge them in in in a positive way, but she has a very unique way of uh presenting the language, new concepts, difficult concepts as well, and the culture comes through too. She is very Italian, you know, when she when she presents, and uh and it's yeah, it works, it absolutely works.

SPEAKER_02 6:28

I've watched some of her videos, I can attest, dear listener, she's very Italian. Yes. It was funny, right? So I was out in Portugal one one winter, so I I uh I sometimes spend the winters abroad, and uh I was in a little town in the Algarve called Oleo, and one of the things I kind of I hadn't really registered it, but Portuguese people are quite quiet when they talk and they're not that animated, and I just got used to it, and then one day I'm walking along the dock and I see this guy and he's he's waving his arms around and he's like talking loudly, and I'm like, that's quite strange for a Portuguese guy. It's almost like like like he's Italian, and I get a little bit closer when I can hear him, and it's like, oh yeah, he's Italian.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Yeah, this is so expressive. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We can't help it. It's genetic, we can't help it.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

It's uh yeah, it's a condition.

The Euro Drop And Better Learning Design

SPEAKER_02 7:20

One thing I think if I got it right, you've talked about is the the euro drop, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Yes, yes, yes, yes. So it's just something, it's just something silly, but I it's kind of um what I like to say to my my students, and it's it it kind of became, I don't know, like a little mantra for me, something that I say quite often. Instead of saying like when when um it's brilliant as a professional, as a professional teacher, qualified teacher, looking after your students, and especially I'm talking, I'm I I know you said it, but I just want to make sure people understand these are only adults, we don't do sort of teaching to children, yes, we specialized in adult learning. And when you nurture and look after an adult who has, you know, their their own experience and their own difficulties, and maybe they had difficulties with learning English, and they have no idea what a noun and an adjective are, and things like that. So you really have to look after them and really sort of take care of them, and then you explain something, yeah. No, I still don't get it, or forgotten it. Oh, sorry, Alex, what was that again? And then you explain it again, then you find different ways of explaining it, and then finally they get it, and they have this eureka moment when they get it, and I call it, you know, instead of saying, Oh, the the penny dropped, you know, the euro drops, because of course I want to Italianize, I want to Italianise that, yes, yes, yes. I appropriated the the sentence, the phrase, let's say. So it's just the euro drop moment, and I love it, and I love to see that, you know, when people actually think, oh yes, oh thanks, Alex, yes, I get it now, and it's beautiful to see, it's magical.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

What have you found in terms of like how do you take the stuff that you learn when you're doing something one-on-one and you you kind of have to try six different ways or whatever it is to get the euro to drop? How are you then connecting that into like your app or your courses to kind of like uh uh share, make sure that whoever's watching the course when you're not there live with them can get that? What's how do you how do you kind of make that work together?

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Oh, that's a that's a good question. I think yes, with teaching one-on-one, I make it my mission, and Marta does too, of course, make it my duty and my responsibility to uh explain something in a different way. If I explain it in this way for ten people and it works, it doesn't mean that for person number eleven it will work again. But it's not number eleven's fault. It's it's my fault in inverted commas. I am the professional, I need to find ways to sort of paraphrase, to maybe use more visuals or more audio. It just depends obviously on what the topic is and stuff. So this is easy on a one one-to-one, as you say, and to replicate it with the app, I guess it's uh uh just uh repetition helps a lot, you know. So just reinforcing and repeating various concepts with thousands of exercises that we have in the app. And I think the with the app we've got kind of different sub-platforms. So we've got the main section with the video courses, so all the videos that you find on YouTube are also available in the app. And and you could say, hold on a minute, but they're free on YouTube, why should I pay a subscription app for them? Well, because for every video that I make and that Marta makes, including shorts, we also have four, five, six, ten video um exercises, beg your pardon, that go with that uh video. So you watch the video and then you can um complete the exercises which get progressively harder. There's another section instead about culture, there's a section on grammar, and then there's a this cross-pollination between the platforms because you can do an exercise without watching a video, and then if you get it wrong, the app will say, Well, why don't you go back to watch Marta's video? You know, and then so it cross-pollinates in a way. It sends you back to watch Marta's video, you revise um you revise your articles, for example, and then you can do the exercises again. And I think that uh works, but you're right, it's difficult because of course uh there is no human being guiding you, it's just what we plonk in an app, and then people have to kind of get on with it. Yeah, you're you're right.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

Yeah, because I find that I so I when I started teaching people um how to build uh do email marketing and funnels for for course creators, I'd done it for them for years. I and my team had like done the work building it for people. And so that's straightforward. But when you're teaching it to somebody, it's quite different. So then I started doing that, I started uh coaching people one-on-one. And then I started doing group coaching sessions. But even in group coaching, you could you still can go, oh, two of the three or or five of the six people have got it, the sixth one hasn't. Let me explain it a different way, a different way until but then when you're putting it into the course, you've got this decision to make, haven't you? Like, do I include the the the one way or the two or three that are the most understood by people? Or do I try and cover everything, but then it potentially makes the course really long? And it's I find that's kind of tricky. Um it's a balance, right? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

No, no, that's a very valid point. And actually, when we're talking about uh group courses, another massive asset that you have in a group course uh, whether online or uh face-to-face, is the other learners. So then if if one doesn't get it, you can actually then ask, you know, news the other students to see if they can t uh teach, they can explain, they can, you know, and um and that that works really well as well. But of course, in an app or a course that you just sell online and people download, you don't have that. You and yes, you have uh uh tough decisions to make when when um creating all that content. Yeah,

Products, Pricing Mix, And What Pays

SPEAKER_00 12:49

absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 12:49

Are you selling any of those courses outside of the app, or do people, if they want to get the app, sorry, if they want to get access to a course, they need to go through the the app to get to it?

SPEAKER_00 12:59

No, they they kind of work independently. Uh we uh so the big funnel, let's say, uh the starting point for anybody sort of where they land on usually is our YouTube uh sort of channel. Uh that's doing, as you said, it's doing really well, and we're very lucky thanks to Marta. And and then people decide that from where, oh, I'm just happy here, or oh no, I really like them. Maybe a course, maybe private lesson, maybe an app, maybe a book. And um the they kind of work independently because people want different things. But we have had in the past uh people doing a course and the app and a private lesson all at once, you know. It depends also on their needs, on their financial situation, of course, because private lessons can be you know not cheap, let's say. Um so yeah, that there there is all of that. And but we have also tried um uh giving sort of special offers. If you do a course with us, then you get a discount on the app. And we tried also making them work together, and the offers are there, you know, for people if they want them, but um there is no sort of setway in which people come to us and then interact with us and continue interacting with us. It's very fluid, I would say.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

And what what's the kind of the breakdown in terms of like revenue within the business? What what percentage comes from private lessons, what percentage comes from the app, what percentages from courses, etc.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

Right, for us at the moment, so we've got income from YouTube, because obviously from the the channel that makes us uh a bit of cash. Uh then we've got the app, which which is on a subscription and people can pay monthly or yearly, uh, and then we've got private lessons and the courses, and then private lessons that we um give to our teachers to a pro to our uh the pool of teachers, let's say. So we've we've got a few streams. I would say that the bulk of it for now is the private lessons, yeah. So because they they pay so well comparatively to other things per hour, I think that's that has to be our sort of bread and butter. So the base of what we do is the private students, which again we gained thanks to the funnel, thanks to YouTube, of course. Um, and then all the other things sort of uh tag along and the kind of nice little extras that we get every month.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

Okay, and how many uh private students have you got?

SPEAKER_00 15:18

So we got about 40, myself and Marta, we got about 40 now per week.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

Okay, well each or between you.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

No, no, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No rest, no rest for the weekend. That's a lot. Yeah, but you know, I've got mouths to feed. No, but then also look, it's I'm very flexible. As I told you before we started, you know, I'm very flexible. I was very fortunate with uh being able to plan and schedule my students, and Marta's the same. She's got family too, she's got two kids. You know, it's um we we were very fortunate, but you know, not not not every week you have all the students. You know, some people go off on holiday, some students want once a month, some students want once every fortnight, so it's very fluid, very flexible. Um yeah, so yeah, so yeah, but we we do teach a lot, but we love it. We love it.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

That's awesome.

Gamification With WordPress And GamiPress

SPEAKER_02 16:10

One of the things that you uh I've have got working that I want to learn more about is the GamePress piece. Have I said that right? Can you talk us through that?

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Yeah, so the platform that we use so the for the you for the um uh website is WordPress. So we use WordPress, which is super common, you know, in website build-in, and that's got different plugins that you can add on with that with different functions. If you want certain functions, you download a free all-paid plugin. Um so one of the things I've done, well, one of the things I've done is Gamipress, which I'll talk to you about in a second, and another thing I've done is actually I created my own plugin because I wanted certain uh features that the that the website give to give to the to the students and uh and to users. And actually, I designed that myself. So if people somebody comes to the website and I don't know, does an online test, for example, which is totally free, they can test their Italian, they get the results immediately. After a day on a schedule, they receive an email. Oh, by the way, congratulations for doing the test. Do you want to do a course with us? Do you want to the app? Do you want to so I've designed all of that, and thanks, not I'm not a programmer, as you know, I'm not a programmer, but with AI, it's super, super easy. You you do encounter hiccups and and problems along the way, but it it's kind of straightforward, you know, what you can do, and um so yeah, so that that's that's my way of making sure that I do everything myself. I don't have to pay somebody else, so that's a saving. I love the challenge, and uh I think it's super interesting too. But again, I can just design the website the way I want it without paying thousands and thousands of pounds. So for Gamipress, it's uh a plug-in on WordPress. I had I had never heard of it before, but I found it uh recently, only recently, and basically it transforms your website into a game. So uh you create a system with uh medals, with rewards, with achievements, with ranks, and people uh can get all sorts of rewards uh by interacting with the website. So that of course incentivizes them to interact with the website. So if you want them to, I don't know, download a paid webinar and then they can get some points for that, and they get a medal for that. If they if uh you want them to read a specific blog that you've written, then they can get you know points for that. I I gave them a ma I give them a medal also for reading the T's and Cs because not everybody, well, pretty much nobody reads them, but if you do, you get a prize, you know, and then again you make sure that somebody at least opens up the page. I can I can then direct them to the online store that we have that we we sell some merchandise, you know, t-shirts, mugs, things like that. So if they click on that, they get points for that. And the beauty is that it really does um give them an incentive and they really want to uh you know participate and take part and you know, maybe write a comment by not only one webinar, but five webinars, because then they get more points, of course. They get little medals that I designed on Canva, and um it seems to work, and then the ranking, and then people are incredibly competitive. You have no idea. They're so competitive. We see it on the app. Oh my god, it's unbelievable because we've got this similar point system with ranking and you know, uh weekly, uh weekly points, daily points, weekly points, and they get like daily streaks. So every time they use the app for a day, they get obviously, and and if they don't use the app, they lose their streak. Oh my god, the conversations I've had to have with some students because they oh, but I actually used it, where are my points? What's happened here? And they're so competitive, it's brilliant. So Gamipress, yes, is a fantastic idea if you want to uh make your website fun. It's all in the background and it's quite a heavy plug-in, to be fair, because it's a lot, it's very involved, but the the end result in the front end for your users is absolutely brilliant. And for me, for example, just to give people ideas out there, I'm using cisterzi, and sisterzi used to be the old Roman coins in the Roman Empire. So I'm not using Euros or I'm not using you know coins, just so banal. I'm using Sisterzi, and then the ranks are uh, I don't know, uh peasant, uh consulate, uh senator, emperor, you know, and then they go up the levels, and it's it's brilliant because they yeah, as I said, they love it, they love it. And it's you know, for now they only get the points and the prestige, yeah, but then you can translate that into well, you got a thousand points, get a webinar for free. You know, so I'm not I'm not there yet, because like I said, I only started a few weeks ago, but uh it's working and I'm working my way towards giving them proper rewards now. So yeah, fingers crossed.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

That's ridiculous.

From YouTube To Website And Community

SPEAKER_02 21:03

Yeah. Talk me through the the the funnel that you've got running because you mentioned that YouTube's your top traffic source, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:09

100%.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

What happens next? Where are you pointing people to? Are you linking to all of the offers or do you focus on one of them as the first step? Do you focus on trying to get them to a lead magnet to get an email list? What's what's the the order of things?

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Rayo, that's a good question. We have thought about this a lot and things have evolved a lot over the years. Unfortunately, right now I don't have a I can't give you a straight answer because we do point them towards our business. I I would say that the first thing they would do when they reach the YouTube channel and they they they they decide to leave YouTube because a lot of many people out of what 260 odd thousand people, a lot of them stay on YouTube. The majority, of course, stay on YouTube. And others instead, if they're interested, I guess they would come to the website and then have a look at what we do, and everything is clearly laid out. So, as I said, webinars, books, uh uh. classes, in private lessons. And I if I guess yeah that that would be sort of the the starting point from YouTube would be the website. And then because they have their needs, they they know what they want and they sometimes know what they what they want and sometimes know what they need I would say. And and then yeah if they get in touch we can put them on the newsletter. That's another powerful tool that we are again refining all the time because for example we used to send one newsletter a month and now it's in it's bi-monthly so we we we're really developing that element and I think all of it for us is always about creating a community a sense of community so we use the community tab in YouTube which is available now if you're a channel over a certain number of subscribers you get a YouTube um a community tab and so you can post there the same things that you can post on Facebook and Instagram but uh yeah developing that sense of community and people that really think they're part of a family. Once they come on the website uh yeah the newsletter I think and then they can get special offers they can get the information on what we do but not only because to give value for money we just send out emails about you know what's going on in Italy famous historical dates and uh you know things that and without asking any money it's just information that we give you because we love our country and we know you love our country too and so we want to give you as much information on that country that we can yes of course we're a business but we do worry about value for money uh the same way we want to grow the YouTube channel constantly but we are just simply doing what we love

Why Lead Magnets Beat More Links

SPEAKER_00 23:44

doing.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

We're not focused on oh let me let's make this video because that's gonna make a lot of views we're not interested well of course we are interested but it's not our primary driver yeah yeah our primary driver especially for Marta for example is building that course so every video she puts on YouTube is numbered and divided into levels and so she was worried about the next um video of that series and if it attracts a lot of views great if it doesn't okay met better luck next time kind of thing I don't know if that answered your question though well I think it I think it does it sounds like what you're doing at the moment is there's a lot of options you've got right you've got a lot of products you've created you've got private lessons you've got group lessons you've got the app you've got courses you've got uh books and and you're pointing people and telling them these are all the options that are available is it alright if I put on my my like uh consultant hat and give you some suggestions okay so I think that if you well I'm I'm I'm almost certain that if instead of pointing to all those different options you are really really focused on lead magnets and building up your email list and then using the email list to promote all the different things then you could grow your revenue like dramatically like so this is this is what I've seen with basically everybody in the course uh space courses group coaching private lessons all the all of this combined is that the email list is where you can make the most sales from so even though YouTube someone goes on YouTube and they watch a load of your content and they learn to love you it's not the place that it's easiest to actually then make a sale from but email is so the the structure is YouTube through to lead magnet get them on the email list and then focus on making any sales there. And there's a few reasons why I I don't I don't know that even that my like even after doing this for many years that I fully understand why email is so much better. But there's a few things that I do know one is you can control when the messages go out. So you can on someone goes on YouTube, you don't know when they're gonna see the video you don't know when they're gonna see the link you don't have like any control over whether what message they're gonna see tomorrow or the next day or the day after that. There's no like combined linking between different messages. Whereas email you do have. Now you've not you've not got a guarantee they'll actually read the email but you've got a like let's say you've got a 30% open rate right that gives you a good chance or a good a good number of people are going to see it. And so you can with email you can uh choose a a a topic a product uh private lessons group coaching the app whatever you want to do and have a series of emails that go out that get people into the right mindset around that get them thinking about the problem that they have get them thinking about why they need to solve that problem and then make them an offer and then have that offer available you know let's say a discount if you sign up now that only lasts for a few days so you get the chance to have urgency. Whereas on YouTube you don't have that right because you need that link whatever's there somebody might see it today somebody might see it in a month somebody might see it in a year so you can't have an urgency that goes with that. But with email you can do. And also it seems to build up more of a personal relationship with people when it's from email because they're hearing from you so often. Now at the moment you're hearing from you like uh once every couple of weeks but if you increase that then you manage to build up more rapport people are more bought into like your world your philosophy your way of doing things and then you can make an offer that fits with that and they can kind of understand how the two of those fit together like oh I get why you're doing it this way and why you think that's going to help me learn Italian the fastest. And then you're offering me something that actually helps me to do that. So I give you I'll give you a couple of numbers just to give you to try and bring this to life I've not asked you about your revenue but um but there's a a guy a friend of mine called Jack Jack Kowalski he runs banjo skills he was let me find the for anyone listening I'm gonna find the uh episode number he came on the podcast a while ago and he's got a um Jack Kowalski okay I can't find that one straight off let's see if I can uh I'll figure that one out later so he's got a much smaller YouTube channel than you and he's not in like a high ticket making money online business niche or anything like that he's teaching banjo it's just a hobby right and he's got about 3000 subscribers I think something like that and he's getting maybe 30 to 5000 views a month ballpark so much smaller than you and uh I helped him he's now up to doing $10,000 a month from that channel. And so if you look at how much bigger you are you said I'm not making millions I think you maybe should be like I I don't want to like overpromise or anything like that but it's like I'd I'd need to dig into it and look at all of your numbers and kind of make sense of it. And the language the language space does tend to make a little bit less per subscriber than the music space. It's not it's not exactly comparable. But yeah there's a lot of people who we're we're helped in the language space who have got like similar ish audience sizes to you who are doing certainly high six figures a year in revenue and who are doing a lot through the courses which then means obviously you don't have the delivery of of one-to-one lessons on the other side of it. And I I think that the crucial thing that's missing well two things. One is using YouTube to first of all grow the email list and make that much bigger and secondly use the email list to make sales to people. So we can chat we can chat after the this episode and I'll I'll connect you with Josip if you want me to he's like the head of funnel strategy. He's he's more in the weeds with this he's doing this every day with clients he's like far better than I am at actually doing this nowadays. And and he'd be able to like dig into it properly and help you figure out is that right? Am I am I overpromising like where exactly what is possible what would you need to do that kind of thing. But I think that this is like I think you've got a massive a much bigger opportunity revenue wise than you are currently aware of it seems like from what I've seen so far.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Okay. I'm just worried because the um yeah obviously we would love more revenue who doesn't obviously Italian seems to be very niche uh very niche and it's also a very competitive market. There are some I think we're in the top ten um YouTube channels uh for Italian uh we're we're in the top five actually and the top four are uh you know with us are uh big and they are you know um what I'm trying to say I don't know what I'm trying to say but maybe it's something like um we are all sh we are all fishing in the same pond kind of thing and it's a very small pond because even the the biggest channel I think has got four uh half a million think close to half a million so it's a lot more than we do have but um we're not talking about you know seven million ten million fifty million you're not talking those figures that worries me slightly but anything that we can do yes to obviously um do what we do better absolutely because then if uh you know um more money more resources we can help more people absolutely it makes perfect sense yeah yeah we're working with um do you know Stefano I'm gonna say this last name wrong Chiarmonte Teacher Stefano is he is he teacher Stefano is he or yeah that's Italian right yeah yeah yeah teacher Stefano so we're working with him so we know we kind of got some real experience in like not just we do a lot with language course creators but specifically with Italian like we're we're able to we kind of know what's working.

SPEAKER_02 31:48

Right brilliant and Yosip's the person uh I'll connect you with and he'll be able to tell you uh John is John exaggerating is he accurate like where exactly are the numbers for the it for the exact for the Italian market so that you kind of know what's doable. But what I do know like even if I don't know if uh it maybe the numbers are slightly off but I do know you could make a lot more revenue from looking at what you looking at what you're doing and what stuff you've got in place and how good all your products are and ever all that the different range of products you've got yeah I know that you could increase revenue a lot.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

So good news thank you thank you no and it's great to know that you know you you believe in us and you believe in because we do we we know we have good products and I think yeah um the one one of our problems is that we don't sell ourselves very well you know I I I know that for a fact because uh yeah we just don't do that very often and we just hope yeah we do something uh well and hopefully people will then come you know build it and they shall come but uh it's yeah we we need to encourage people more I think and we need to get more out there we're also very scared of sending too many emails because we don't we don't want to disturb people but you know it's just yeah uh yeah it's maybe silly I don't know yes this is this is you and all other course creators this is like this is not a this is not anything to be I don't know uh embarrassed about or anything like that it's like this is this is normal for people who are who are running YouTube channels and

Selling Without Feeling Spammy

SPEAKER_00 33:17

selling courses.

SPEAKER_02 33:17

So I can I can I'm gonna uh put on my my therapy hat for a minute and just be like so here's so the reason that I work in this niche and help course creators who've got big YouTube channels mostly is because people like you tend to be very focused on like how do we deliver an amazing product and you've built up a big audience so there's all this potential but the fear that everybody has not just you is if I if I sell too much then I will be seen as spammy and salesy and uh I will be seen as selling out and it'll people won't like me and it won't help me to achieve the mission that I'm trying to achieve which is helping people. And people worry that they're gonna sell send out these emails and everyone's going to unsubscribe and think that they're you know bad people and and uh not you know and and they it won't they won't like the experience of what they're doing. But the good news is there are ways of doing all of these things that are uh will feel good to you and feel good to your audience as well. So um Jack that I mentioned before I helped him actually to uh write one of his recent campaigns um and he made double the sales that he previously had made and got a lower unsubscribe rate because the the tr there are tricks or or techniques to writing email promotions that will make you sales and that the audience likes. So it achieves both things at the same time. It's not easy but it is doable. And and what that means is that you can keep your your your ethics your morals or your focus on helping people and also make more sales and make more money. And the great benefit and there's a there's a wonderful episode that I refer to quite often that I did uh with Ashley Young that I'm gonna try and find oh by the way it was episode 172 for everybody who wanted to hear the episode with Jack before I'd interviewed him when he was doing maybe 5,000 a month. So Ashley is uh a course creator I think she's teaching piano and she um did a lot of work on learning all about marketing and doing self-development and um understanding where her blockages and barriers were to sending more promotions and then how to do it better. And she gives an impassioned plea in episode 220 about why it's really important to grow that email list, to do the email promotions, to make sales and how you can do that in a way that is also in line with your what you're trying to achieve and how actually it achieves it more because then you get more people to buy the courses and therefore you help more people to actually achieve the outcome that they really want. That's only so far you can get with YouTube. Anyone who uh who's got that same kind of blockage try out episode 220. I think Ashley does a better job than me about kind of explaining that. But yeah no I just I won't go into like tons of details about exactly how that's doable right now but but I just want you to know that it is possible to to do it in a way that people will like getting the emails and it will make sales and it will help more people. It's like it's a I know that's a bit of a mindset shift for a lot of people in the course creator space. How does that me saying that do you hear me and go like eh don't know if I really believe you or are you like okay that's really good like what's how do you feel? Because I'm guessing a lot of the listeners will kind of feel the same way.

SPEAKER_00 36:38

No I think I think the I think you're right. I think we have tried different strategies over the years and and also asking you know different people for help um maybe we haven't found the right person yet and and and then we tend to do a lot of things ourselves but then we we we know we got a good product we just don't know how to package it well right so that's that's the issue. I totally understand what you're saying. I appreciate what you're saying also and thank you for it because it means that you as as well as we believe in what we do which is great and yes the email I guess there is a worry that you know you you you come across a spammy and stuff definitely we have that worry because in fact it was very difficult for us uh only very recently to go from one email a month to two a month right yeah and it was very difficult for us because of course you have to find the time to and the energy to draft the content and check it and think what to put in it and but we we're doing some clever things like maybe we started doing quizzes inside the actual newsletter and just again or you refer from one newsletter on ice creams you refer to a blog that you've written or to a video you've done you know and you try and do that too and I totally understand how email feels personal so the moment you put in the little tags and you say ciao Alex ciao John ciao it's not you addressing hundreds of thousands of people on YouTube you're addressing them specifically it's coming into their inbox and you can give them something that can feel special so what you say totally makes sense I guess we we need to figure out how to do it.

Resources For Funnels And List Growth

SPEAKER_02 38:18

Yes. Yeah yeah yeah so I want to point people to a couple of resources on these topics uh episode 251 is about how to turn YouTube viewers into email subscribers and then episode 242 from 100,000 to a million subscribers with one free YouTube course and that's going to explain some more stuff about lead magnets and then I've got a couple of uh free resources as well as the podcast episodes about this topic so episode oh sorry um the complete lead magnet guide and double your email list guide and both of those you can download from datadrivenmarketing.co slash resources so hopefully those are useful um if you have quite if you're listening and you're like well I've also got more questions or I want to get some more some more tips about this just drop me an email john at datadrivenmarketing.co and I'll try and get back to you about that personally as

Vision For Passive Income And Affiliates

SPEAKER_02 39:14

well. Okay so what's the vision for you? Where do you want to be with the business like maybe in 12 months time?

SPEAKER_00 39:22

We are trying to um I don't know if uh uh no we haven't mentioned it sorry I'm I'm 50 this year so I'm looking great oh bless you I'm 50 in December it's a long way away long way away but yeah I'm 50 this year and I am definitely looking at Passione Italiana as sh sh Passione Italiana is my little baby and I'm definitely putting all my energy into building the passive income sort of route revenue streams so books and the app are passive income now passive in inverted commas because of course uh no no the books okay once you write them pretty much you can put them out there and then you just market them but the app is constant work you know correcting there's an issue there's a and I you know have to have weekly meetings with the you know the programmer and you know thinking about the content putting every video every week you know it's it's it's work but then it's passive ish income so because once it's there then it kind of goes you know by itself and then people pay every month or pay every year to uh for the benefit of being able to access this uh this app so definitely uh building more people on the uh with passive income on the app uh you know through the app is definitely my priority and I can do that for example we've got our app for our own videos and so with uh so like I said um we we take our YouTube videos we put them in the app and we uh we create bespoke uh exercises for those there's AI that you can use there's a section on AI that you can use to chat with and you know answer your questions on Italian language and culture and then we've got also other exercises for grammar and culture as well and uh with the gamification uh element because of course we know it's super important to people you know to you know to uh have their ranks and have their points and you know god forbid we touch those but what we can do is take that app and go to so we're building affiliate programs so we are we go to schools and we uh we tell the schools well listen um do you want to advertise our app to your students we know you don't have an app you have brilliant courses face to face which we don't do we only do online so we're not you know competing you don't have an app we do and what we can do is we can offer a percentage of a sort of discount you know to your learners and also get you know you're an affiliate program and you can sell the app for us they get a dedicated dashboard where to so they can see how many people you know they're they're they're um enrolling and obviously how how many we're keeping and they have access to the app of course so they can navigate that and you know see what the product is actually like and then another thing that we could do is go to uh other YouTube channels that we've mentioned earlier for Italian saying listen we could do this but for your channel so you've got these videos brilliant videos you are an influencer in your niche like us why don't you put your videos instead of ours and you if you want our exercises we can give you those uh for for a charge of course or if you want to create your own we can tell you how to do that and give you access to the back end of the app so there's that that we are uh currently doing and building if that works John then you know we could talk about the Maldives next and we can you know be sipping cocktails yeah but that's that's sending to barley to the Maldives yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah sounds nice yeah I've never been to the Maldives I have a couple of friends who went recently and they were raving about it so uh I just did a a week out in um this was Bliss I did a week in a villa in Mexico in a little town called uh little area called Puerto Escondido and it was it was on the beach with a private swimming pool nobody else using the beach at all and uh private chef and it was just like oh so there was like four of us and they would just bring us breakfast lunch and dinner without us having to think I don't think I've ever been so relaxed in my life that sounds shit John that's terrible that's terrible I don't envy you can't believe you can get this it's like the price in in doing that out in Mexico was I don't know if you'd be able to find anywhere in Europe that you could do it at a at a realistic price but out in Mexico that was just yeah totally reasonable price amazing brilliant would recommend to everybody brilliant Alex this has been fantastic I really really appreciate your time coming on today and sharing so much with us um if people want to go check out your YouTube channel or your site

Where To Find Passione Italiana

SPEAKER_00 44:04

where should they go? So it's a passione-italiana dot com that's the that's the main website um so yeah it's all written in English the when you land on the website it's in English you can translate it into Italian if you want we've got that facility uh but the the main site for SEO is is built in English for English speakers and um yes and the channel is at Passione Italiana so the YouTube channel is the handle is at Passione Italiana. So if you want to go and check it out absolutely just remember that if you watch a video we do need you to click a like that would be amazing.

SPEAKER_02 44:40

Alex thanks so much again for coming on I really appreciate it and for your support and your suggestions.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

Really really really appreciate it. Thank you.