MK Feeney On How To Use Email Copywriting As A Force For Good

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MK Feeney: Hello? I’m well, how are you?

John McIntyre: Fantastic. It’s great to have you on the show.

MK Feeney: Oh, thank you, I’m honored to be on. I’ve been a long time listener, so this is a great moment.

John McIntyre: Great stuff. So before we sort of go back into the story, is there anything else you wanna mention, like what are some of the best things that’s going on right now? And we use that to set the stage before we sort of roll back into the past.

MK Feeney: What’s going on right now? Well, I mean, I’m still … I’m kind of in that mode of what’s next? Dealing with different schools and different political things, but we have very … I had a successful election last year, I also had a non successful election, but that’s okay. We really pushed the boundaries in our local community about social media and email marketing.
And the schools that I do work with, we did get that 17 grand in one day, which is a huge thing for them. So it’s kind of just pushing the boundaries of where email marketing and social media, where it works and where it doesn’t work in these fields, which for a lot of people they don’t … it’s never something that’s on the forefront of people’s minds. Like, “Oh, well, I guess there could be huge benefits for schools at least using these tactics.” So it’s always experimenting and especially with Facebook changing their algorithms every five seconds, it’s finding one of the other tools that we can use and email has been a key thing for a lot of these initiatives.

John McIntyre: It’s really cool ’cause I’ve been speaking a lot of people lately about how to get clients ’cause I’ve been doing a lot of webinars and everyone’s getting on and saying, “Well, how do I get clients? Why would anyone even pay for a email?” It’s especially when you’re new to the game, people think “Why would anyone pay for some …” And this is what I thought back when I was getting started, why would anyone pay money for this?
And then next step is, well businesses will pay for it, but what about schools or what about … you can say like the schools and political campaigns and things like that. And so, I think it’s just a great … it’s actually really inspiring, it’s interesting for me to see as well that you can take this stuff and really use it for anything.

MK Feeney: Yeah, it’s true and I’m finding with especially with fundraising for schools, email marketing is far more successful than on Facebook. I know just from experimenting, that if I make a post say on Facebook about, “Hey, we’re trying to raise X amount of money for such and such,” not everyone’s gonna see it and it might die a very slow and painful death. Even if you can keep plugging it, but if you do it through email and you plan out your emails and what your stories are, you’re gonna see far more return, because you are right in their email box, you’re gonna see a bigger return that way than you are through social media. That’s what I’ve seen today.

John McIntyre: Right, that’s fascinating, that’s so cool. Fascinating and also not that surprising as well, knowing what we know about email, right? So, cool, all right, well, let’s just step back a bit, I’d love to know a bit more ’cause we haven’t really spoken that much. We’ve had a few emails back and forth, and that was the community in the forum back then, but I’m curious to know a bit more about, before all of this, before you sort of found CopyHour and the McMasters and some of these courses, what was going on? Did you have any sort of marketing background? Did you have a job? Where were you at before all of this?

MK Feeney: I did have a job after I graduated from university in 2005. I begun working for the then Massachusetts Governor, Mitt Romney and I worked in his Constituents Services office as a writer. So basically I wrote like greeting letters and other ceremonial documents like proclamations that were declared, Breast Cancer Awareness month and stuff like that. I was kept on for the next governor, which was Governor Deval Patrick. And I spent the majority of my carrier, political career with him in which I continued doing writing and I did some constituent case work.
And from there about 2008, he got on Twitter, which if you think back on 2008, Twitter was like totally the Wild West at that time. He was one of the first politicians to get on and I started to monitor it from a constituent perspective. So, if someone had a problem with healthcare or something, then I could handle that, I eventually became his director of online media. And as I liked to joke, I played him on the internet, I was the person who tweeted as him, I would monitor it, I managed his website and just kept everything in his online world on message, and again pushing those boundaries of what is appropriate for a politician on the internet.
By the time I left, he was I believe the fifth most popular governor on Twitter and that’s behind other big politicians like Arnold Schwarzenegger and then Jerry Brown, Chris Christie, like all these ones that we know nationally. So, I thought that was pretty good that my guy from Massachusetts was up in the top 10.

John McIntyre: That’s amazing.

MK Feeney: So, that’s what I was doing.

John McIntyre: Interesting, okay so, basically doing writing, so still your background is very creative by the sound of it, you’ve been doing writing for a while.

MK Feeney: Yes.

John McIntyre: How did you get from that to discovering copywriting, like where did that transition happen?

MK Feeney: Well, it happened when I was in the governor’s office ’cause I’m trying to remember when CopyHour begun, but I was in the first round and there was … I’ve always been attracted to writing a majority … as in majority of my career has been writing based. When I was in university, I was Editor in Chief of the campus newspaper, so, that was not … this is not a big jump, but I knew that I needed to work on writing in the online space.
And what attracted me to CopyHour, was learning the tricks and how to write better headlines and leadlines, ’cause I knew especially from Twitter, when you only have 140 characters, how can I say the most in the brief space that I have? And that’s what attracted me to it, was just learning these different techniques and tricks and how to outline sales pages, because there is an element of … and people don’t think of it but you are selling things in politics, whether it’s an idea, a policy, a person and copy is very important to all of that.

John McIntyre: Right. So I’m curious, when in the … maybe it’s wasn’t really an issue, a lot of people become interested in copywriting because of the potential freedom they can have. Like the classic cliché of the … going to a little cubical and a dreary gray office with halogen lights and all that sort of stuff, like that’s a real think through. Was that part of your experience or where you just?

MK Feeney: Yes.

John McIntyre: It was okay.

MK Feeney: Yeah, that was the other thing. I mean, at the end of my government career, I was having other people come up to me and ask me for help or different things on the side and so I thought I did want to leave, embark on my own … start my own agency. So, that was very much part what I was looking for. It was a two fold thing, one I wanted to make my job easier and learn and work on my writing ’cause I’m constantly learning, constantly trying to figure out what are the trends. And then the second one was I knew eventually I was gonna go off on my own and I saw that this was a good way to get there.

John McIntyre: Right okay. So you’ve kind of said it was a bit premeditated in a sense that you had to let go or had that feeling of where you wanted to go, okay. So it’s interesting you mentioned CopyHour, ’cause I think CopyHour came … it was 2012 when I was in a four person mastermind with Derrick. Derrick’s the guy who set it up, right?
We were all sort of working on a little business type of thing, this is before I’d even started copywriting I think ’cause that was partly what got me into it. This little four person mastermind and Derrick came out with this idea he found from Gary Halbert of handwriting sales letters. And so we did together and then at the end he said, “Oh, I’m gonna set up this thing, I’m gonna call it CopyHour I think, and I’ll put it up online and we can get some people in there and we’ll see what happens.”
And so that was the first … it would have been around June, or July or I don’t know, somewhere like mid 2012 when he would have put that out at for the very first time. So you were in there on the first round?

MK Feeney: I was there in the first round and I would … before I’d go to work, I’d try to get some of it done or I would sit in my office during my lunch break and just write, just endless amounts of coffee and coffee, coffee and coffee too, just to learn it just every single day, just sitting there and writing it.
And in fact, the CopyHour is still going on and Derrick has opened it up to the people who’ve done it before, so I’m doing it again, I haven’t done it in years. So it’s kind of fun to just sit down for your 30, your class of 33 minutes writing out copy and just remembering things or looking at things differently. If anyone wants to learn copy is … people might be like, “Wait, you are just sitting here copying out something that someone’s already else written?” Yes, but you can learn so much, even for someone who’s been doing this for a while, I’m still learning.

John McIntyre: Right. I think you kind of forget things too, I haven’t actually done it in a while, but I know that if I ever sat down to do it, it’s … like even after you’ve been writing copy for two, three or four, I don’t know, maybe 10 or 20 years as well, it’s something that you kind of remember some stuff. You develop your own style and you get somethings done, the subtle little things that just fall through the cracks. So, when you go and do it again, and brings it all back, but totally whenever someone says, “How do I learn copy, I don’t know what to do, do I need to spend any money?” It’s like, “Not really, you need to work hard, but if you could do that, you don’t really need much at all to actually start learning.”

MK Feeney: No, you don’t and you can really find anything and there are sites that have these letters on them or if there’s somebody who you really like their work, you could sit down and copy it and there are a few books to read. I think it’s important to learn about persuasion and influence, which are two books to read that are important, but it’s not the barrier of … getting into this world is not really that high. Anyone can learn it, you just have to put in the work like anything.

John McIntyre: Right, absolutely. So if you were in the first one and ’cause I think that’s when I started copywriting as well, McMasters really didn’t probably come together for another year or two. So what happened between Copy Hour, like what did you … when did you quit your job at that stage? How did you even quit, what happened?

MK Feeney: No, I hadn’t quit. I left the governor’s office in … let me try to remember here, in February of 2013 and I went to go work for the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism, but I had left government by December 2013, I didn’t stay there long ’cause I was ready to go off and do my own thing. So I officially started Darkside Media, which is the company I have today in February 2014.

John McIntyre: Okay, so you quit your job and that was when you were officially freelance or?

MK Feeney: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I was yes, I had already actually started working for the school that I work for today, which is actually my former high school. I’d already started working for them and then started picking up some other projects as well, so right out of the gate, I was busy.

John McIntyre: Right interesting. All right, we’ll come back to that actually that whole with your clients … I’m curious where did … so, after that you mentioned, you did end up inside McMasters, which sort of started as a sort of four week copywriting master classes I suppose you call it, and then turned that into a membership community, there was a few other bonuses and as a forum, we could talk about stuff. Where did that fit in the picture for you, was that sometime that year?

MK Feeney: Probably yeah. ‘Cause I feel like I was early on that one too, I wanted to learn more about email ’cause what was the structure, what was different, how can I use that? Because I could see that was … I wasn’t really doing much email marketing until I’d say, within the last couple of years after McMasters, because I didn’t know how it was different. So, then once I went through McMasters and about storytelling, that kind of opened a whole new thought process for me though to.
Because so much of what I do or what I tell clients is a story, what is your story? And so if you could do that in different ways through email and so, that’s what I learned through McMasters and that was what I was hoping to get out of it, what was I missing and the email was it.

John McIntyre: Right, that’s really amazing thing too, is I think back when I was getting started, you think it’s just, “I just write anything,” you can just … if you are writing off like fancy bullets and headlines, you can sell anything, but then you realize like you can said, like stories and it’s really subtle like it’s not … beside you have stories being the way they sell stuff, it doesn’t mean you say, “Once upon a time, so and so happened to so and so.”
It can be as simple as saying, you’d wanna sell a car, you could talk about, “Oh, it’s got a 300 horsepower engine and leather seats and AC and a nice steer.” The sort of facts about what the car is or a really quick story would be like, “Hey, did you know Brad Pitt drove this car to his wedding or something?” Like one sentence would convey a whole picture, a whole … basically a mini story that someone’s gonna imagine in their when you tell them that.

MK Feeney: Right, one of the favorite emails that I have written was for the school that I worked for, and where I went and we were doing a Giving Tuesday and for anyone who doesn’t know what Giving Tuesday is, but it’s the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving here in America, after Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it’s a way to give to charities.
And we’ve been doing this for probably three years now. One of the years, I wrote this email about my father’s favorite story from my time in high school. Now this high school is an all girls school, just outside of Boston and we have this thing where we are teaching young women to be confident, competent young women. And so I wrote this story about, Friday was pizza day, so we ordered pizza from a local shop and have it brought it on Friday for pizza.
And when I was a student, the lines used to be so long to buy your pizza. And a friend of mine was like, “Well, what if we pull our money together and I just go off, I’ll buy a whole pie and bring it back,” So it showed in initiative and all of that so I wrote that as an email, as a way to like, if you give your money, this is what it’s going towards. Young women who can think ahead, work together. The amount of people who I got an email back from being like, “Oh my God, I remember that. Yes, this was our experience, and then they was give money,” it was perfect.
And that’s what I talk about with telling stories. It’s like, what does your audience remember, what is the emotional piece that you could tap into that’s then gonna give them the reason to fork over their money to whatever it is, to a school, to your non profit. You’ve got to touch them emotionally, otherwise, there’s no reason for them to give.

John McIntyre: Right, interesting. I like that story, that’s good. What are some of the other stories you’ve used to basically sell stuff and persuade people to do stuff with school or with political-

MK Feeney: So like with the school you talk about a beloved teacher. We had a Catholic school, so we had a sister, a nun who used to teach Latin. So any time you bring her up, she’s no longer with us, people then remember, “Oh, I remember what that class was like. Oh, that’s right. Oh, I should really … if I give, then other girls get to have the same opportunity that I had.”
So if you talk about teachers or certain traditions or experiences, something that especially with the school [inaudible 00:18:40] remembers, that will bring memories back and that will cause them to help them out. Because they think of the people who came before them who gave money or supported the school in some sort of way and they’re continuing that legacy. So, if you talk about legacy a lot people also get into that.
For political stuff, stories that we’ve used, so, one of the big campaigns I was just recently involved in was changing the structure of our government. Now this I won’t get too much into the weeds about this but the town that I … because it can get a little complicated, but the town that I lived in was a town form of government. We wanted to change it to a city form of government and it’s so wonky, “How can I get anyone interested in this?” Well, the stories that you tell, “Well, if we switch this form of government, your taxes may not go up as much. We can give more money for schools.”
So if you talk about the kids and how this will benefit them and the future or environmental causes, “Well, we’d have more money,” or, “Someone who can be dedicated to making sure that we are keeping our parks safe or cleaning up contaminated sites.” The persons who’s reading it, what is their emotional connection, what do they care about? So if you spell it out in those ways taking very wonky subjects such as the structure of government can make it more accessible and digestible for them to understand and hopefully to motivate them to make that change.

John McIntyre: Right. This is actually an issue I’ve seen with a lot of people. You might find this too when they ask you for feedback on their website or feedback on their funnel. Especially when people are sort of more technical than the engineers or something, they think they’re explaining something in a really simple way. And it’s either incredibly vague, so, you just got no idea of what they’re talking about, it doesn’t mean anything, it is just words that are like a pure fluff or it’s so complicated that it’s just like, “It sounds good, but I don’t get. It’s just like cool but it doesn’t connect for me.”

MK Feeney: Right. Yeah, and that’s why when I sit down to write or when I’m talking to people I try to say, “Who is it that you’re writing to, who is the one person that you’re trying to explain whatever it is to? And write towards them, write to them, how is it easy for them to understand, not for you but for them.” And I find that that takes town … that makes it easier because it’s like having a conversation.

John McIntyre: Right, ’cause you’re actually talking with them.

MK Feeney: Right. So I mean that it is part of that whole avatar thing, like who is your target audience and you should be writing to them but for regular people, you do want to say, don’t get into the marketing speak, I hate marketing speak, but just say who is that person, name that person, write to them.

John McIntyre: That’s good. So, where did you go next? You did CopyHour, you did McMasters and got the storytelling stuff done part, that was when you mentioned I think with McMasters, that was where you did the 15K in 25 days with the school. What I’m curious about, what was that campaign? Was that like two or three or five emails over 25 days? How do you make 15 grand, is that just donations? How does it work?

MK Feeney: It was all donations, and there were different elements to it, it was mostly email, but we did have a direct mail piece that was at the beginning of the campaign. And then we had some social media pieces but it was mostly driven by email, and that would be the first email kicking off about, I believe that’s where we talked about where we were today and talking about the sister who was the teacher and why you should give.
And here’s our challenge. We were looking for … I think we were looking for 125 donors in 25 days, and we just so happened then, 125 donor equaled $15,000. And at that time, we had never raised anywhere close to that in that short amount of time. So, it would be like, I think we would email twice a week, which is not every day, because we weren’t sure. It was a very cold audience. So, emailing every day was probably not gonna work.
So, about twice a week, we would have a little story about what was going on in the school, and then the followup email would be like, “Oh okay, so, we’ve reached 15 donors this week and we’ve earned this much,” so we would keep a tally so people could follow a long.

John McIntyre: That’s good. It’s really cool to see. It is really interesting to see how you’ve taken some of the stuff from CopyHour and McMasters as well and then taken it and applied it to schools, I think it’s really exciting to see. So wat happened the next … that was 2014 I think we’re talking … now, it’s 2018 so what’s happened since then? Has it just been school, school, school or what have you spent the last four years doing? Just doing more of this-

MK Feeney: More of this, so, I’ve been having the schools, I had three campaigns that I was involved in. And working with a couple of … I have worked with a couple of small businesses like a friend’s of mine, nothing big. Right now I’m involved with doing some more local things for the business association, working on their website, copy on their site and where they wanna go and tell their story.
So, I’m involved with that and just a couple of other local things that I’m currently in the process of signing contracts for and stuff like that, but it’s more of just continuing of working with these non profits and organizations who need the help and who need to tell their story better. I think that they are … because they’re not … I think some non profits are stuck on the technical aspects of it. And if they break down to that you have to just tell your story, I think everyone understands the basics of storytelling.
And that’s all it is, it’s the technology is just the medium, I think you can get there, but if you don’t have the story and if you haven’t figured out who you are, and what you’re trying to achieve and telling that, then it doesn’t matter if you’ve got a Facebook page, an email list, a Twitter account ’cause it won’t be effective.

John McIntyre: Absolutely, love it. And so now you’ve bundled that into all … that’s sort of all become dark side media, which you mentioned that this is what you’re focusing on this year growing and you said you were expanding your consulting. It sounds like you’re planning taking on some employees, so, getting a lot busier.

MK Feeney: I hope so. Yes, I am getting busier and it’s … we’re reaching the point where I can’t just be a one woman shop, which is really exciting, ’cause I think these groups are learning that the world is changing and it’s moving fast and that they have to keep up. And it’s true, there are some phenomenal non profits doing some really great work online like Charity: Water is one that I love to talk about because they are great. Pencils of Promise, they’re great and they’re doing a great job online.
And so, I think even local little non profits who are just as important can take a page out of their book too.

John McIntyre: Interesting. Okay, so, on that note, this note of being busy, I’m curious, the number one question I get in emails, on the webinars I’m doing is how to get clients. And so especially for something like this, I mean it’s hard enough getting any client at all, especially in the beginning or that sort of feels like … feels very difficult. How do you go about getting the school clients, did this start with … you mentioned the high school that you went to as a girl, is that and so many referrals since then, how are you getting all these clients?

MK Feeney: It’s been referrals to be honest. The school staff has just been … if they’ve seen what I’ve done with the school that I do most of the school work for, they’ve seen that, they’ve had me in. I would do maybe one-off consults with them and then it’s just mostly word of mouth. The political stuff was, I literally just showed up one day to one of their meetings. They had a public meeting and I introduced myself and I said who I was, I gave them my business card and three years later, I’ve done three elections for them and we’ve had success.
So, it’s just like it’s showing up, it’s talking, it’s networking but it’s been mostly referrals, so, through the political work, I’ve met all sorts of people who wanted services. And that’s what it is, it’s just really … I haven’t called, emailed anyone, which at some point I may have to, but it’s been mostly referrals and I guess the work speaks for itself, I don’t know.

John McIntyre: It sounds like it does, you’re doing a great job. And I mean it’s funny too, if it’s all referrals, you’ve probably got so many case studies now and examples that if you wanted to throw up a case study package or some sort of Ad campaign, like, “Oh, here’s what I did with the three schools, here’s the money we raised. So, give me a call if you want the same thing,” it’s a very easy pitch now.

MK Feeney: Absolutely.

John McIntyre: So, I mean it’s kind of interesting, what would be your advice now that you’ve sort of been doing this for four or five years now? What would you say to someone who’s like, “Look, I don’t really have any experience, I’m basically like you were but five years ago, no copywriting experiencing yet, how do I get started? How do I get into this industry? How do I become like you and write emails or write copy and have that life?”

MK Feeney: I wouldn’t be shy, I mean, while I did have clients out of the game when I left my job, there was a period of time where I really didn’t at the same time and I was afraid to tell people or I was a little ashamed of what I did I don’t know why, but if you want this life, and if you want to have work and if you want to be in this industry, you can’t be shy about it.
If people ask what you do, you tell them what you do. And you show how you can help them. I know it’s easier said than done and I’m not necessarily perfect at this, but getting out there and talking to people is really one of the best ways to do it. I mean you can hide behind your computer all you want, but you’re not gonna get the success that you would have face-to-face.

John McIntyre: Right. I mean my go-to point of advice for people who are just getting started is, “Go meet people in person, go to [crosstalk 00:29:46] co-working conference.” It’s a hundred times easier if you go in person and shake someone’s hand and look them in the eye, you can get clients online.
I get a lot of clients online now with podcast and things like that. You can go for guest posts, but it always hard especially in the beginning when you’ve never had a sales call, you don’t know what the pitch is, you don’t even understand who you’re talking to or how it even works yet. The best thing you do is just go and meet a bunch of people and have some conversations and see where it leads.

MK Feeney: Right, absolutely. I mean when I showed up to this local political group three years ago, I didn’t expect anything really. I was watching them for a couple of month and I was like, “Oh their online stuff really is not good,” but I didn’t expect to be in the position that I am in today, but I wouldn’t be in this position if I didn’t go up to them and say, “Hi, I’m MK Feeney.” And talk to them about what they were looking for and how I could help them.

John McIntyre: Yeah, absolutely. And one last thing and then we will wrap it up. I was wondering, since you kind of taken a different path, you’re doing sort of more of the non profit, the schools or that sort of stuff, I’m curious if maybe there’s a piece of advice that you feel no one talks about, but that’s actually really important or maybe there is something that you actually hate about this whole internet marketing industry that no one talks about. So, anyhow I’m curious if there’s anything that you think about that no one really mentions on podcast and courses and books whatever that you found to be true or not true, just something surprising about this whole world.

MK Feeney: Oh man, that’s a good question. I do find it a little frustrating, there’s two things that I find a little frustrating that not everyone operates this way is, I don’t like marketing speak. I find that we like to make things unaccessible for people or inaccessible for people by being crowded in marketing speak of avatars and all that. We have to talk like regular people so that people can understand. And if they need that … excuse me, that they could seek out our help and our services and that we are partners for them. I look at myself as a partner of all my clients. I am just as interested in their success as they are, there is that.
And two, I find that in the internet marketing world, you don’t see as many women who make it to the forefront who are really talking about themselves and what they do, but we’re out there. And I just would encourage other women to go out there and say, “Hey, this is what I do.” It’s not just all guys, no offense John. But we are there, I find that it could be a little bit of a bro-ish field.

John McIntyre: It’s definitely [crosstalk 00:32:42].

MK Feeney: Yeah, no, but we are there and I would just encourage women to speak out more and to share their successes because we’re having them.

John McIntyre: That’s great. I was gonna ask you about that actually, I just wrote that down. Also in the webinars I’m running lately, every now and then there’s woman gets on there and she’s like, “Where are all the …” I’ll share a few case studies or success stories and they usually go out and it’s just ’cause I’ve got more guys emailing me and stuff like that. I’m always like, “I wish there was more women, they’re harder to find.” They’re out there like you said, but maybe they keep to themselves or what I don’t know.

MK Feeney: Well I think when I said earlier, “You can’t be shy,” I think I’m mostly speaking to my fellow women out there, but you can’t be shy. If you want to get ahead in this industry and if you want to actually have work, you have to be out there. And I think … I don’t know if this is my call to arms to women but, “Ladies, lets show up, I would love to meet more of you so we could band together.”

John McIntyre: Me too, I wanna tell more stories like this so I could … like there’s more women out there.

MK Feeney: Yes, come on.

John McIntyre: Listen, okay, well let’s wrap it up. Before we go though, if people wanna learn more about you, I know you’ve got Darkside Media, what’s the best way for people to get in touch with you, all the women out there if they’re inspired, if they wanna reach out?

MK Feeney: Yeah, they can email Me at [email protected] or they could find me on Twitter @mkfeeney or Instagram on mkfeeney as well, that’s where I am.

John McIntyre: Awesome, and you said you’re putting together a website, is that gonna ready pretty soon or?

MK Feeney: I certainly hope so, that’s the rest of today’s project.

John McIntyre: So maybe go to darksidemedia.co and there maybe a website there, otherwise do the email, the Twitters or the Instagrams.

MK Feeney: Yeah, email’s the best.

John McIntyre: Cool, all right. I’ll have links to listen to show notes at the bottom on themcmethod.com, otherwise thank you for coming on show MK, it’s been really good meeting you finally and hearing your story.

MK Feeney: Yes, it’s been a pleasure thank you.

John McIntyre: Fantastic.