Daniel Bustamante

Building my agency to $5M in ARR. Tweets about the process + how we help clients grow their business with email & LinkedIn

[Daniel Bustamante @dbustac]

BIG LIFE UPDATE: I am starting a new company 🚀

Quick story:

I first met @MCovBrown back when I was heading marketing at the Premium Ghostwriting Academy (PGA).

He had joined the program, and quickly became our single most successful student.

In fact, he went from writing for a few clients on his own to leading a 6-person team, working with dozens of incredible clients, and building a 7-figure LinkedIn ghostwriting agency.

Now, somewhere along the way, we started working on projects together.

We ran a paid workshop. Then we launched a bunch of different digital products. Then we launched a podcast. It’s been awesome.

Up until now, though, everything we did together was always on the side.

I was still working my previous role (where I helped drive $20,000,000+ in revenue), and then running my own email agency full-time.

Meanwhile, Matthew kept growing his agency, Tribe Digital.

But over the past few months, we've both seen a lot of incredible momentum with our agencies.

And after lots of long phone calls, we realized there's a big opportunity to build something way bigger (and better) if we were to partner up.

So we've decided to merge our agencies and build a new company called Cracked Marketing 👑

The goal is to combine both of our superpowers to help our clients (1) get more traffic on LinkedIn and (2) better monetize all that attention with email.

Right now, we're working with a TON of incredible clients:

> Founders making 7-8 figures/year

> YouTubers with 150k-300k subscribers

> Skool group owners making $100k-300k/mo

> X & LinkedIn creators with 200k-400k followers

We're excited to keep delivering awesome results for all of them & share our learnings along the way.

So if you want to learn how to grow and monetize your personal brand with a deadly LinkedIn + newsletter combo, make sure to follow along.

(I'll also be sharing some cool behind-the-scenes as we scale Cracked Marketing!)

And if you think you'd be a good fit to work with us, feel free to reach out.

We'll give you 7 days of free content and map out your LinkedIn and email strategy for the next 90 days before you pay us a dime :)

(Or if you know someone who'd be a good fit, we'd love an intro!)

[Matthew C Brown @MCovBrown]

Big announcement 🎉

Tribe Digital is no more!

I’ve been running Tribe Digital, a 7-figure LinkedIn ghostwriting agency, for the past 4 years as a solo owner. My friend, @dbustac, has spent the past ~7 years building and monetizing email lists, and now runs his agency, Velocity, full-time. Between us, we’ve driven $20m+ in client sales, as well as hundreds of thousands of followers, and thousands of sales calls.

We’re now combining forces.

The new company name will be Cracked Marketing 👑

The goal is 1 + 1 = 3 or more. LinkedIn builds the audience. Email turns it into revenue. Most creators are great at one and leaving money on the table with the other. We do both.

(Not to mention we believe we can build something bigger and better together than we can on our own AND have more fun along the way!)

Daniel and I have done 5-6 projects together over the past 2 years (some have called us the Dynamic Duo), and we’re excited to do some more work together.

We will help our clients:

• Blow up on LinkedIn
• And monetize their email lists

Right now, we’ve got a stellar client roster. Some creators with millions of followers and hundreds of thousands of email subscribers. Some business owners with smaller audiences but exceptional businesses.

We’re going to double down on serving them (if you are a client, don’t worry, we got you!) and finding more clients like them.

Ideally:

• Doing $1m+ in revenue
• Already creating content on any platform (so they have an email list or can rapidly build one)

To all those who have been a part of either of our journeys, we appreciate the support and are pumped for this next stage!

Follow along to learn to better grow and monetize your personal brand (or hear the occasional update as we build this business).

And if you are an ideal prospect for us, DM me. We’ll give you 7 days of content and map out your strategy on LI and email for the next 90 days before you pay a dime.

Or if you know someone who might be a good fit, would love an intro!

[Daniel Bustamante @dbustac]

I actually love doing this after running a launch or promo campaign via email:

1. We create a segment of all the subscribers who clicked on our sales page link but didn’t end up buying

2. We send them a follow-up email asking them why they didn’t pull the trigger

3. We analyze all the replies we get and then use the insights to improve our marketing assets, copy, etc.

Sometimes we also get some of the folks who reply to buy after personally answering a question they had that wasn’t directly answered in our copy.

It’s great.

[Paul Graham @paulg]

If customers won't buy your stuff, try asking what they would buy. This sounds obvious, but surprisingly few founders do it, and it often yields valuable insights.

[Daniel Bustamante @dbustac]

Webinars still work like a charm. But only if you get people to actually show up live.

[Daniel Bustamante @dbustac]

A masterclass in copywriting (in 60 secs):

[Daniel Bustamante @dbustac]

You don’t need to write 800-word newsletters every single week. Here’s an easier format you can try this week:

[Daniel Bustamante @dbustac]

Our best ever course launch generated $650,000+ in 7 days. These were the 4 email sequences we used to make it happen:

[Daniel Bustamante @dbustac]

If your sales emails aren’t converting, try this formula:

[Daniel Bustamante @dbustac]

Your Welcome Email gets more opens than any other email you’ll ever send. Make it count:

[Daniel Bustamante @dbustac]

Underrated benefit of running an agency:

You get to see what it looks like to run different types of businesses (from the inside) + what works/what sucks about each.

All while getting paid to do so, of course.

[Daniel Bustamante @dbustac]

Got this banger email from @thesamparr last night

9 email copywriting tactics you can steal from it (plus an underrated "tech hack" to boost your open rates):

> The subject line creates a big open loop. If you're a founder who's ever asked themselves this question, it's impossible to not open this email. (Question-based subject lines tend to extremely well for our clients, too.)

> The subject line is also all lowercase, which makes it feel super casual, almost like you're getting a text from a friend (rather than an email from a marketer)

> The email immediately doubles down on the question from the subject line and starts to turn curiosity into pain agitation. He also casually drops his big exit number for credibility

> Once he introduces the "solution" (his lead magnet), he uses hyper-specific numbers to increase its perceived value: 250 members surveyed, $280m combined income, etc.

> Finally, he uses the P.S. of the email to create yet another curiosity gap/open loop. Brilliant.

Now, if I were writing this email myself, there are a handful of small upgrades I would implement to make it even better:

> I would get rid of the "Hey there" line and start with the hook right off the bat

> I would add even more social proof by saying how many people have downloaded the report already

> I would bold the CTA so it's super clear and visible - and I would attach either a benefit or a pain point to it as well. Example: "Click here to check it out (and find out if you're underpaying yourself)."

> I would CTA and link to the report again in the PS section. More opportunities to click = more clicks.

> Lastly, I would update Sam’s settings for this specific email address and upload a “profile pic” so people can see his face in their inbox when they get an email from him (makes it feel even more personal).

To be clear, Sam's email is great.

But in my experience, these small tweaks could easily lift click-through rates by 30-50%.

So definitely worth spending an extra 5-10 mins fine-tuning these things :)

[Daniel Bustamante @dbustac]

I grew my niche newsletter from 1,000 to 12,000+ subscribers using LinkedIn. These 5 tactics drove 80% of the growth:

[Daniel Bustamante @dbustac]

Just got this "win back" email from the @TaplioHQ / @TweetHunterIO team

Here’s how I’d make it 10x better:

1/ I’d format it as a plain text email and strip away all the design elements (so it feels like it's coming a real human)

2/ I’d completely rewrite it and add more copy so that it (a) feels more personal, (b) gives the reader a reason to care, and (c) makes it more clear that you still need to be a paying user in order to try this new feature (current version of the copy is slightly misleading).

3/ Lastly, I’d also give people an expiring “bonus trial” so they can try the new feature completely free, but only if they take action within a specific timeframe

With all of that in mind, here’s what a better version could actually look like (see second screenshot).

Might not seem like a big deal but taking 15-20 mins to write a 3-5x better email can literally have a 10x ROI!

[Daniel Bustamante @dbustac]

it’s crazy how much serious work you can get done from an iphone these days - especially as the claude/chatgpt apps just keep getting better and better

[Daniel Bustamante @dbustac]

@kaleighf congrats on the milestone! that’s awesome. also, as an outsider, I am genuinely curious what you mean, tangibly, when you say “AI changed everything”?

[Daniel Bustamante @dbustac]

This simple habit will instantly make your email newsletters 10x more engaging:

[Daniel Bustamante @dbustac]

I think a similar thing could happen to email newsletters

Can see people giving their agents a shortlist of 3-5 “pre-approved” creators they wanna read emails from (so those are flagged or prioritized)

While every other newsletter they get goes to a “read later” folder that never gets actually gets read.

[GREG ISENBERG @gregisenberg]

I think cold email is going to die.

Every email inbox will have an agent gatekeeper soon, and the only way through will be a warm intro or being interesting enough that the agent decides you're worth its person's time.

[Daniel Bustamante @dbustac]

if you want to make more money from your newsletter, spend less time studying other newsletters and spend more time studying ecom funnels

[Daniel Bustamante @dbustac]

Great way to validate an idea before wasting any time building & launching an offer:

Send an email asking everyone on your email list if they’d be interested in it.

Usually, I like to ask people to join a waitlist but asking for a reply is a nice strategy, too. It helps with deliverability + you can start conversations and ask people follow up questions.

[Daniel Bustamante @dbustac]

@ohamaruri hey ruri, sent you a dm!

[Daniel Bustamante @dbustac]

@Jayyanginspires @ohamaruri thanks for the tag my dude!