🪄 Cold DMs on Reddit (without getting banned)

Hey,

The Startup Maester is here!

Welcome to the very first issue.

Today's topics:

1. Cold DMs on Reddit (without getting banned)

2. A tool to transcribe videos for free

3. One recommended video on how to succeed with a startup

Cold DMs on Reddit (without getting banned)

The easiest way to get leads is by Cold DM'ing them.

Alex Hormozi defines "leads as a person who you can contact."

So if you bought a list of emails, those are leads. If you got numbers in your phones, those are leads.

In short, if you can contact them, they are leads.

I won't cover what leads are as Alex Hormozi has written an entire book on it known as $100m Leads which you can read, watch, or even listen to on Acquisition.com.

The book contains multiple bonuses that also have scripts that you can follow word-to-word while giving your own spin to it.

In any case, Alex wrote the book from the perspective of Cold Calls.

We'll be covering it from the perspective of Reddit.

Make no mistake even if the medium is different, sales work the same way.

At the end of the day, people respond to the same triggers.

So how do you start a cold dm?

Usually, you want to start the script by giving them value upfront or getting a reply.

1. Value upfront

Give them value upfront by researching their business. Just 20 minutes of research is enough to impress people.

Suppose you are an SEO expert and you want clients to hire you.

You can start by Cold DM'ing them by researching their entire website and suggesting them improvements that'll help them rank quickly.

This is free work and will take time but it works.

Just put all the improvements in a Google Doc and send them a simple Cold DM like this:

"Hey, I saw you have a Local Web Development Agency targeting Fortune 500 companies in Atlanata.

I took a peek at it and saw you can easily improve your ranking with these 5 simple tactics.

Here's a Google Doc with all the improvements: <link to google doc>

Let me know what you think?"

Now if you go above and beyond for a client, they will reply.

You can hop on a call from there or convince them to hire you.

This works when getting a job as well.

This is like Permissionless Apprenticeship which we talked about in one of my previous posts.

2. Get a reply

You can simply write a one-liner that gets a reply.

I've noticed the busiest people only reply with the shortest lines.

They get so many messages that they can only reply with a one-liner.

So if you want your pitch to be read, you can write the shortest possible line and get a reply.

I promote on Reddit using Cold DMs with a simple one-liner:

"Hey, I have a newsletter in Startups, Marketing, Blackhat Niche.

It covers tactics that every startup uses but nobody openly talks about.

Would you be interested in checking it out?"

Then if they like the idea, they say Yes. Or they never reply which is fine.

Can this be improved? Of course.

I've read $100m Leads a bit and know Alex Hormozi's ACA (Acknowledge, Compliment, Ask) Framework is much better but its premature optimization at this point.

You need 1000 reps in Sales before you try a framework because by then, you'll know why it is better and you can switch it up when your prospect talks about something that isn't in the script.

I haven't even crossed 500 yet so I am fine with trying different lines.

Sometimes, I stalk their Reddit comments to bring up the topic that's on their mind. This effectively increases the reply rate.

So if someone made a post on "how they want to make passive income using AI?", then I immediately DM them with a link to my Midjourney Guide detailing steps on how to make $10k per month by making YouTube thumbnails in 15 mins per day.

They get really confused if you DM them about a topic they posted a few months earlier. Yes, I've tried this recently.

Avoiding Bans on your site

While I was Cold DM'ing people, I was trying to be useful.

So I was providing them links to dev.to posts or sometimes links to gumroad.com in DMs.

To my surprise, they are banned in DMs.

I thought I'll get away by trying link shorteners but even they are banned.

I've personally tried dub.co (or d.to) and t.ly.

But linktr.ee isn't banned for some reason.

So if you are going to send Cold DMs on Reddit, make sure to use Linktree and then link to your newsletter or socials or whatever product you are trying to promote.

If you use your own domain, there are high chances it gets banned by their automated algorithm.

But if you really want to promote your links, buy a secondary domain that redirects to your primary domain.

For example, I'd promote my own site by sending startupspells.org or getstartupspells.com in Reddit DMs and then redirecting them to my main domain startupspells.com.

This is what Cold Email guys do while sending 10,000 emails per day but that's a story for another time.

Automate Reddit Cold DMs

A few months back, I talked to a guy who spammed Reddit with multiple aged-accounts and his custom-built software.

He found the usernames by scraping a particular subreddit like /r/Entrepreneur and then mass DM’d them .

I tried his scraping software and got myself a list of 10k+ usernames myself from my own PC without proxy.

I stopped there because I didn't want my IP banned as I was not using any proxies.

He told me he spent like $35 to mass DM 350k accounts or something to sell them affiliate strategies. I was shocked. Idk if its really that cheap because I haven't tested it myself but it definitely might be possible because Reddit doesn't have as many guardrails as other social networks like Instagram.

In any case, now that I have my newsletter going, I will definitely try testing it if it works and write a case-study on it. After all, this is a Blackhat newsletter.

I don't even remember the guy or the name of the software he created but I will make sure to find him.

I'll definitely need to buy more domains to not risk getting banned on Reddit.

A tool to transcribe videos for free

There are many tools to transcribe for free.

You can use the newly launched Captions AI but it only supports 30 minutes of transcription.

Or you can use Replicate's Subtitles Model.

Or if you transcribe way too many videos, use Turboscribe.

But if you are like me who likes to watch at 2x speed and wants to occassionally transcribe, use Freesubtitles AI or Riverside.

Freesubtitles has limits in terms of 300 MB but Riverside doesn't. Best part? Both are free.

One recommended video on how to succeed with a startup

Sam Altman has been blowing up ever since he started OpenAI.

But Sam Altman has been consistently been well-respected in the startup community for a really long-time for his ambitious projects.

He took YC to the next level.

He has written some terrific blogs on startups but one video of his is definitely my favorite in terms of quality insights per minute.

Its a short video on How to Succeed with a Startup.

Until next time,

Your Spells Maester!

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