How Dakota Robertson Uses beehiiv to Earn $250,000 Per Month

Ever dreamed of earning over six figures a year?

How about six figures per month?

Even better… How about six figures a month writing from anywhere in the world?

For some people, that’s not just a dream.

It’s their reality — as is the case with Dakota Robertson.

But, how does he do it?

As a social media ghostwriter.

We recently sat down with Dakota Robertson, founder of Growth Ghost and the Wrongs to Write newsletter, to discuss how he built a social media ghostwriting empire from the ground up.

Dakota was eager to share the strategies he took to go from running a ghostwriting agency to scaling up to a full-blown educational business where he earns over $250,000 per month with the help of his beehiiv newsletter.

If you’re interested in starting a newsletter, thinking of switching to beehiiv, or simply looking for some business inspiration, then look no further. In this interview, Dakota generously offers up a ton of insider information on how to leverage social media and a newsletter to run a successful internet business.

Plus, if you’re a writer who wants to up your game or you’re thinking of ways to earn a living while working from home, you’ll want to pay attention since Dakota has taught hundreds of people how to earn a full-time income as a freelance writer.

Wrongs to Write: An Overview

To kick off the interview, I’ll just let Dakota take the reigns.

He introduced himself, “Howdy, my name is Dakota Robertson and I pretend to be people on the internet.”

“What I mean by that is I do social media ghostwriting. So that's when I take over people's social media accounts. I write the content for them and I distribute that content through my network and essentially grow their account and get more traffic to a profile, their business, and make them go viral sometimes.”

Now, after years of growing a successful social media ghostwriting business, Dakota has started teaching others how they can follow in his footsteps.

He shared, “Now I transitioned to teaching people how to start their own ghostwriting business and grow their own social media and personal brand so they can do the same in scale to whatever number they want to.”

Alongside his social media ghostwriting training, Dakota runs a weekly newsletter using beehiiv. In it, he offers helpful advice for those looking to not just elevate their writing skills but to also transform their social media account into an income-generating business.

He explained that his newsletter covers writing principles, social media growth, marketing and business, and personal brand monetization.

He shared, “A lot of people are teaching how to grow a following, but not a lot of people are teaching how to monetize a following, so I try to incorporate all different elements and life lessons as well in there.”

Dakota recently launched his business Growth Ghost to offer an all-inclusive training program to those ready to launch their own ghostwriting business and monetize their personal brand now.

Dakota shared, “My main focus right now is the community… [Growth Ghosts has] the course element, the live calls, and the community aspect. So it's bundled all into one and that's been going great.”

In just a few months, Dakota shared how many Growth Ghost members have already quit their jobs because of how much they’re earning as a ghostwriter.

Why Newsletters Beat Social Media — From a Social Expert

We asked Dakota to break down his sales funnel to understand how his business works. He was eager to share how, despite being a social media pro, the newsletter is what’s truly turning people from leads into customers.

He shared, “Social media is the top of my funnel where all the magic happens. So from Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, I am constantly promoting my newsletter.”

He continued, “I’m trying to get people onto my newsletter because once I get somebody onto my newsletter — like with beehiiv Automations — I can send the welcome sequence. This gives my subscribers a bit more information on my personal story, my journey, my values, results I've gotten for people, and basically warms them up to who I am and what I do.”

Dakota shared how social media is great for grabbing people's attention and hooking them in, but newsletters allow you to build a deeper one-on-one connection that’s crucial for converting people into paying customers.

He explained, “[Warming people up] is harder to do on social media because they're always onto the next piece of content. But when you get them onto a newsletter, it's more intimate. They create a deeper connection with you. It's way more powerful for getting someone to take an action because they feel that deeper connection.”

Dakota shared, “It all stems down to the newsletter, primarily. And that's been a great source for conversions because you warm them up more and it's way more intimate. “With social media, you're at the mercy of the algorithm. But with a newsletter, that's going straight to their inbox. So it's much more personal. I find the conversions are just way higher.”

When Dakota launched his first Growth Ghost cohort, he was blown away by how well his newsletter converted people.

He explained, “I definitely need to focus on promoting the newsletter more and being much more intentional with the structure of it all. But it's been great for conversions. In the last cohort I launched, I wrote one email and it resulted in 80 booked calls. And, I mean, those weren't qualified. I'd say probably 50% of people qualified for the high-ticket cohort. It's been amazing.”

Buzzing to 10,000 Subscribers on beehiiv

Dakota explained, “beehiiv basically simplifies the email marketing and newsletter process for you. I've tried things like ConvertKit in the past and MailChimp, and they're so complicated to use, in my opinion.”

Despite launching new product features every few weeks, beehiiv’s platform is simple to navigate, even for beginners.

Dakota shared, “What I loved about beehiiv right away was how simple the interface was. And, I mean, the level of support is fantastic too. beehiiv just does everything I need it to. I don't need this crazy stuff or these extra features that I just never use. beehiiv is very focused on its users and what they actually care about, and they make it so simple to use, which I love.”

He continued, “For anyone that wants a newsletter or simplified email marketing, it does everything I need it to. When you get the Scale plan it has great data analytics on who you're sending the emails to. It gives you good feedback. Like, ‘How can I use this data? How can I incorporate this and that?’ It’s been fantastic. beehiiv has been my favorite tool I've used so far.”

Dakota shared how he’s been happy with the growth he’s seen with beehiiv already, despite not leveraging lead magnets or offers to get people to sign up for his list.

He recalled, “I started using beehiiv close to when you guys launched — think 14 or 15 months ago. I’ve got the data right here. I'm at 10,266 subscribers. I wiped off like 6,000 subscribers a while ago just to clean my list.”

Dakota shared, “I'm growing at like 900 subscribers every month and that's without any lead magnets or incentivizing people to hop on and all that stuff. So it's been solid and I’m really, really happy with the growth. I just write about whatever I want. And they're like, Oh, I feel like writing about this today, so it's fun.”

Finding the Right Tool: MailChimp to ConvertKit to beehiiv

Before Dakota launched on beehiiv, he actually tried out a few other email platforms to see what would fit well with this business. And, like many beehiiv users, they dabbled with some of the big names in the industry before switching over.

“Initially, I had a trial of MailChimp and I just quickly realized MailChimp is trash. It's absolutely trash. You can quote me on that. So I got like a day into using it and I was like, ‘I'm not doing this.”

After trying MailChimp, Dakota took a shot at ConvertKit. But, he still struggled to navigate the complicated interface.

He shared, “[ConvertKit] was better. But even then it was still complicated and I just didn't know what was going on. I didn't know how to do any of the automation stuff. Maybe that's on me. It made me feel like a Boomer. But, it was just really complicated trying to figure out how to do everything.” “It's like, ‘Hey, I just want to send emails. Is it that hard?’ Like what's all this stuff?’”

Dakota continued, “The pricing with ConvertKit was crazy to send emails and kind of ridiculous at the time. So when beehiiv came around, it was great. It was really simple to use. It was really fair pricing.”

One thing Dakota knew he needed from an email platform was the ability to send automated emails. This almost prevented him from switching to beehiiv. But, the beehiiv development team came out with a nice surprise just in time.

He shared, “beehiiv didn't have automation at the start and I was just about to switch. I needed automation for when people got onto my newsletter at the time. But you guys like literally came out with it the day I asked, which is crazy. I’ve been really gung-ho about beehiiv ever since because, now, it just has everything and you guys keep adding stuff, which is amazing.”

He continued, “I'm a really big proponent of beehiiv. You guys just mastered simplifying publishing newsletters for people like me that aren't super techie with that kind of stuff and having really great features that do everything you need and the support too. I've reached out many times, just to get help with stuff and you guys have been super fast to respond and super helpful”

Why Listen to Me? I’ve built several newsletters from the ground up over the years. My latest publication is The Level Ups business newsletter. I also run support at the fastest-growing newsletter platform, beehiiv.

Automatic Acquisition With Twitter “Auto-Plugs”

We asked Dakota what his list growth strategy was and whether or not he leveraged paid acquisition to grow his list. He shared that he’s grown to over 10,000 readers by simply posting on social media. But, that’s not all he does. He leverages a tool to automatically add in a newsletter call to action on high-engagement tweets.

Understand more of Dakota’s organic growth tactics…