‘Want to know more about marketing and automating it? Travis Pflanz will be speaking on Getting Started with Marketing Automation on Your Small Business WordPress Website, at WordCamp St. Louis. Here’s a little bit of his WordPress journey
Interview with Travis Pflanz
NILE FLORES: When did you start using WordPress?
TRAVIS PFLANZ: I’ve used WordPress since late 2003… Kind of. When I first used WordPress, I wasn’t really impressed. It was nice for a blog, of course, but didn’t have much appeal as a business website solution. When Joomla came around in 2005, it was my content management system of choice. It wasn’t until 2007 that I turned back to WordPress as my preferred CMS.
NILE FLORES: What are a few takeaways that attendees will get from your talk?
TRAVIS PFLANZ: In my session “Getting Started with Marketing Automation on Your Small Business WordPress Website”, attendees new to marketing automation will learn basic components, strategies and tools to implement in their WordPress website immediately – no matter how they use their website.
NILE FLORES: WordPress is turning 15 years old. What would you like to see in the future for WordPress?
TRAVIS PFLANZ: Going forward, I would love to see the WordPress project focus more on the fact that website owners really only care about selling products, selling services, and getting their message out. At the lowest common factor, a website owner doesn’t care about the platform the website is built on – they only care if the platform helps reach them reach their goals and objectives. I believe a lot is missing from WordPress core that should address requirements of website owners. Instead of using over-bloated plugins for everything, there are many basic functions missing from WordPress core that every website owner needs. I would love to see the project focus more on the people who are actually using WordPress and a little less focus to make sure everyone in the world CAN use WordPress and that a fifteen year-old WordPress website will function forever.
NILE FLORES: “And just for funsies”, over the past few years, the WordPress community has seen the rise of the cute Wapuu character? Heard of it? And if so, what’s your favorite Wapuu? (Wapuu Reference: https://wapu.us/ )
TRAVIS PFLANZ: I know what a Wapuu looks like, but I honestly don’t know why it exists… If I had to pick a favorite, I would go with the KC BBQ Ribs Wapuu created by Karissa Skirmont for WordCamp Kansas City 2015.
NILE FLORES: What is your favorite area of the WordPress admin?
TRAVIS PFLANZ: My favorite area of the WordPress admin area is the “Move to Trash” link on the “Edit Post” and “Edit Page.” As a content strategist, I love helping clients realize the power in creating useful and effective content for their website. It’s awesome when a new client gets to the point of understanding and has the skills to identify bad and useless content and feels confident enough to simply delete any content that does not belong.
NILE FLORES: What are the top three WordPress plugins that you believe every WordPress user should have installed?
TRAVIS PFLANZ: After my response above, it’s going to be tough to narrow it down to three WordPress plugins, so here are three plugins that I recommend to go along with my session:
Inbound Now Pro (https://www.inboundnow.com/) – An inexpensive, yet powerful way to get started with marketing automation on your WordPress website
Popups Premium (https://timersys.com/plugins/popups-premium/) – Do you hate popups? Well, you need to learn to love them. Effective popups are key for successful marketing automation
WP Mail Logging (https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-mail-logging/) – Logs every email sent by your website. This is especially useful to see how your website’s transnational and automated messages appear to recipients, as well as, to make sure you’re not missing any emails submitted through your website’s contact forms
If you haven’t gotten your WordCamp St. Louis ticket, you’re missing out on great sessions, like the one Travis Pflanz will be presenting.